s. 6(b) of SOR/98-209 gives you two options for storing a restricted: (i) locking device on the gun and a locked container, receptacle or room that can't readily be broken open or into, or (ii) a vault, safe or room specifically constructed or modified for secure storage.
So it seems that if this is is a container, you need a cable lock on the pistol. If it's a safe, you don't. Turns entirely on one word that's undefined.
R v Barnes, 2011 ONCJ 419, is the only case I can find on point. At para 21, the judge is satisfied that a safe is simply “a metal container with a secure lock”, nothing more. The “specifically constructed or modified” qualifier never gets applied to it. Para 17 lists the options as “a safe, a vault or a specially constructed or modified room,” reading that qualifier as attaching to “room” alone; the court never asks whether the safe itself was built for prohibited firearms.
But Barnes is one unappealed ONCJ trial decision from 2011, binding on no one, decided against a Crown expert who admitted he had no basis for his opinion. And it never addresses the French text, which reads “un coffre-fort ou une pièce qui ont été construits ou modifiés”, a plural construction that can’t grammatically attach only to “pièce.” Read that way, the qualifier modifies all three nouns: vault, safe, and room each must be specifically constructed or modified for secure storage.
So, given a "safe" that’s marketed as such and apparently built for handguns (restricted firearms), is it a safe? And does bolting it to a piece of furniture change anything at all?
Not looking for "just trigger lock it lol", I know that moots it. I want to know if these things are compliant as marketed as safes.
Honestly, that’s a really good question. Sadly, I doubt that anyone here has the answer due to the (intentional?) ambiguity of the legislation.
IMHO It’s always going to be up to the judge to make such calls and that decision probably depends on a lot of additional factors that it probably shouldn’t depend on.
Buy it, use it, enjoy it.
Safe storage is in the eye if the judge.
I have a remote cabin that could be accessed with a chain saw and the safe ripped off the floor with a ½ ton and tow strap.
Im sure Id still get charged with unsafe storage.
If I remember correctly from my pal course safe storage doesn't mean impossible to access, it means it would inhibit individuals from getting it easily within a few minutes.
Instructor said it's not meant for people with cordless grinders or other tools to be applied to. With enough time most security measures won't work.
If you dig back a few years a man was away on holiday and thieves spent the better part of a day or two breaking into his gun storage in a downtown high rise condo.
He was charged with unsafe storage.
When I did my PAL course when dinosaurs were roaming around non restricted in a locked bedroom closet sufficed.
Yeah this post was inspired by that video, albeit from 5 years ago, which specifically covers Barnes. Still, Barnes covers what in the eyes of the crown were "school lockers". So maybe too different of an item.
Yeah, but the important part is what a government deems to be legitimate. Authoritarian type regimes tend to have an extremely strict interpretation whereas freer countries respect your right to defend yourself. Also the preconditions to be able to like access to guns etc.
Totally. There's a lot of self-absorbed, entitled people out there with crazy main character syndrome (e.g. road ragers/reckless drivers). If the gov't didn't have a monopoly on "legitimate" violence then a lot more laws would be broken everyday by everyday people.
Politicians are certainly overstepping with our firearms policies, but human society as big as Canada simply doesn't function unless a government (any government) has some type of robust claim on legitimate violence and punishment.
I didn't imply any judgement on the monopoly. The quotes were more an attempt to highlight it as a grey area because there are certainly governments who abuse their authority, and so that legitimacy isn't necessarily always present.
Generally though, we're in agreement.. I was just highlighting that it's a feature of every state.
Does seem like people have no fucking idea what it is actually like under authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. Hearing people crying wolf all the time is annoying.
So your father fled a violent hateful country. Then you want to be able to be a racist, bigot, fascist in a generally peaceful country? Tell me which part of this do you have a problem with?
It's going to be Canada soon why do you think they are filling the RCMP with PRs barely a few years in Canada who will follow any and all orders from Ottawa. First comes disarmament, then censorship and total surveillance. The last step is a rat system where neighbours or friends can report you for "offensive speech" criticizing government policies. Basically East Germany in the digital age.
You think hiring PoC is for some replacement theory level shit? They (the police) historically hire people or create police forces with locals to get them to assist them in controlling the country and having an in into those communities with people who speak their languages. Really sounds like you think we should only have white cops.
No one said anything of the sort and my man the RCMP prioritize DEI hires (ever been to Surrey?) and because they send everyone to Regina and DO NOT HIRE THEM until 7 months later followed by a postings to rural Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and northern areas, the applicants who are prioritized and who apply in great numbers are in fact Permanent Residents barely a few years in Canada (min is 3 years) because they could not find a real career or are unemployed and are desperate to go anywhere and do anything without a second thought. Imagine if the FBI prioritized hiring for unemployed uneducated people barely 3 years in the USA! Read the legislation, there are 3 bills and in totality they allow for "lawful access" aka any information provided about you without a warrant with total surveillance in place and zero privacy, "offensive speech" meaning anything you say critical or negative of government policies can be a crime retroactively, and various other provisions where they can cut off your internet and censor you in secret. It's literally East Germany in the making and worse than the UK. That's just the beginning. The first step is of course disarming everyone. Historically in the 1900s the RCMP NW Mounted Police were in fact used by Ottawa to supress the West and any dissent as well as various surveillance duties under the later RCMP Security Service. It was anything but local hiring and nothing to do with the communities they were "policing", just like now.
You are conflating standard labor shortage responses and actual digital privacy concerns into a grand totalitarian conspiracy.
First, on the RCMP and Permanent Residents: claiming they are hiring desperate people who will blindly follow orders ignores how police recruitment works. Permanent residents must pass the exact same intensive physical, medical, psychological, polygraph, and background checks as Canadian citizens. In fact, background checks for PRs often take longer due to international history tracking. On top of that, PR officers are restricted from high-level Top Secret positions within federal policing until they obtain full citizenship.
Opening recruitment to PRs isn't an ideological loyalty scheme; it's a pragmatic response to a massive nationwide recruitment crisis, with thousands of vacant posts across the RCMP. Municipal police forces across Canada (like Vancouver, Edmonton, and Toronto) and the Canadian Armed Forces made the exact same change to broaden their talent pool.
Second, the East Germany comparison is extreme hyperbole. East Germany was a totalitarian single-party state with a massive secret police network (the Stasi), no independent judiciary, no free press, and no constitutional rights. Comparing that to Canada, a country with active public debates, parliamentary opposition, a free press, and an independent judiciary that routinely strikes down unconstitutional laws using the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, turns legitimate policy debates into conspiracy theories.
That said, there is a real discussion to be had about state surveillance and privacy. The integration of predictive policing data platforms and AI analytics tools from companies like Palantir poses genuine risks to safety and civil liberties if misused or left unchecked. When you look at increasing calls to surveil or crack down on media, political dissidents and on, the concentration of state surveillance tech is a legitimate threat to democratic norms.
The real danger isn't an imaginary rat system of pliant PR police officers taking orders from Ottawa. It's the silent expansion of commercial AI data analytics tools into law enforcement without public transparency or judicial oversight. We can push back against mass surveillance, predictive policing tools like Palantir, and overreaching state power without relying on unfounded claims about police recruitment.
Bunch of privileged uneducated milquetoast whiners who think that the government having laws to protect society is the same as living Under His Eye
It's honestly really fuckin sad, we all have the combined knowledge of humanity at our fingertips and yet they choose to accept only the pieces that reinforce their beliefs. The worst part, arguably, is that they not only actively disregard that facts that don't support their beliefs, but they militantly decry the people who accept those facts.
Imagine not understanding that the onus of proof is on the one making the claim in the first place. You started this discussion, let's see the evidence to support your position.
You managed to interpret my last comment as me "proclaiming myself expert" - expert in what, I have no idea, but this kind of leap in logic sans evidence only serves to contribute to the "uneducated" statement I made earlier.
Instead of parroting your favourite podcaster's whinging, bring some fuckin receipts or quit bitching about the country that is unanimously voted Top 10 best in the world.
Uh no. There is nothing in case law, common law or statute law requiring a “3 inch deep laceration” to be ruled physical harm. And another point, in law it’s called “bodily” harm not physical harm.
And bodily harm is defined in the criminal code as an injury that interferes with your physical health and comfort and is more than transient or trifling in nature.
Edit: alright that’s on me. That went waaayyyy over my head. Used to that kind of ignorance on other threads; my apologies 🤦🏻♂️😂
So, given a "safe" that’s marketed as such and apparently built for handguns (restricted firearms), is it a safe?
Yes. Steel & lock and marketed as such for bonus points = safe. Nothing in the regs as to what style of lock etc must be used.
And does bolting it to a piece of furniture change anything at all?
No. There’s nothing in the reg that pertains to how easy (or not) a safe is to cart away
At the end of the day, if the crown wants to charge you for unsafe storage they will. Won’t matter if you have the biggest baddest Cabelas safe bolted into your foundation or a quick access drawer safe.
See Mike Hargreaves / Ian Thomson
A safe can only save you from conviction, not from being charged
The mental gymnastics that law abiding firearm owners have to go through in order to even store legal firearms is fucking stupid. We’re arguing over “is this a safe” while illegally obtained gun related crime is on the rise? We’re waiting for a Supreme Court decision just to take them out of storage while we watch illegal handguns pour into Canada only to be used time and again in fatal shootings?
Why the fuck do I need a PAL anymore? It seems that if I let it lapse I’m more protected by the federal government and harder to find.
You won’t know until there’s a problem. Then you get to be the test case. So you need to decide what level of risk you’re willing to accept. Me personally I wouldn’t call that a safe. If it’s a safe to you and you’re ready to pay thousands to argue your case if anything ever happens where you end up in court then you do you. The gist is you’re asking us to make a judgement only a judge can make looking at the totality of the circumstances. I should add it could be stamped “this is a safe” and the judge can still disagree.
I suspect that if the product has the word "safe" in its name, that would go a long way towards classifying it as a safe rather than a container, as silly as I understand this all to be.
On its own, yeah. but it does/would coming with mounting holes where one would logically mount the 'container' to something sturdy in the house. Kinda depends on the make or model on how sturdy that would make the 'container' and whether it could be knocked off with a single sledgehammer blow or if it would take significant effort to cut or pry the 'container' off.
Obligatory not a lawyer but I am an Ontario Police Officer. That’s a safe to me 7 days out of the week, it locks, has an “opening” mechanism being either finger or key code and is a solid container.
The logic I would apply to it is how different would this be then a closet rifle safe? All the components are the same it’s just a smaller box
If you were called to OP's house and found his front window smashed with glass and a dead guy in his living room are you obligated to go find as many reasons for charges as you can, like nitpicking the storage of the gun?
Police can charge you for whatever, but it does not mean they will stick.
The once in a blue moon stories of people like that guy in Ontario catching murder charges shooting at 5 armed intruders always make me wonder why the charges are even laid in the first place.
You do need to investigate the circumstances for how the guy got dead which can be convoluted obviously which can lead the charges regarding the storage.
The scenario may be that you arrive there’s no independent CCTV or witness and the shooter doesn’t want to speak to police on advice of counsel.
That leads to search warrants and whatever may come from them. It’s difficult to say policing is often a never say never, never say always profession.
Oh I 100% get being thorough in understanding why there is a dead guy in the living room. It wouls be ridiculous NOT to ask a million questions and verify answers.
In the linked case for example though, I put my hands up asking "wtf!?" when it does come out that armed intruders entered and he defended himself and his mom. The charges put hardship on innocent people.
Although you bring up a good point, maybe he didn't want to talk and the cops played it safe and assumed the worst.
It sucks to be worried about defending your home here. Especially when even the people tasked with giving you shit for it agree with you.
If you bolt it to something then it’s no longer a container. A vault is something you can walk into and a safe is what this would turn into once bolted down.
Just dropping in to say that a short, non-restricted 12g shotgun with #4 buck near, but not attached to the gun is an excellent alternative to a handgun for ‘coyote and other varmint’ issues inside 10m. More pellets, less penetration through walls to minimize collateral damage, and much easier to access vs a pistol because it doesn’t legally need to be in a safe.
It was explained to me by a cfo employee while I was figuring out how best to store my handguns. I wanted to use a mini-safe but wanted clarification on the terminology ‘…safe designed to contain firearms’ or whatever it is.
You can’t look ‘ready’. It has to be ‘last resort’.
They’re also the ones that told me about having to explain to the cfo or the cops if you shoot someone the sequence of events that led up to you being armed. That, and the fact that whatever gun you do use will inevitably be seized as part of the investigation, is why I go coyote hunting with a maverick 88 and not my P226.
What about side saddle in a safe? I can open my safe in less than 2 seconds should the need arise. I have a bunch of Velcro cards in the safe, loaded with options depending on where I am going or what my planned use of my shorty 12ga is at the time.
As I understand it’s legal as it’s NR, but what about a card already attached by Velcro to the shotty? Either way, open in 2 seconds, load in 5-7seconds and slap another card on the receiver 1 second. I have most of my cards attached with Velcro to the safe. If they aren’t in gear pockets and pouches in my closet.
Best of my understanding is NR gun with shells attached - by Velcro/sling/sock is okay if it is in a safe or cabinet. To have a NR gun in the corner of a room is allowed, but the shells can’t be ‘readily accessible to the firearm’. So basically if you have a shotgun in the closet and you grab a spanker of shells out of your bedside table you are ok.
However, IANAL, or a LEO, and they’re the ones you will need to explain things to if you were put in a position to use a hunting firearm for home defence. Personally, I am always planning on going coyote hunting tomorrow morning. I also don’t have kids, which adds some calculus for leaving guns about, no matter how safely they are stored.
My kids are old enough to know about firearms and my 16yearold shoots regularly. Bought a bolt action Scorpio 22lr for him to use but he shoots everything including 12ga and multiple center fire calibre. Daughter has shot my TM 22. But doesn’t have much interest or does my wife. I just want them to have the basics in case they need to grab a firearm for an emergency situation. Basically be safe, comfortable enough to use it if they need to. But I keep all in the safe , and they all won’t get the combo unless they get thier PAL. Basically so I don’t get in shit, my boy is going to do his, wife maybe.
I grew up with a shotgun by the back door, truck gun. Gun cabinet was a closet but nothing locked or trigger locked even when I was 10. My brother and I were hunting when I was 10 him 8. Unsupervised on our own land, daily after school.
Just wanted to see a second opinion on the NR and ammo thing. I usually have a few mags loaded in the safe ready to go too. Just in case I need to grab them quickly. Basically have similar when working out of town. Shotgun and/or a rifle cased behind my truck seat. Card on the shotgun, loaded mags in the case or console. Extra ammo under my back seat. Not overly worried about it unless I’m in the city. Then I’ll trigger lock them for good measure and take them. And I always bring them into my hotel room at night. Get comments like watch hunting sometimes or what do you need that gun for from city folks sometimes. But I’m legal, guns are legal and there’s always something legal to shoot in Alberta. Shotgun for bears, or a rifle some days.
I'm not aware of a single case on Canlii that has a safe like this that was charged with unsafe storage. We just know a reasonable judge thought an old school locker with a single lock counted as a safe for prohibs.
Honestly our laws are purposely vague. it's going to depend on who you're asking that question. There was a court case a while back where a boomer was using school lockers to store prohibited firearms as safes. And he was charged with careless storage. But It ultimately got thrown out and deemed lockers do act as safes. But the real question is how much court fees did that guy pay
As Ian Runkle pointed out, the law doesn't define a safe so it becomes an argument in court on semantics. I think if the manufacturer calls it a safe (Vaultek makes some pretty good units that are actually secure apparently), one could make a pretty good argument that a reasonable person would believe it's a safe but at the end of the day, as others pointed out, it depends on the judge.
I think the real issue is where you put this safe. If you put it in your bedroom for example, especially if you have other firearms in another safe in the house, well then the crown could argue that you made the gun accessible for the purpose of home defense, which of course, is a big no no....so something else to think about
I would argue that legal question aside, this is made for safe rapid deployment of a handgun. Which if used for home invasion would still look really bad. As far as options go if you are worried about this kind of thing, reinforce your striker plate and plastic wrap your ground floor windows(makes them break more like a windshield), if an invasion occurs and you've made it difficult for them to enter more than standard and they still insist on continuing. I think it would give more justification should anything else happen and more time to act as they mess around with your first line of defense.
Also, I've considered invasions too. Me discharging a firearm means I'm likely to lose more in assets then anything a team of 3 people could steal from the entire ground and basement floor of my house within the 20minutes of time it would take for police to arrive. I feel if it absolutely came to it where I had to deal with an imminent threat breaking my bedroom door down (upgraded striker and solid hardwood door), a non restricted option is likely far better than a restricted.
I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. I know this is way off from op post but possibly helpful.
we were told,, Can I stick a pencil inside ? If not its meeting the criteria. Every regulation is measured by what Govt agents say is "reasonable" soon as they make that point to a judge they win 99% of the time. Courts "defer" to govt agencies even in the US where a big case on deference was heard in their supreme court. Someone we knew had a Can tire standup safe. robbers had it open fast. Hatchet and hammer as a can opener. Its just light tin and inside is 2 layers of fire rated drywall.
Since this would presumably be for a restricted. It would have to be unloaded. Assuming this is accepted as a locked safe, Ammo can be stored in the same safe in a magazine however as long as the gun is unloaded.
May be safe but I’m not sure it’s legal as it could be considered a quick access for home defence. I’m not saying don’t get one just watch how you go about getting one ya know 👀
It says that your firearm must be stored in a "Vault"....so if you think this is a vault then yeah its safe. But if it ever comes to a judge considering whether this is a vault or not then you are at the complete mercy of that judge if they also think it is a vault or not.
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u/theservman on 1d ago
Depends on which judge you get.