It's been something I've been thinking about.
An older friend of mine passed away with a fair amount of registered guns, some of which are unsalable here in rural Manitoba, such as drillings in 16ga 9.3 x72 R, and a pile of "prohibited" handguns, which only folks like me can own with a licence for prohibited handguns, and there is not many of us.
It was a pain in the butt, his daughter asked me to help, I did as the family are friends, I had to pick up all the prohibited pistols, 4' bbl or less and one prohibited rifle, a FN SLR, Ishapore version, and put them in my safe as I can legally store them.
Then we sent the whole lot off to a gun auction house in Red Deer, Alberta. They made about half what they were worth after commissions, etc, but at least the daughter got rid of them of them. The son wanted to keep the Ishapore FN, so I had to arrange for a gunsmith to legally disable it permanently.
The daughter was grumbling continually about the mess her dad left her in, and what sould she have done without me to help her, whom she could trust?
Quite by chance I was thinking about this today, to have a big cull of the safe of which I do not, or never have shot. I do not want to have my wife worrying about my guns when I kick the bucket, or suddenly friendly local yokels wandering by to see if she might have a gun for sale?
I have no sons, one grandson who would not qualify, his mum is bringing him up in Vancouver and he will graduate as a West Coast Twit, unfortunately, no interest in fishing or hunting or even wildlife, just hockey, vicariously, on TV with his video games. My daughters are not interested in the guns, either, so the vast majority must be sold off, some shotguns left to sons of friends who hunt with me, all the pistols sold, or dumped in the dugout, think Ruby Extra 38 special, all the pistol ammo ditto, just one 1914 Webley Mk IV 455, my grand father's cavalry pistol from WW1, strong sentimental attachment, to be buried with me. If some guy could get buried in his Cadillac, surely I can take Gramps Webley along?
But serioisly I am glad this subject is raise and as we are generally an older group her, get this important matter resolved earlier rather then later.
Today, funnily enough, a very old neighbour farmer couple in their nineties were thinking about a farm sale and mentioned guns they had, soo I went over and rescued a mint S&W 38 Victory model revolver and a High Standard 22 Taget pistol with box and papers also in mint condition. Neither registered. They had no idea what to do with them. Two years ago I had another elderly neighbour arrive on my doorstep with a whole box of registered legal target guns. He said that they were moving into town to an old folks home and the manager would not let him take the pistols into the new home!
So plan ahead, I's starting tomorrow, save the wife the aggravation of having to deal with a nasty mess, especially if you have legally owned handguns in Canada the police will be involved, so get organised now. Bit long winded, but I think this must be discussed.
Mike
