By Ryan Crocker

Beausejour Review ­ Bruce Montague and his family are no strangers to hard work, something surely helping them on their often painful journey to bite the Firearms Act bullet on behalf of many angry Canadians.

Montague, a gunsmith from Dryden, Ont., was opposed to Bill C-68 from the start. He knew the Canadian constitution guaranteed him the right to bear arms for self-defense and he believed the government was simply trying to strip Canadians – not criminals – of their firearms one by one. It is a belief many Canadians now consider as good as fact.

Knowing Bill C-68 contradicted the constitution, Montague was eager to get his day in court – confident of at least a partial victory based on this evidence alone. A few times he tried to get arrested by openly declaring his non-compliance with the regulations but he never expected to finally be taken into custody the way he was.

While at a gun show with his young daughter, Montague was trying to buy a saddle when law enforcement officials surrounded and arrested him. The little girl was so terrified a friend of the family called her mother, Donna Montague, and told her she had best come down right away. Once she had calmed her child down and arrived at the police station to – she thought – see her husband, she was informed that she too was under arrest. All of the firearms at their family businesses were confiscated, even customer guns, and so the battle began.

Bruce and Donna Montague have travelled from Vancouver to Halifax in a bid to raise awareness about the implications of C-68, share what their family has been going through, and – most importantly – raise money for their Scrap C-68 Fund. The family made one such stop in Beausejour on Dec, 14.

The event was held before a full house at the Royal Canadian Legion, which as a non-political organization did not sponsor the event. After warm introductions, Donna Montague shared a little of her family's long military history – which included both world wars and several other conflicts. "They risked their very lives for the rights and freedoms of Canadians," she said. "And although we're used to threats coming from outside, today that threat comes from within." Montague detailed what has been one of the most painful developments for her family to bear. The federal government placed a lean against their home, a home they built with their own hands. Their young daughter, 6-years-old at the time, even engraved her name into one of the logs now part of her bedroom wall.

"This home was built with the blood, sweat, and tears of love. How can anyone take that away from us?" she said.

"This is not the country I grew up in. I'm just infuriated by the surreal and extreme measures they're going to.

"The federal government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, your tax dollars, to persecute us."

She talked about how frustrated and appalled she is the federal government would come down so hard on an average, working class, Canadian family. She believes the more the legal cards seem stacked in her family's favour, the more brutally unnecessary the government's campaign becomes. As an example, she noted a half-dozen or so new charges laid against her husband come with a minimum one-year sentence, despite the fact all the charges are based on non-compliance and none involve a crime with any clear victim – unless, as Bruce Montague joked, you include him. Bruce Montague noted a constitution is never written to protect the government, it's written to protect the people from their government.

"A constitution sets boundaries the government has to maintain itself within," he said. Montague thinks, since the Canadian constitution guarantees the right to bear arms for self defense and, since Bill C-68 makes gun ownership illegal in that licences are required, there's enough reason for it to be struck down by the supreme court.

"The Firearms Act does not respect our rights and freedoms and it does not make us safer," he added.

Montague said he does not advocate an American-style system and fully supports background-checks and other security measures but he believes C-68 is designed to eventually confiscate all firearms from average Canadians, without ever having made much impact in the criminal world. "This is not going to stop. It's going to continue on and on. We have a duty to protect our rights and we should stand proud doing that," he said.

At the end of his presentation, Montague took questions from those in attendance. He detailed exactly what had been confiscated from his business, how long he has been in this battle, and how he believes the federal government feels.

"I believe we've got them scared just because they're going to these levels. I think they're trying to intimidate me into backing down," he said.

"What we have to do is fight on our principles, it's the only chance we've got."

For more information about Bruce and Donna Montague, or to see what you can do to help the family at the forefront of a battle many Canadians are involved in – like making a donation to the Scrap C-68 Fund - visit their website at http://www.brucemontague.ca.

Link: http://www.beausejourreview.com/...