By Garett Williams
Wednesday November 28, 2007

Bruce Montague's emotions appeared on his second day in the witness box defending himself against nearly 50 firearms related offences in a Kenora Superior courtroom.

When asked how his arrest effected his relationship with the Lutheran church, where he was a trustee and performed maintenance work, his eyes welled up and he took a minute to compose himself before explaining how his family was pushed out and forced to find another church.

As questioning continued, he again stated his guns were purchased legally through the Firearms Acquisition Certificate.

"All the firearms were legally my property," he said. "I have a right to that property for the rest of my life."

Defence attorney Doug Christie continued walking Montague through the indictments, one by one, having him produce certificates to prove the firearms were at one time registered.

He failed to immediately produce a certificate for a hand gun which has been referred to as the James Bond gun, saying he may have burned it in a protest on Parliament Hill. However, he was able to locate it over the lunch break.

When questioned about the weapons he converted to fully-automatic, which he wasn't legally entitled to possess, he said he was trying to push harder against the Firearms Act.

"Trying to get charged and arrested for having non-registered guns wasn't working," he said.

Montague, along with a few others, had been actively trying to get arrested, carrying unregistered firearms at protests in every province, so the Firearms Act could be contested in court.

When that didn't work, they schemed a publicity stunt. They planned to shoot a fully-automatic weapon into the air, safely, in front of one of their homes and call Crimestoppers. Montague was arrested before they followed through.

"I was a little naive when I went into this," Montague said. "So, I don't know, I'm starting to question the way I did things."

In October, he had his chance to fight the act in Superior Court in Kenora, however, Justice John Wright dismissed his constitutional challenge -- which aimed to strike out sections of the Criminal Code of Canada related to the act, to have their criminal charges dismissed and to have the Firearms Act declared unconstitutional -- saying the right to possess a firearm has always been subject to parliamentary intervention.

Montague said he will take the fight all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Montague is now facing 47 firearms related charges, six were dropped on Monday, including the unauthorized possession and careless storage of non-restricted firearms, explosives and restricted firearms.

His wife, Donna, is facing three charges -- the unauthorized possession of a firearm and two counts of careless storage of a firearm.

Link: http://www.kenoradailyminerandnews.com