What is a Section 117 Firearms Hearing?

What is a section 117 firearms hearing? Well, in Canada, the police have very broad powers to seize your weapons, if they believe that you pose a danger to public safety. So any type of factual situations that lead to that, whether it’s mental health issues, a domestic disturbance, some sort of incident that you were involved in, could lead them to seizing your weapons, and what’s going to happen after that is they’re going to serve you with documents saying there’s going to be hearing to permanently forfeit those weapons and perhaps prohibit you from having weapons for a long time, up to up to a lifetime. So that’s a hearing that takes place with a judge. The judge will determine whether your weapon should be returned to you, depending on the facts or whether you do, weapons are forfeited. And the judge can also impose different lengths of prohibitions where you can’t have weapons. And of course, if that happens, your Possession and Acquisition license is going to be taken away for that entire time period, and under the new laws that are emerging in Canada, if you’re prohibited for any time period with weapons, now you may actually lose your PAL, your Possession and Acquisition licence for life and never perhaps get it back. Now, there’s situations where and then they can seize your weapons for any type of things, even when you’re not even charged with a criminal offence. So, let’s take a situation where you’re charged with criminal offence. So let’s say you’re charged with domestic assault, for example, and let’s assume that you have weapons in your home. You have a proper PAL, Possession and Acquisition licence, the police are going to take those weapons. You’re going to be released on bail, and let’s assume you win your domestic assault trial, well, they can still go forward with Section 117 hearing firearms hearing. It’s a different test, and the judge is going to have to decide whether to return your weapons or not. Now, going back to that situation, let’s say you plead guilty. Well, what’s going to happen there on your domestic assault if you plead guilty, let’s say you get a conditional discharge, no criminal record, but you go on probation and you, they’re going to ban you from having weapons during that one year. The judge may also add a term that you know, banning you from having prohibited from weapons for a number of years, say five years, but even if they only take your weapons during that one year. Now the government’s going to permanently seize your weapons. There’s no There’s no way you’re going to win the section 117 order. You’re going to lose your Possession and Acquisition license, and you may never get it back. There’s recent laws that are being declared and have come in in recent years that are really making it tough for people to ever get their PAL back. And it’s a very difficult situation. So if you’re facing a Section 117, issue, you really should consult a lawyer to see if there’s grounds for the hearing, whether you get your weapons back, and what to what to do in these situations. But I’ll tell you the laws are very, very onerous in this regard, and they take it very seriously. And the bottom line, if you get convicted of criminal offence, and there’s any sort of protection order with respect to ordering you to stay away from the victim, or anything to do with weapons, where you can’t have them for a year, you’re going to lose your PAL and you may never get it back.