Canada bans .22 rifle because it looks similar to an AK-47

[iverglas]

24. wouldn't it really be better

just to ask the open-ended qustion, rather than state an assumption and call for it to be accepted or rejected?

I don't know why you'd make that assumption in my case. All I had posted was information.

A whole lot of semi-automatic firearms are restricted (to licensed sports shooters and collectors with restricted firearms licences) or prohibited in Canada.

Maybe if somebody would look at the lists in the regulations that have been linked to, and distinguish this particular item from others there, it would help me with your question.

I have no problem with semi-automatic firearms being classified as restricted, and see no reason why they should not all be. I don't know what precisely makes this one prohibited - if I can find the initial decision of the Firearms Officer, it might tell us why that person ruled that "the AP80 is a variant of the AK-47".

The immediate reason seems to be that the AK-22 is classified as such, so if this one is identical to that one, I guess it wouldn't really help to see that decision, though. And I don't think there are any reasons extant for why the AK-22 is on the prohibited list, other than in the bowels of the Justice or old Solicitor General department in the files of the legislative drafters and so on who wrote the orders all those years ago ...