# How can I render my handgun legally inoperable?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 20, 2006, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267 "2006-02-20T00:58:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@deevee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deevee)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/1 "2006-02-20T00:58:34Z")
I have a Browning 9mm Hi Power legally registered with the R.C.M.P. and kept under heavy lock and key. The anti gun movement is gaining sway in Canada and I am prepared for the possibility that it might be confiscated. I collect antiques including firearms which don’t fall under any registration requirements but the Browning is kind of special to me since it is a war trophy I inherited from a friend’s father. It’s a Fabrique Nationale made in Nazi occupied Belgium and I really don’t want it melted down. I’ve been told that filling the barell of a handgun with concrete makes it legal but the Browning has a removeable barell, in fact everything is modular so destruction of one part doesn’t really mean the gun is destroyed. Any ideas? As I am in legal posession I’m in no hurry to destroy it, I just want to know what my options are.
---
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/2 "2006-02-20T01:22:28Z")
It would be a shame to adulterate such a piece of history. Is there some sort of ‘collector’s permit’ that you can get in Canada, so that people in your situation can retain historical arms?
---
### Author:  [@hammerbach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hammerbach)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/3 "2006-02-20T01:34:04Z")
> [@chocojesus2001](#):
>
> option 1: stick a flower in the barrel and paint a peace symbol on the handle.
>
> option 2: bury it at a location known only to you and retrieve it whenever
> you need to use it.
>
> option 3: shoot dead anyone trying to take it away from you. [cite](http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=18)
Note to **chocojesus** : **deevee** is in Canada.
---
### Author:  [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/4 "2006-02-20T01:36:06Z")
Friends or family in the States that could hold it for you?
---
### Author:  [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/5 "2006-02-20T03:05:46Z")
> [@River Hippie](#):
>
> Friends or family in the States that could hold it for you?
That’s what I was going to suggest. I would hold it and keep it safe for you in America if the emergency of gun confiscation ever came up. But, I guess, you’d have to trust me.
I’m sure you could find someone to do that for you.
But to answer your OP, - though it would be a SHAME - the legal part of that pistol is the receiver. That’s the part that you would have to destroy or alter to make it inoperative. So take off the slide and barrel. The main piece you see there with the trigger and hand grip… that’s the actual firearm. Destroy that in such a way so that it cannot be easily fixed, and then it is no longer a firearm.
I’ve destroyed a couple firearms in the past so I could sell them to people. But it usually involves cutting the reciever in half with a pneumatic tool like the Jaws of Life. You probably dont want to do that.
The ‘concrete in the barrel’ thin you’re thinking of is for Cannons and large bore guns like that. As you said, your barrel can just be replaced, so that’s not going to work for you. You will have to permanantly alter that firearm.
… I recommend letting someone hold it for you, if it ever comes to that!
---
### Author:  [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/6 "2006-02-20T03:41:09Z")
You could always donate it to a museum. It would no longer be yours, but it wouldn’t be destroyed, either.
---
### Author:  [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/7 "2006-02-20T07:45:39Z")
Yea, this forum hardly gets any traffic… :rolleyes:
---
### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/8 "2006-02-20T10:35:01Z")
?? I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about illegal activities on this board (I don’t mean **deevee** ’s search for legal means to disable a handgun, I mean **chocojesus** ’s remarks about terrorism and assault).
By the way, is there really any serious effort afoot in Canada to confiscate all individually-owned firearms? Are the OP’s concerns realistic?
---
### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/9 "2006-02-20T13:53:24Z")
Just so’s this thread doesn’t read entirely strange, I’ve sent **chocojesus** an email about what we expect from members and removed his posts from this thread.
**samclem** GQ moderator
---
### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/10 "2006-02-20T16:49:17Z")
> [@Kimstu](#):
>
> By the way, is there really any serious effort afoot in Canada to confiscate all individually-owned firearms? Are the OP’s concerns realistic?
Handgun ownership is already strictly regulated under the federal _Criminal Code_ and the federal _Firearms Act_, including registration of all firearms, both handguns and long arms.
In the recent federal election, then-Prime Minister Martin announced that if returned to power, the Liberals would ban hand-guns, in response to rising shootings in Toronto, Canada’s largest city.
The Liberals were not returned, and the Conservatives now hold government. They have long opposed the registration requirements for firearms and campaigned on eliminating the gun registry. Whether they can do that in a minority Parliament will be interesting, but in any event they opposed PM Martin’s announcement to ban handguns.
---
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/11 "2006-02-20T19:45:08Z")
One good thing about this thread is that it got me to take a photo of my 1967, New-In-Box, with-original-tag, octoagon-barrel Winchester 94 Canadian Centennial Commemorative and post it down at the shooting range.
(I posted my never-fired Shiloh Sharps 1873 too.)
---
### Author:  [@deevee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deevee)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-render-my-handgun-legally-inoperable/345267/12 "2006-02-20T22:02:23Z")
The friend whose father I inherited it from had to turn in his (fully licensed) beautiful matching boxed derringer set when the government banned handguns with barells shorter than 3". It was melted down and now Canada is now a safer place :rolleyes: . I had to have the clip in the Browning modified about 15 years ago when clips with a capacity of over 10 rounds were banned. Canada is now a safer place :rolleyes: . The regulations now are such that it is virtually impossible for anyone to acquire a handgun and I believe it is only a matter of time before all legal private handguns are abolished. Of course illegal guns will still be everywhere on the streets. I’m not a “pry it from my cold dead hands” gun nut but just an ordinary guy with a collection of flintlocks and muskets and one WWII Browning that I jumped through all the R.C.M.P. hoops to posess legally. People who don’t know I have the Browning (I don’t generally let it be known) freak out when I show them my 250 year old gamblers pistol that requires a piece of flint and flash powder to fire (if you’re lucky). Such is the environment up here.