Sep 23 2005
I am a criminal.
As my loyal readers will remember I (not so) recently built the FrankenGarand from parts. As per our federal regulations I had the rifle inspected by an approved verifier and sent the verifiers report in to the Firearms Center along with my licence renewal (that was two months ago).
You see the Breda receiver I built the rifle on is registered with the firearms registry as a “receiver only” not a complete and functional firearm. Technically this means I no longer possess a registration certificate for this rifle, and am a criminal. I have called the firearms center every two weeks for the past two months in an effort to establish the status of this “change of registration”, spending an average of 20 minutes on hold (per call) and being bounced from department to department. Each call has ended with the “officer” telling me to try back in a few weeks.
I received my new firearms licence yesterday (50 days after I applied, and 42 days after they cashed my cheque), but still there was no sign of my new registration certificate for the FrankenGarand. I heaved a long suffering sigh, grabbed my paperwork folder and a pen and settled in to wait on hold for extended periods of time. I wasn’t to be disappointed, I was transferred through three departments finally getting someone who promised to look for the report, and who would call me back.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see if I’m still a criminal at the end of the day.
If anybody from the government is reading this, I’ll testify against him. Whadda ya want me to say?
GRIN
We are very interested in your testimony relating to his involvement in recruitment and training of domestic members of the Taliban.
Just as an aside, despite a promise to call me back that afternoon by the registry employee I was dealing with, no call was received.
Now there’s a suprise.
To gummint:
His role is not to train and recruit membership in the Taliban. He is taking lessons from the Taliban in fashion sense, as he has been described as the only thing preventing Taliban members from being voted “Worst Dressed Humans on the planet”.
Hey Mon,
How long did you have to wait back when you first applied for your (first) PAL? I think mine took about ten months to get to me after all the paperwork and payments were made. In contrast, Connie’s came after about four months.
BTW, how are the plans coming along for your upcoming Jihad? *GRIN*
Greg: Fashion sense criticism from you? The only guy I know who wears a sweater at the beach…
Patrick: I got my licence in 6 weeks the frist time around, who knew a renewal would take longer, eh? I remember the delays with yours, wasn’t that because of that incident with you and Donna and the pellet gun?
The Jihad is coming along nicely..we’ve already raided Gregs closet to gain a technological edge in the “Operation: Worst dressed humans on the planet”.
-GRIN-
Well, despite being assured that the CFC would call me back on Friday as of Tuesday I had heard no word and called the person I was dealing with back (the only good news is that if you have the extension number you don’t waste days in the hold queue), no answer and a message left asking for a call….
Any bets on how long this will take?
In the interests of keeping a running log of this stupidity, I’ve now left two messages for the person who “assured” me they’d get back to me last Friday, still no call.
Geez, two billion dollars just doesn’t guarantee acceptable service does it?
Gave up waiting for the individual I was dealing with and called the central number, explained the situation and my frustration and told them I wasn’t concerned so much with the transfer delay, but wanted to confirm they had the verifiers report “in the system” so I wouldn’t have to drive across town and get the rifle inspected again.
A little time on hold and the operator I was dealing with confirmed that the form was with them, the form went to Mirimichi with my licence renewal (as generic Operator #132 suggested when I initially spoke with them about the verifiers report) and this caused a problem, the form has been sent (as of the 28th of September) over to the registry, so we can expect to see them finally process it in the next couple of weeks.
-GRIN-
Maybe we should have spent $2.5 billion?
Hmmm, and we’re still waiting….
Still waiting..
Still waiting…
Still waiting…