By Travis Bader, founder of Silvercore Outdoors. Handling firearm disposal for families and estates for more than twenty years.

When a handgun owner dies in Canada, the handgun does not pass to the family the way the rest of the estate does. Under the current Firearms Act, a registration certificate for a handgun cannot be issued to an individual except in a narrow set of exempted cases, which means most families cannot keep one no matter what the will says. That leaves an estate five lawful outcomes: transfer to an individual who qualifies for an exemption, transfer to a licensed business or museum, export, deactivation, or surrender to police for destruction. Surrender returns nothing to the estate. The other four preserve some value, and every one of them requires paperwork before the firearm moves.

If you are reading this a few days after a funeral, the short version is: leave it where it is stored, do not move it, and start the paperwork. Nothing about this needs to happen tonight.

Can I inherit my father's handgun in Canada?

Almost certainly not. The Firearms Act bars the issuing of a handgun registration certificate to an individual, and without a registration certificate in your own name you cannot lawfully take possession of it, regardless of what licence you hold or what the will says.

There are two exemptions, and both are narrow. The bar does not apply to an individual who holds an authorization to carry in respect of a handgun. It also does not apply to an individual who meets prescribed criteria and who provides, once a year, a letter from a provincial or national sport shooting governing body confirming that they train, compete or coach in a discipline governed by the International Olympic Committee or the International Paralympic Committee, and that the specific handgun is necessary for that discipline. Neither of those describes an ordinary heir with an RPAL.

There is a next of kin provision in the Act, and it does not rescue this. Section 12(7) makes a spouse, common-law partner, brother, sister, child or grandchild eligible to hold a licence for one particular grandfathered prohibited handgun: barrel of 105 mm or less or chambered in .25 or .32 calibre, registered in Canada on or before December 1, 1998, and manufactured before 1946. Being eligible to hold a licence is not the same as being able to complete a transfer. A handgun transfer to an individual still needs a new registration certificate issued in that person's name, and the two exemptions above are the only ones the Act provides. Next of kin is not one of them. If you believe your situation is different, put the specific firearm to the Chief Firearms Officer in your province in writing. Do not act on a forum post.

What do I do with a handgun when someone dies?

In the first week, do nothing with the firearm itself. Leave it in the safe or locked storage where the deceased kept it, leave it unloaded, do not clean it, do not carry it to a gun shop, and do not hand it to a neighbour or a friend who says they will look after it. Moving a restricted firearm without authorization creates a second problem on top of the first one.

What you can usefully do in that first week is paperwork:

• Find the deceased's firearms licence and, for any restricted or prohibited firearm, the registration certificates.
• Write down what is actually in the safe. Make, model, calibre, barrel length, serial number, and whether it is a handgun or a long gun.
• Get certified copies of the death certificate. You will need them.
• Complete RCMP form 6016e, the declaration of authority to act on behalf of an estate. This is the document that tells the Canadian Firearms Program who is entitled to make decisions about these firearms.
• Confirm the storage is secure and that nobody in the household has casual access to it.

Then contact the Canadian Firearms Program, or a licensed business that handles estate transfers, and get the route in writing before anything moves.

Can an executor without a licence hold a firearm?

Generally yes, for a reasonable period, while the estate is being settled. An executor is not expected to obtain a firearms licence in order to do the job, and firearms may remain in place while lawful disposition is arranged.

Two things temper that. It is not indefinite, and reasonable shrinks the longer nothing happens. And the storage obligations do not pause. The firearms must stay stored to the standard that applied when the owner was alive, which for a handgun means locked, unloaded, with a secure locking device, in a locked container. If nobody in the family is comfortable having them in the house, ask the police or a licensed business to take them into safekeeping while you work out the rest. That is a normal request and it does not commit the estate to anything.

Can I sell my handgun to a family member?

No, unless that family member falls inside one of the exemptions above. An RPAL on its own is not enough, and it has not been enough for some time.

This is the single most common misunderstanding we hear. A brother with a restricted licence and a club membership still cannot receive the revolver, because the barrier is not his licence, it is the registration certificate that would have to be issued in his name. The same applies to selling it privately to anyone else who is not exempted, and it applies whether money changes hands or not. A gift is a transfer.

What are the only lawful outcomes for an estate handgun?

Five. Here is what each one costs the estate and what the family ends up holding at the end of it.

1. Transfer to an individual who qualifies for an exemption

The estate can sell or give the handgun to someone who is lawfully able to receive it. The estate realizes fair value if a buyer exists. The catch is the size of the pool. Because the exemptions are narrow, and narrower still for a centrefire service pistol or a revolver, there may be no eligible buyer for that particular firearm at any price. Costs are appraisal if you want one, and the transfer process itself.

2. Transfer to a licensed business or museum

A business whose firearms licence carries the right privileges can take the handgun into its inventory, and a museum can accept it into a collection. This is usually the practical route, because a business can lawfully receive firearms that no individual can. What the estate ends up with depends on what you agree: an outright purchase price, consignment proceeds if the firearm is one that can lawfully be resold, or a donation with no payment. Costs are transport or lawful shipping. Ask for the arrangement in writing before you send anything.

3. Export

The handgun can be exported to a buyer in a country that allows it. This can realize real value on a collectible firearm. It is also the slowest and most administrative route: it requires an export permit through Global Affairs Canada, a lawful importer at the other end, and a carrier that will handle it. Costs are permit fees, brokerage and shipping, and months of your time. It rarely makes sense for a single common handgun and sometimes makes very good sense for a rare one.

4. Deactivation

The handgun is permanently modified so that it is no longer a firearm, at which point the family can keep it as an object. This is the route people choose when the firearm matters for reasons that have nothing to do with shooting it: a service pistol, a presentation piece, something with a name engraved on it. The work must be done to the current federal deactivation standard by a business authorized to perform deactivations, and the estate pays for it. Understand what you are buying. Its value as a firearm is gone permanently, and so is any possibility of changing your mind.

5. Surrender to police for destruction

The handgun is surrendered to a chief firearms officer, a firearms officer or a police officer and destroyed. It is free, it is fast, and it is final. The estate receives nothing. State that plainly in the estate file so nobody comes back in two years asking why grandfather's revolver produced no money.

Do I get paid for surrendering a handgun?

No. Surrendering a firearm for destruction carries no compensation, and there is no mechanism to claim any afterward.

People often expect otherwise because they have heard about the federal compensation program. That is a separate program with its own eligibility list, its own process and its own deadlines, and it does not apply to handguns generally. Surrendering an estate handgun at a police detachment is not a claim. It is a disposal. If value matters to the estate, decide that before the firearm leaves your hands, because there is no route back.

What happens if I just keep it?

Possession of a restricted firearm without a valid licence and a registration certificate in your own name is a criminal offence, and the estate's grace period does not run forever. Nobody is looking to charge a grieving family in the first weeks, but the file does not close itself.

The practical risk is not a raid. It is what happens later. The registration record still shows the firearm. It surfaces when the house sells, when there is a break-in, when a marriage ends, when someone else in the family finds the safe key, or when a police officer attends the address for an unrelated reason. At that point a paperwork problem that could have been resolved with a form and a phone call has become something else. Deal with it while it is still administrative.

Who accepts firearm transfers from an estate in Canada?

Three parties: an individual who qualifies for one of the exemptions, a museum, or a business whose firearms licence authorizes it to acquire that class of firearm. There is no charity drop box and no general donation program.

Not every gun shop can take a handgun. A business firearms licence lists the specific activities the Chief Firearms Officer has authorized, and they vary widely from one business to the next. Retail and consignment sales of restricted firearms is a separate activity from retail sales of non-restricted firearms, and prohibited firearms are separate again. Before you commit to a business, ask them two questions: does your business firearms licence authorize you to acquire this class of firearm, and will you confirm that in writing. If the answer is vague, keep looking.

Why does everyone give you a different answer?

Ask ten people about firearms law and you will get twelve answers. That is not a joke about gun owners, it is a description of what an executor actually experiences in the first month.

There are reasons for it. The rules governing handguns changed materially, and most people quote the law as it stood when they got their licence. Forum threads and older articles stay indexed long after they stop being correct, and they are written with total confidence. Well-meaning family members repeat what worked when their own father died fifteen years ago. Even people in the industry sometimes describe the practice they remember rather than the rule as it reads now.

The defence against this is boring and it works: get it in writing. Ask the Canadian Firearms Program in writing. Ask the business in writing. Keep every reference number. When the estate is questioned two years later, a written trail is the difference between a five minute conversation and a serious problem. This is also why we run our own intake as a written process rather than a handshake.

What Silvercore does

Silvercore is a licensed firearms business in Delta, British Columbia, operating under a business firearms licence issued by the Chief Firearms Officer of British Columbia. The licence authorizes retail and consignment sales of restricted and non-restricted firearms, storage, transportation of inventory, gunsmithing, and possession for the purpose of instruction. We have handled firearm disposal for more than twenty years, for families, for estates, and for owners who simply decided they were finished with it.

Travis Bader, who runs the intake personally, is an RCMP Master Instructor for the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and the Canadian Restricted Firearms Safety Course, and has been qualified as an expert witness in firearms matters in the Federal Court of Canada and the Provincial Court of British Columbia. That matters here for one reason only: when we tell an executor what can and cannot be done with a specific firearm, we are telling them what the law says, not what we would like it to say.

How the intake works

1. You call or email and describe what you have. Make and model if you can read them, calibre, barrel length, serial number, and whether there is a registration certificate. Photographs from where it sits are fine. Do not move it to take them.
2. We tell you in writing which routes are open for that specific firearm. Sometimes the answer is that we are not the right destination and the estate is better served elsewhere. You get that answer too.
3. We arrange the movement. Within British Columbia we can transport under our licence. Outside British Columbia we tell you exactly how to ship it lawfully, which carrier, and what has to accompany it.
4. The transfer is processed through the Canadian Firearms Program. The record shows the firearm leaving the estate and arriving at a licensed business, with reference numbers at both ends.
5. You get written confirmation for the estate file. Firearm identified by serial number, date, and where it went.

We take restricted and non-restricted firearms. Prohibited firearms, including grandfathered handguns, are handled case by case and only where the Chief Firearms Officer has confirmed the route, because the rules there are genuinely different and getting them wrong is not a small thing. Deactivation is not something we perform. If that is the route the family wants, we will tell you who does it properly.

What about the rifles and shotguns in the same estate?

Non-restricted firearms are considerably simpler. They can be sold or given to any individual who holds a valid PAL, through the normal transfer process, and no registration certificate is involved. Most estates find a home for the rifles and shotguns inside the family without difficulty.

Two cautions. First, the recipient needs a valid PAL at the time of transfer, not a licence that expired years ago and not a promise to get one. Second, non-restricted is a classification, not an assumption. Some firearms that look like ordinary rifles are restricted or prohibited, and some were reclassified after the owner bought them. If you are not certain what class something is, have it verified before you promise it to anyone.

If the estate contains prohibited firearms, including grandfathered handguns, those follow a different set of rules again.

The Silvercore Path

• Non-restricted versus restricted firearms in Canada, if you are not sure what class something in the safe belongs to.
• What to do with your 12-6 prohibited firearms, for grandfathered handguns specifically.
• The complete ban list of prohibited firearms in Canada, if you suspect something in the estate was reclassified.
• The Silvercore Club, if someone in the family is keeping firearms rather than disposing of them and needs third party liability coverage and somewhere to ask questions.

Talk to someone

If you are an executor, a widow, or an adult child holding a set of keys and a problem you did not ask for, call us. There is no charge to find out what your options are, and there is no obligation to send anything our way once you know.

Email info@silvercore.ca or call the Delta office at 604-940-7785. Tell us what you have and where it is. Leave it where it is until we have spoken.

Travis Bader Silvercore Outdoors