Ban-Risk Sources

The primary source trail behind every Ban-Risk Index entry. Government publishers first, trade and advocacy second, every link archived to the Wayback Machine when it goes dead.

This page lists the primary sources behind every Ban-Risk Index entry, what each is good for, and how to verify a score on your own. The full source list on any individual entry sits at the bottom of that entry's page; this page exists so the trail of evidence stays auditable across the whole Index.

Source standards

Every entry carries at least one primary source. A source counts as primary only if it is published by RCMP, Public Safety Canada, Canada Gazette, Justice Canada, or the Canadian Firearms Program. Trade press, advocacy publications, and retailer listings are secondary or tertiary — useful for context, not load-bearing for classification claims.

When a primary source goes dead, the entry is updated with the Wayback Machine URL. Dead links are not silently dropped.

When a source contradicts the score on an entry, the score moves. When a source contradicts the verdict, the verdict moves. Holdover's reading is editorial; the facts the reading rests on are not.

The primary sources

RCMP Firearms Reference Table

The administrative record of every firearm classification in Canada. Online access is restricted to RCMP-authorized users — police, public agents, approved verifiers — but the FRT's downstream effects are public: RCMP press releases, news of reclassifications, and the Canada Gazette amendments that follow.

For the Index, the FRT is the source of truth for current classification (Non-restricted / Restricted / Prohibited) on every entry. When the FRT changes, the entry changes.

Public Safety Canada

The federal department that announces prohibitions, manages the amnesty orders, runs the Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program, and publishes the backgrounder lists of prohibited firearms by family.

For the Index, Public Safety is the source of truth for which firearms are named in any given expansion, the rationale offered for inclusion, and the compensation program's terms. Their backgrounders are organized by firearm family, which matches how the Index thinks about lineage.

Canada Gazette

The official journal where every Order in Council is published. SOR numbers — SOR/2020-96, SOR/2024-248, SOR/2025-86 — refer to specific Gazette publications. Every prohibited entry in the Index cites the Gazette URL for the SOR that prohibited it.

For the Index, Gazette pages are the load-bearing citation when the score is Already Gone via OIC. They are not load-bearing for FRT-only reclassifications (the Sterling R9 MK1 case) — those happen administratively under the FRT and do not appear in the Gazette.

Justice Canada

The consolidated Regulations Prescribing Certain Firearms — the SOR-98-462 file — is the running document that the OIC expansions amend. When a rifle is named "in the current SOR," it is named in the version of SOR-98-462 in force at the date the entry was scored.

Canadian Firearms Program

The administrative arm of the RCMP that handles transfers, registrations, and the practical questions individual licence holders face. CFP guidance documents are cited on the Index when the practical question — "what does a Non-restricted to Prohibited transition mean for me at this address" — is in scope of the entry.

Secondary sources we trust

Used for context, never as the only citation on a load-bearing claim.

Armalytics

A volunteer-maintained, RCMP-FRT-derived public browser. Searches the FRT for individual makes and models and returns the classification reading. The Ban-Risk Index does not replace Armalytics — Armalytics is the FRT lookup, the Index is the editorial estimation about what will be on the FRT next.

Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights (CCFR)

Advocacy organization that maintains its own ban-list documentation, runs the legal challenges to the OIC pathway, and publishes briefings on next-list candidates. The CCFR's appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada (granted leave March 2026) is the most consequential legal challenge to the OIC pathway since SOR/2020-96.

Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association (CSAAA)

Trade association that documents administrative reclassifications when they affect Canadian-made manufacturers. The CSAAA advisory was the first publication to surface the Sterling Arms R9 MK1 FRT reclassification on July 6, 2025.

Canadian Gun Nutz forum and r/canadaguns

User-generated context, not citation. We read both to understand which rifles owners are asking about, which prohibitions are confusing in practice, and which administrative pathways are being tested in the wild. We do not cite forum threads as evidence of classification — only as evidence of community attention.

When a source goes dead, the Index does not silently drop it. The entry is updated with the Wayback Machine URL of the most recent capture, and the source is marked Dead in the underlying data. If the Wayback Machine has no capture, the source is removed and the entry is flagged for re-research.

The link-checker script in /Automation/ runs weekly across every Ban-Risk entry's source list and pages the editor when a link goes dark.

How to verify a score yourself

  1. Confirm current classification by name on the RCMP FRT (via Armalytics if you do not have authorized FRT access).
  2. Find the SOR citation for any Prohibited or Already Gone entry on the Canada Gazette. The SOR number is on every Already Gone entry's source list.
  3. Read the Public Safety backgrounder for context on the family the rifle belongs to.
  4. Compare the rubric reading to the score on the Holdover entry. If your reading differs from ours, write us — we publish every dispute outcome.

This is a working estimate, sourced and transparent. The point of putting the rubric and the sources on the same page is that anyone can score with us.