On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 20:19:13 GMT, (Doug Miller) wrote:

In article WJ8ld.94$N_5.13@trnddc03, Lobby Dosser wrote:

LOL! Never, ever reveal vulnerability.

Or uncertainty.

We received some rather close questioning coming into Canada on a vacation.
We'd spent part of our trip fishing and camping, and were intending to do more
after returning to the States. The Canadian customs inspector asked if we were
carrying "any weapons". My split-second of hesitation, as I considered whether
Canadian customs might consider a hammer and various assorted knives to fall
into that category, led to some intense and specific questions regarding
whether we own firearms of any type (yes), handguns (yes), and do we have them
with us (certainly not - I know better than that). I'm still a bit surprised
that they allowed us in *without* a search.

That was my experience several years ago as well and I didn't hesitate at
the first question. She didn't ask if I *owned* any guns (I would have
found that quite offensive, irrelevant, out of place and none of her
business). However, she must have asked me a dozen different ways whether
I had any guns, weapons, ammunition, or rifles, etc. in the car. I came
very close (wisdom won out however) to saying, "nope, no weapons -- would
you be interested in the box of pine beetles I have in the trunk?" I got
the impression that Canadians are very, very scared of guns. That was the
year they were starting to register ammunition, saw the PSA's of a smiling
husband and wife with the husband happily filling out his registration
form, then putting it into the mail.