Fiatnut wrote:spiderdan wrote:aevansgatech wrote:I would love to see a future Freakout in Toronto
Unfortunately there are considerable number of obstacles that encounter the notion .
Passports are required to enter Canada
Distance to travel
Many Americans exercise their right to carry weapons ,not permissible into Canada
These are some issues that hinder the thought of ever hosting a FFO in Canada
When I attended the Freakout in 2001 in Niagara Falls, My British friends and I went across the border. At the time passports for US and Canadian citizens were not required to cross the border. I handed the border guard my driver's licence and he didn't even look at it. He just asked if I had any drugs or weapons and I said no. Then he pointed to a lot and told me to park my van over there. They did take my friends inside to look at their passports. I wasn't sure what was going on.
They told me to get out and stand like 10 feet away from it while they went over my van with a fine tooth comb looking for any contraband. The van actually belong to my father and I borrowed it. They didn't even look at the registration to see who it belonged to. They only seemed concerned with what was in the van, not who I was, my friends were or who the van belonged to.
Before leaving, I went through the van unloading all the trash and gave it a good cleaning. A month prior, my parents had recently went to Florida and Dad likes to "pack heat" anytime he goes to Florida for some reason. Knowing this, I looked underneath all the seats and compartments for a gun but did not find one. All except for one I was not aware of.
They got to this one compartment under the passenger seat that was locked and asked me to unlock it. All of a sudden this uneasy feeling came over me. And I wondered, if he had his gun stashed in this compartment. Luckily there was nothing in it.
They finally let me go.
On the way home, I told dad about the story. He said, "You know I was wondering where my pistol was about week ago and looked under the driver's seat and there it was!". Talk about a scary situation.
Not sure what would have happened if there was a gun in that compartment. I'm sure I would have been thrown in jail until I could prove the situation was an accident. At least give me a trail and have my father testify and prove that the gun belonged to him and he forgot to remove it before letting me borrow his van. Instead of Mexico that automatically throws Americans in prison without a trial.
The moral of the story is if you borrow someone else's vehicle make damn sure there are no guns stashed in it!
Ever since then I've been hesitate about crossing the US/Canadian border.