When it comes to Canada’s often tense debate around gun laws, most Canadians likely will not have heard of an RCMP database called the Firearms Reference Table, or FRT.

The FRT is a database used by the RCMP to help classify firearms. That classification determines whether a gun is non-restricted, restricted or prohibited.

Technically, the FRT isn’t a legal instrument, but instead just an internal RCMP tool based on definitions set out in the Criminal Code and Firearms Act. But in practice?

“It’s both the law and not the law,” said A.J. Somerset, the author of Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun.