So the perception in Toronto is that gun violence is up and local, federal and the Toronto police department have been parroting the same line, that 50% of guns used illegally are domestically sourced and it’s an absolute lie.
“Currently, there is no national repository for this type of information in Canada. The Canadian Firearms Program does not collect or track national statistics with regard to the origin of crime guns,” said Sgt. Marie Damian.
Source: CBC
The RCMP which manages the Canadian Firearms Program does not have any data on where guns are coming from whether from the US or from domestic sources. Perhaps the local police department keeps track of this right? Well here’s the information made available by a Dennis Young through a freedom of information request.
So if we look at the data last year there were 726 crime guns seized and of those, 67 could be traced to a licensed owner or ~9%. So where is the 50% that the politicians and the Toronto Police keep saying? Even the city’s own police department’s data doesn’t back this stat up… Let’s take a look at the third chart as I find it the most interesting as ~50% of the guns seized are in the prohibited class (again it’s fairly consistent). What’s most interesting is that as a legal owner with both my PAL & RPAL, I cannot purchase a prohibited class firearm.
In fact no one who’s received their license after 1996 can, only those who were in possession of those types of guns before the Firearms Act came into place can yet they account for 50% of all firearms seized in the last 10 years worth of data. Don’t believe me, well download the report and take a look yourself.
Look obviously there’s an issue with gang violence and crimes committed by those who use firearms but let’s be frank it’s not someone like myself doing it. To really tackle the root causes of these things requires a multifaceted approach (dealing with lack of opportunity, systemic racism, etc) and will require many years if not a generation to fix and that’s just not sexy for politicians. They want a quick fix that can keep them in power 4 years from now and it’s not possible when dealing with such large societal problems but hey let’s blame legal owners, it’s an easy bait and switch.