A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Canucks dump guns in U.S.
Cops: Proposed law boosting smuggling
By IAN ROBERTSON - Toronto Sun
July 3, 2000
NIAGARA FALLS - Canadians are smuggling snubnosed handguns across the border to sell to U.S. citizens to beat a pending ban on the weapons.
Some of those guns are showing up at U.S. crime scenes, say Canadian and American police officers.
"Short barrels will soon be illegal in Canada and some Canadians wanting to get rid of their guns are taking them south of the border to gun shows and selling them," U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agent David Krieghbaum said at a police firearms conference here.
OPP Det.-Insp. Bob Frolic, of the Provincial Weapons Enforcement Unit, said that under the federal government's Bill C-68, collectors who legally bought .25- and .32-calibre snubnosed guns since 1997 were sent letters saying the pistols would be declared prohibited weapons in three years. Registered owners would "not be compensated" for the guns.
GRANDFATHER CLAUSE?
No decision has been made about who will seize the snubnosed guns in 2001, which "has created a lot of problems for police," Frolic said.
He said there is a chance the government might allow owners to keep them locked up in their homes under a "grandfather clause" similar to rules that let owners keep older, collectible firearms.
Canadian owners of a snubnosed handgun seized by police at a crime scene or from a criminal could be charged under the Firearms Act for improperly disposing of a gun. And they face up to 15 years in a U.S. jail, under American gun-smuggling laws, if they sold one illegally in that country.
Smuggling or selling guns back into the U.S. "is kind of like smuggling coke into Colombia," OPP Det. Steve Horwood observed.
At the fourth annual firearms conference, 125 Canadian and U.S. cops and agents from as far as B.C. and California shared strategies, gun crime trends and stressed the need to trace firearms from crime scenes to the sellers.
"If you don't learn from the history of that gun, you're going to get more guns from that source on the streets," ATF special agent Raymond Rowley said.
LAWS HELP COPS
Rowley said tougher Canadian registration laws have helped police trace crime guns back to sellers in the U.S., where regulations governing gun sales vary dramatically between states.
"Ontario is very unique in that they trace all the guns they seize," said Krieghbaum, one of two ATF attaches whose full-time presence in Canada was credited at the conference with aiding weapons-tracing in both countries.
"Guns haven't really been a problem in Canada until about 10 years ago," the OPP's Horwood said, adding his unit traced 329 crime-linked firearms in 1999, including 220 handguns.
Frolic said, "We're the only province to have its own gun unit and that's because of the numbers (of firearms) we have." ATF agents said up to 85% of "crime guns" in Canada are U.S.-made.
Any police force in Canada can apply to the Canadian Firearms Centre in Ottawa for copies of permits, which identify make, model, calibre, owner and serial number.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]]
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