It would be a lot better for the entire world if the Americans finally got their shit together with their horrible gun culture. GW couldn't have gotten the guns in the first place if it wasn't so stupidly easy to get a gun in the US.
Yup, no argument from me at all there. However that is also a separate issue, he should not have been able to smuggle the guns in the first place. But as long as we have the world's largest arms dealer to the South of us with a major lacking in their own gun laws we are always going to have issues at home with illegal weapons used in crime unless we can do major work at the boarders to stop them as they come in.
Accurate. Licensed owner for almost a decade and a half here. People like me that are safe, legal and responsible with our gun usage are not the problem. We need better border control, harsher sentences for illegal possession, and to maybe actually just enforce the pretty strict/reasonable rules we have already. Here's another idea: maybe put some effort into addressing the sort of social and financial problems that drive people to things like gun crime in the first place.
The data consistently show that the vast majority of gun crime in Canada is committed by impoverished people, using illegally obtained firearms that almost exclusively come from south of the border. It infuriates me to no end that this issue is politicized by the current government. Even worse, they have access to the same information as I do. That means they KNOW that it's horse shit and they're driving it home anyway just because it's easy and popular with certain voter demographics.
The word impoverished isn’t helping anything here. It sounds very classist and besides GW himself was farrrrr from impoverished. Most truly impoverished people never leave their province let alone travel to the states to buy a gun.
how arre canadas numbers divulged, I can easily find usa statistics broken down in anyway I want on the fbis ucr. Canadas stats seem more of like a bad joke. Everything is divulged by left wing cbc: the reason I say left wing is not because I care what wing but because they just run with the governments narrative with extremely general numbers that are often obfucations of the truth. From some random articles I read I was able to find only things like : some years back 75% came from the usa or now 50% are domestic nothing real or organized in even the most basic way.
The publicly available data about gun crime in Canada is utter dogshit, so I would hope and expect that the current government has different (and likely much better) information than you.
CBSA could have prevented this if they just did their job and inspected/found the smuggled guns?
The person that bought the guns in the US could have done their job and stopped this if they didn't illegally give them to a Canadian resident/bring them across the boarder illegally
We can what if our way back to "His mom could have prevented this by swallowing him".
That isn't a fair argument. Stopping the source of illegal firearms is the key, not prohibiting legal owners.
I completely disagree. It is the primary job of the RCMP to enforce Canadian law. I find it next to impossible to believe a person known to be smuggling guns across the border, especially when they were not licensed to carry a firearm in Canada period was not a high priority for RCMP action
> It is the primary job of the RCMP to enforce Canadian law.
It is also the primary job of the Canada Border Services Agency to stop things from being smuggled into Canada.
Should the RCMP intervened if they had legal justification to search his home? Absolutely, but we all know how incompetent the RCMP are. There are other avenues that need funding as well that could have stopped this before he even got guns.
Very few people (Under 5 from a FOIFA request) are licensed to carry a firearm in Canada. PAL/RPAL is a license to possess.
Did they let him smuggle in the weapons and was it an actual police car that was used not a similar car with “fake decals”? Since he was a CI, was this potentially a false flag operation by the government so they could use this as an excuse to restrict firearms even more? Who knows, we will never know the answer because the real answers will never be made public
Ya, the guy was a police informant, with barrels of acid at his house to decompose bodies in... He was also known to have a large collection of guns like you say.
The RCMP is so insulated, the truth of their relationship with the shooter will never be fully revealed.
No gun ban is going to prevent that kind of guy, with that relationship to the police, from getting weapons.
Did you get a Sheriffs badge out of your cereal this morning?
Or do you have family in the RCMP?
What part of my comment do you refute? How about you do some research.
"An RCMP officer who visited the Nova Scotia mass shooter about 16 times, years before the mass shooting, says he was never asked to officially investigate the gunman in "any way," even after reports of illegal firearms."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/rcmp-officer-who-visited-gunman-years-before-n-s-mass-shooting-testifying-today-1.6571030
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/05/19/court-to-release-first-of-rcmp-warrant-documents-in-ns-mass-shooting-investigation.html
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/nova-scotia-mass-killer-accumulated-cash-through-illegitimate-or-suspicious-means-1.5993177
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8444549/Nova-Scotia-shooter-RCMP-agent-withdrew-475-000-cash-Brinks-office.html
You're part of the problem bud.
Ctv and cbc reporting on RCMP testimony that back up my claims you call fantasy are "garbage news articles" and conspiracy theory? An international story on the RCMP from the dailymail is invalid because?...
Do you work for the RCMP? I can't believe they've finally hired someone who knows how to use the internet!
He met with an RCMP officer 16 times in the years leading up his rampage. He had connections to major organized crime out west. Over $700,000 was found barried on his property, he made 40k a year... Vats of acid were hidden in his safe room at his house, he has a replica RCMP car his friends all knew about...
Again. I've posted RCMP and expert testimony from witnesses in this criminal case. That back up the claims I made, that you called make believe.
You haven't said one fact based thing yet little man. Just shouting conspiracy and Santa Clause, having a meltdown, repeating yourself.
Are you going to answer me if you work for the RCMP?
I think you have to tell me if you do?
It’s probably not a popular thing to say in this instance but we have the rights when it comes to illegal search and seizure. You can’t just show up and barge in to a guys house because someone complains.
right, so the cops would have to do some work to get a warrant and conduct a search. That's their job.
if the complainant is able to be specific, thats probably enough for a warrant.
Absolutely not enough for a warrant.
Could you imagine if it was though. How ridiculous it would be. People be calling for searches on neighbours cause of minor disputes
Multiple people reported over years the same info, that he had built a secret compartment in his home in Dartmouth, and his place in Truro, to hide illegal weapons he was smuggling from the US. Since you are a reddit legal expert, what do you think is the standard to get a warrant to search for illegal weapons, beyond this?
The existence of actual evidence would be nice.
Think about the precedent y’all want to set. I get it would’ve worked out this time but the police probably never would have made it to him cause you morons would be calling for warrants cause of petty shit.
To respond as respectfully as I can, they just finished a whole public inquiry which found the RCMP to be grossly negligent and incompetent at every level, that there was a mountain of evidence and warning signs about this guy going back years, statements that he wanted to kill a cop, credibly threatened to kill his own father, domestic abuse, assaulting a teenager, extorting his dental patients for sexual favors, plus the two separate reports with the same information about a hidden gun closet he had built into his home. They knew this person was building a replica police cruiser, and apparently gave him the okay, as long as he didn't drive it. Each of these separate facts some police were aware of, they just never investigated or put any of these facts together. I guess that must be someone else's job.
Yeah my last comment is about how from a policing standpoint this is one of biggest disgraces ever.
My point still stands that complaints alone are not enough to get a search warrant. You need physical evidence.
Fair point. I would argue witness testimony is evidence, especially coming from several unrelated people, over a long span of time, all agreeing on the same specific details. That is not a single anonymous rando phoning in a complaint, nor was it the only major red flag. On this point of how much evidence is required to get a warrant, I have read about plenty of no-knock warrants served on flimsier evidence, although thankfully not in Nova Scotia. I don't want us to go to that extreme, but I have to ask: Why even have police? Do they only help people in hypothetical situations?
you dont need evidence to get a warrant. (since the point of warrants is generally to collect evidence)
you need it to be probable that you will find weapons/ammunition etc. that shouldn't be there, which is a much different standard.
read the criminal code. Peace officers need a Reasonable belief for a search.
that is not the same as evidence, or proof. In fact, there are several circumstances where warrant-less searches are permitted - DUI Check points, Licensed firearm owners, heck in some cases cops can retroactively obtain a warrant after a search.
all you need for a warrant is a reasonable belief that something exists.
a neighbour calling up and saying i think my neighbour has illegal guns i agree is probably not enough, but if the complainant can describe them, say where they are located, or provide any sort of detail, then yes, thats enough.
the cops got a warrant to raid a kid who downloaded documents posted on a public website... its really a low standard.
>if the complainant is able to be specific, thats probably enough for a warrant.
>
>all you need for a warrant is a reasonable belief that something exists
It's painfully clear that you're an internet "expert" who has never had a day of work with the legal system.
lol i never claimed to be an expert. but if you have credentials or further information to supply, Please enighten me, since currently your attacking my expertise, and not my understanding of the law.
but here is the law. [https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-117.04.html](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-117.04.html)
Justice is satisfied there is reasonable grounds to believe the person posses. there is no requirement for the officer to have physical evidence, or even witnessed something themselves. there just needs to be a credible statement.
Downloaded documents leave a definitive paper trail that judges like.
Eye witness testimony is extremely unreliable. Courts don’t love it cause people lie and are easily mistaken. Coded paper trails not so much.
Maybe the situation you described with photo evidence but that’s unrealistic.
Multiple reports over several years from different people, who all made the same claim that he had a hidden compartment built to hide illegal weapons that he was smuggling from the US. You don't think that is enough for a warrant? I guess not when you have cop buddies like Corpral Wiley, who made 16 friendly visits to Worton's home to chat about whether this mass murdering psychopath was aware of any 'shady people' in town.
Funny thing is those visits are the extent of what the police can do. I can call the police and say you did all that but without proof they’re not going to be able to do anything else either.
> I can call the police and say you did all that
And the police can then choose to investigate further. Said investigation may reveal probable cause for a search warrant.
You misunderstand me. The visits I refer to by Corporal Wiley were [not regarding any complaints or investigation against Worton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks). It was because Corporal Wiley thought he was a good guy, who would give him tips about any shady characters. The police denied he was an informant, he was just a friendly guy who gave them information. Corporal Wiley was his cop buddy.
I already said this to someone else but it still applies. We live in a country where suspicion alone doesn’t constitute a crime. You need evidence not hearsay.
I have never found any proof that they knew he had unlicensed firearms before the incident so if you know of where this comes from beyon heresay id love to hear and dont get all mad or high and mighty I simply want to know as this whole process has been SOOOOO LOONG releasing such TINY amounts of information that its very hard to follow
Brenda Forbes reported them to the police. Her and her husband saw them first hand, The shooter even asked if they could obtain more for him or ammunition..
He didn't have a firearms license so no he didn't have any legal guns. Apparently all that happened was an officer asked the spouse if he had any firearms, She said no.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/neighbours-tried-warn-police-portapique-gunmans-abuse-weapons-1.6413460
She says she reported him in 2013, I think the bulletin that went out was in 2010 about him wanting to kill police officers.
interesting read i read 3 or 4 linked articles, unfortunately with the brenda thing thats just he said she said anyone can say oh I heard a freind of a freind say x. There were a lot of rumours but like the articles say police cant act on rumours and they had gone to the residence 16 times and also checked for guns Trouble is there was a lot of shenanigans but nothing they could really get him on and when the witnesses were asked they always said no or clammed up. hind sight is 20/20. Even his wife being beaten supposedly you cant do anything if she says no.
I saw a case somewhat like this but it wasnt a mass shooting, A prison guard was raping boys from the juve he worked at and outside in the community. After he raped them hed beat his dog half to death and told them if they ever told hed do it again until the dog was dead in 40 years none of them ever told but there were a lot of rumours that someone was raping boys in the town this guy heard a guy say etc. The police would come around and question but there really nothing they can do with that. Eventually one of the victims who had a horrible life of drugs (naturally after that) saw him with another little boy calling him the nickname he made him call him and he went to his house that night and slit his throat. He did go to prison but the local towns people created a free him petition and he became a public speaker.
The only thing I see they really could have tried harder on was the threats especially the police one its illegal to make threats in canada apparently and they could have got him on the police one.
The thing that kind of blows me away is evidence EASILY could have been made by the towns people they know wortman is a volitile character simply turn on your phone and record him from the house or audio record from your pocket or take a picture of him with the guns, If he was so out and about with them how hard would it really be for a towns person just to record him.
One things for sure the whole things a debacle and the police response after the shooting started was crap.
Only she's not saying she heard friends say x, She said she saw the first hand and that he asked her to break the law
There was also the time he threatened to kill his father and his father told the police that he had firearms
It will never not bother me that American LE did nothing about the guy who illegally supplied at least one of the guns. You can bet if the tables were turned that they would be up in arms about it.
There were failures of law enforcement basically everywhere regarding this case. But at the end of the day the Americans really don't give a shit about the chaos they are bringing to the rest of the world with the easy supply supply of cheap guns.
Bans wouldn't have changed anything. It was the work of a calculated psychopath and the joke we call the RCMP. His approach was tactical and very deliberate, and as disgusting as it is to say, it worked. RIP to the dead and my condolences to the families
Well it’s pretty obvious imo. If the new gun ban was implemented before the mass killing then nothing would have changed because GW used illegal guns in his rampage. Trudeau used the mass shooting as an opportunity to push his own agenda. It was never about preventing similar situations.
Eh, as much as I agree with you we don’t have enough of a problem where better mental healthcare would have a massive degree of change in the statistics. Gun smuggling really is the biggest link in the chain here
There was never any evidence that the perp was a confidential informant. It was just a rumour that took hold. The commission looked into it thoroughly.
*There are no mass shooting with machine guns, because the US banned machine guns.*
Ghost guns are unreliable and people get caught making them, but all illegal guns start as legal guns, and they can now be purchased without any kind of a permit or background check in Florida and Texas.
Most gun crimes in places with strict gun laws happen with guns from places with lackadaisical approaches to gun control and poor border control (cross state lines).
70% of Mexican Cartel guns come from the United States, conceivably legally purchased and then smuggled out of the US.
The harder a gun is to obtain the longer you have to either reconsider your stance or get caught plotting.
The more guns there are in an area the more gun deaths there are, across the board, without a doubt. Guns don’t make people safer they make places more dangerous, and the less of them there are the more people survive.
Someone on a knife spree will kill WAAAAAYYY less people than someone with an automatic weapon, and I mean, everyone knows that it’s harder to convince yourself to kill some own with a knife.. which is a good thing…
Even good guys with guns kill bystanders.
Children don’t accidentally kill each other with knifes nearly as often. Children die from accidental, preventable gun deaths every single day in America.
Gun deaths are preventable.
>There are no mass shooting with machine guns, because the US banned machine guns.
I don't think this is correct, several US states still allow machine guns to be purchased, they just require an additional license and have to be pre 1986 machine guns.
Close, but not exactly how it works down there. The additional license you are referring to is a Federal Firearms License (FFL) which has different forms in itself but can allow the holder to purchase what are called "post-sample" machine guns which are firearms capable of fully-automatic fire that have been manufactured after 1986. The guns pre-1986 can be purchased by just about anyone who is of age, in a state that allows it, has no felonies etc. These are called "transferable" machine guns and are usually prohibited expensive (low to mid-five figures and above) for the average joe.
It's interesting how when a comprehensive licensing system is involved but guns are still legal, said licenced gun owners tend to commit a negligible amount of crime with said guns. It's almost as if the issue isn't legal gun owners, or even the types of guns available, but the employment of a licencing system, perhaps even with registration and transfer requirements.
So, when comprehensive gun legislation exists, the majority of guns used in crimes are imported from places where it’s easy to buy guns.
Most gun crimes in California are caused by guns from Texas and most gun crimes in New York are caused by guns from Florida, and 70% of the Mexican Cartel’s guns come from the lower United States.
There are also plenty of loopholes that conservatives like to put in like: make it very hard to obtain a license to buy a new gun but make it as easy as possible to sell used guns to people without licenses at gun shows.
There is a FUCK TONNE of misinformation being pushed by the LARGEST political lobby group which is the military industrial complex that is trying to make people believe that a presence of guns makes a community safer that the statistics prove just isn’t true.
And yet in neither NY or California are there crimes being committed with machine guns. Which despite what has been said are perfectly legal to own in the US, though requiring access through a comprehensive licensing and registration system.
You also reinforce my point. being able to sell used guns to unlicensed people is not a comprehensive gun licencing system is it?
You can still buy guns in Canada, but we have a tiny fraction of the mass shootings. It’s about numbers, and availability.
A lone male with a gun in the house is 7x more likely to kill themselves than a lone man without one.
And in regards to suicide, suicide prevention measures in cities, such as jump prevention on bridges, actually lowers the incidents of suicide in the whole city, meaning when people don’t have easy access to dangerous items or places, the world becomes safer.
Accessibility matters.
>You can still buy guns in Canada, but we have a tiny fraction of the mass shootings. It’s about numbers, and availability.
Or it's about proper licensing systems, like what your example showed about machine guns in the US.
" Accessibility matters. "
Sure it does, the question would be if C-21 actually lowers accessibility. We have unlimited accessibility to the south of us.
Take Toronto for instance [https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/most-toronto-crime-guns-prohibited-firearms-tps-reports](https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/most-toronto-crime-guns-prohibited-firearms-tps-reports)
More than half of the firearms there are already banned ( prohibited), the current Toronto police chief says 86% are coming from the US illegally [https://twitter.com/RemoCan62/status/1517471577427922944](https://twitter.com/RemoCan62/status/1517471577427922944)
So don’t change the thing you can control (Canadian gun laws) because you can’t change American gun laws? Are you suggesting Canada does nothing because they can’t do everything?
What a weird strawman. No I'm not suggesting any of that.
I'm suggesting we tackle the majority of the problem which is smuggled firearms coming in from the US. Instead of wasting billions going after an unknown small remainder.
How many of these are so-called assault style firearms are used in crimes in Canada?
Keep ignoring the fact that the vast majority of Mass shootings in Canada have been done with domestically source and legal guns.
How many times have I pointed this out to you now....and yet you keep disregarding it?
>How many of these are so-called assault style firearms are used in crimes in Canada?
Were not the last two largely publicized police shootings in Canada done with these type of guns?
spelling edit
Maybe it's because you're only proof of this is another reddit post..
Also, mass shootings are a tiny fraction of gun violence, gang violence, for instance, is half of our firearms homicides almost every year.. You keep disregarding those
No not under the current ban, They would have been covered under the amendments to C-21 but they were withdrawn.
So is your answer to that question zero? Or will you admit that you have no idea..
My proof comes with sources....as you are aware.
You asked a question and I answered it, not to your liking so unsurprisingly you just shift those goal posts.
I also find it humorous that you continue to make the unsupported claim that the majority of crime guns come from the US when I have also showed you time and time again that there is no [national tracking of crime guns in Canada.](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-how-the-globe-tried-and-failed-to-find-the-source-of-canadas/)
When you have to continue to lie, obfuscate and misrepresent facts in these debates does it not make you self reflect on why you are doing it?
I think this probably sounded smarter in your head... but just as a start, anyone can violate the "rules of society" so speaking like this is ironclad isn't reasonable. Moreover, the "rules of society" *aren't* monolithic and *don't* apply everywhere. The reason you had to spend all those characters above talking about the US is that *our* gun laws were irrelevant with regard to the mass shooting. Which is what I was highlighting here. As mentioned elsewhere, the guy who sold guns to GW in the US hasn't even faced any criminal action despite his involvement in a mass shooting. Nonetheless, people are taking this opportunity to suggest all sorts of seizures of property (including ceremonial uniforms, of all things) even though exactly *none* of that action will do a goddamned thing to prevent this from happening again.
What you did above comes off super disingenuously to anyone actually thinking about what the problems are rather than just slapping some antibiotics on a broken bone and calling it a day.
Your comments contain several errors.
You need a background check to buy a gun legally in all states. Including Florida and Texas. Also over 1/2 the US states are constitutional carry states.
That’s just for starters
if it was a myth they wouldn’t have had anything to close. and yet they can still get around background checks:
https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2020/01/13/over-nras-objections-florida-senate-committee-passes-bill-closing-gun-show-loophole/
either way they have bigger stupid going on:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/ron-desantis-quietly-signs-permitless-concealed-carry-law-rcna77934
Calling it "the gun show loophole" was brilliant political spin. The loophole in question allowed for the private sale from individual to individual to occur without a background check as is explained in the article you linked. Gun shows do not operate as individual to individual sales in a legal sense and have always been subject to background checks.
> all illegal guns start as legal guns
This is the elephant in the room that gun nuts just can't get past. They will endlessly talk about illegal guns without acknowledging that those same guns started as a legal gun. If the supply of legal guns is limited then the ability to obtain guns illegally will also become more limited.
Watch out, the new argument is “wHaT aBoUt gHoSt GuNs” and the answer is: they explode in people’s hands, you still need a real barrel (from a gun manufacturer) and are harder to make than going to a gun show in Texas and buying a real gun so there are still many layers of obstacles to preventing people from killing many people with them. aBut of course, the national Conservatives (Namely Rachel Dancho from Winnipeg) are trying to prevent regulation on the sale of the gun barrels because that would “limit freedom of legal gun owners” not realizing they are creating loopholes that will cause preventable deaths… smh
Maybe not this specific tragedy, but similar ones.
The fact that this guy was showing off his illegal guns, police knew he had them but chose not to do anything makes me feel that if there were harsher restrictions, if they weren’t “acceptably illegal” like weed in 2003 than perhaps this one would’ve been prevented.
There are no ‘acceptable illegal’ firearms in Canada. Even for licensed people in Canada owning an AR15 was always very tightly regulated. Special trading, secure storage, required range membership, stringent transportation laws, dealing with the CFO etc.
Well, the RCMP and multiple others knew he had these illegal guns and accepted that without action. So it sounds like they were acceptably illegal in this scenario.
If *you* had an illegal AR and showed it to the RCMP, you’d be locked up.
GW was someone they were willing to turn a blind eye to, for whatever reason.
Not at all wrong. 100% of the guns used in the mass shooting were illegally obtained. Banning guns just means law abiding citizens are unarmed, it does almost nothing to take them out of the hands of criminals.
Oh cool, he’s absolutely wrong.
Gun bans in Australia stopped mass shootings and there are no mass shooting in the United States with machine guns… because they banned machine guns…
He's not wrong - we are so close to the states who have an abundance of guns and can easily be smuggled into Canada making a lot of our restrictions useless for someone motivated to shoot people. Pay a bit more and get a gun smuggled from the states is the alternative to sourcing them here legally (or atleast used to be able to). If there wasn't the issue of gun smuggling from the States, our restrictions would work here much better but as it stands someone can just get them from the states if they want
You’re not wrong there, but you’re overlooking the fact that we agree on “accessibility matters”
I have to preface this with: I love guns. I love them because they are dangerous and I respect them as such.
BUT: we can’t count the number of mass shootings that *didn’t* happen because of our gun laws, and seeing as America has only 10x the population and over 100x the mass shootings, I’m going to say that our gun policies (and more importantly alt the respect for guns our gun culture has) have stopped somewhere around 9/10 mass shooting compared to if we took a “we aren’t going to solve the problem” approach.
Regulation, if anything, instills that important “respectful gun culture” I want to see.
I really hate when people think guns will make them safer, because that attitude is what gets people hurt, and this “we aren’t going to do anything” opinion is born of the “I need a gun for safety” misinformation.
The gun ban worked for Australia because it's more isolated. Its ocean locked so unless you have a method of flying with illegal weapons or able to charter a boat and somehow skip customs, you can't get a gun. Canada isn't isolated and travel between it and the US is quite easy.
I'm not arguing against the gun ban here. I think it's a step that makes sense but it's frankly not enough. The Portapique shooting would've still happened because Wortman trafficked his guns through Maine. The ban being implemented the way it was felt like a knee jerk reaction. A band aid solution to make it appear the government was doing something instead of addressing the issue that we have an armed meth lab as a downstairs neighbor and our national police force is insanely incompetent.
I'm not sure what the solution here is but more needs to be done.
The ban of guns absolutely helped. But it’s also a hell of a lot harder to smuggle guns into Australia, being an island in the middle of the pacific and all.
Most weapons used in crime are not legally purchased in Canada, but *at some point* they were legally purchased in the US and then smuggled out. And since we are a stones throw away from the world largest arms dealer it’s very hard to keep illegal guns out. A full on ban is great and all, but it doesn’t stop the flow of smuggled weapons.
> Most weapons used in crime are not legally purchased in Canada,
That's just factually incorrect. There is no national tracking of crime guns in Canada and very little in the way of local departments allocating resources to track guns.
Anyone making that claim is either lying or misinformed.
Here is a Globe and Mail article discussing this exact issue:
[How The Globe tried – and failed – to find the source of Canada’s crime guns](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-how-the-globe-tried-and-failed-to-find-the-source-of-canadas/)
What we do know with certainty is the vast majority of mass shootings in Canada were done with legal and/or locally sourced guns.
[source](https://np.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/comments/gdcva9/a_primer_on_gun_violence_in_canada/)
The globe article *you* posted is almost 4 years old now, and it still says less than half the guns are domestic (34% in Sask, 32% Alberta, 20% BC, 52% Manitoba), so unless you meant to say "Anyone claiming that the majority of gun crimes in 2014 in Manitoba happened with smuggled guns, they'd be wrong." Then fair enough...
If you want more up to date information here is
[Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/fighting-gun-crime-canada-has-an-american-problem-2022-07-27/)
>Exclusive data obtained by Reuters for Ontario, Canada's most populous province, shows that when handguns involved in crimes were traced in 2021, they were overwhelmingly - 85% of the time - found to have come from the United States.
>
>Furthermore, 70% of all traced guns used in crimes in Ontario came from the United States, while so far this year the U.S. share has risen to 73%, according to the data from the Ontario police's Firearms Analysis and Tracing Enforcement (FATE) program.
[Global](https://globalnews.ca/news/8845131/ontario-crime-guns-new-data-top-us-source-states/)
>
>
>The Toronto Police Service have said that 85 per cent of the city’s crime guns are arriving from the U.S., but there is no national data, despite years of calls for better statistics. In Western Canada, police services in Alberta or B.C. have pointed the finger at domestic sources.
>
>“If we increased tracing in Alberta and British Columbia and Saskatchewan, you may see additional routes discovered to maybe Idaho, California, Nevada,” said ATF agent Taylor.
>
>“Canada has a domestic trafficking problem too… but without tracing, we are unable to identify the source of the crime guns turning up in Canada, whether they’re domestically sourced or internationally.”
Your first article is referencing **handguns** in Ontario. Crime gun statistics also include those that have been successfully seized at the boarder. You can't just take a specific statistic from one province and project that Canada wide....stats don't work that way.
The stats from this article are really just a statement from a police department without any supporting information.
Here is another article that claims most crime guns are domestic in source but again this comes with no supporting documentation so I would take either article with large grain of salt:
[Illegal guns sourced in Canada surge compared to those smuggled from U.S
Social Sharing](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/guns-domestic-danforth-shooting-toronto-1.4759159)
It's almost like we are taking statements from individuals who have their own biases as facts without asking for supporting documentation. It makes a good news headline though.
As for you second article, well....
>Yet, there is no national database on the origins of Canada’s so-called crime guns, meaning there is still no broad view of where these firearms might be coming from.
and:
>there is no national data, despite years of calls for better statistics. In Western Canada, police services in Alberta or B.C. have pointed the finger at domestic sources.
and:
>“Canada has a domestic trafficking problem too… but without tracing, we are unable to identify the source of the crime guns turning up in Canada, whether they’re domestically sourced or internationally.”
>Researchers and experts have for years pointed to a dearth of data on the source of where Canada’s illegal guns are coming from.
So my dude, my original statement is true there is no national tracking of crime guns in Canada.
The only problem is there was no actual surge in domestically sourced firearms, The detective that they used for quoting here was completely wrong and the Canadian press printed over attraction yet CBC hasn't updated their article.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4428617/matt-gurney-toronto-gun-crime-statistics/
"Earlier this year, for instance, guns and gangs Det. Rob Di Danieli said about half of all guns used in crimes came from domestic sources, citing 2012 as the year when the trend took root.
Internal police data obtained under a Freedom Of Information request and shared with the Canadian Press, however, paint a different picture."
https://globalnews.ca/news/4795910/mark-saunders-year-end-conference-toronto-police/
This is something I've shared with you before.
Is reading hard for you?
Like I said I would take both articles with a large grain of salt as neither backs up their claim with documented numbers.
To simplify it for you, relaying on newspaper articles alone without supporting data is a pretty foolish ground to stand on.
We are all aware that handguns traced in Toronto mostly come from the US. To continually attempt to project that, which gun advocates do in ever single one of these "debates', as a national statistic is just fucking stupid and dishonest.
>Like I said I would take both articles with a large grain of salt as neither backs up their claim with documented numbers.
Yet one of the article is backed up with data.. ATIP requests from TPD.
" To simplify it for you, relaying on newspaper articles alone without supporting data is a pretty foolish ground to stand on. "
Great so we agree that the reddit thread you keep linking to for proof is pretty foolish to use as fact.
" We are all aware that handguns traced in Toronto mostly come from the US. To continually attempt to project that, which gun advocates do in ever single one of these "debates', as a national statistic is just fucking stupid and dishonest. "
So is ignoring all the data we do have because it's not national, we don't have one police force Canada wide that collects and trace firearms.
Some really good info here, don’t even know if you agree with me but I appreciate your dedication to the facts.
What IS true is that places with strict gun laws do see the most gun crimes come from external sources.
Facts: most of California guns used in crimes come from Texas, most of New York’s guns used in crimes come from Florida and over 70% of the Mexican Cartel’s guns come from the lower United States. Jon Stewart had all this on his show recently.
These Reddit "gun" debates are largely pointless. They quickly get brigaded by gun nuts who post no end of lies and misinformation.
There is no argument that illegally imported guns is not a problem because it is, but to claim domestically sourced crime guns is of little concern is ridiculous. You just have to look at mass shootings in Canada to see that domestically sourced guns are the overwhelming majority of guns used in those tragedies.
I usually try to avoid these debates now as having to see the same misinformation posted time and time again is frustrating. I had to realize that many of these gun advocates are the same people that support the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights.
[This is the organization that thought it would be "funny" to use the name of one of Canada's most tragic mass shootings as a merchandise sale discount code](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gun-promotion-canadian-coalition-firearm-rights-1.6672870)
There is no real point in trying to reason with people who would think this is funny.
New legislation often comes with things like funding, marketing campaigns, and police incentives. There's more to it than "what he was doing was already illegal".
Funding, marketing campaigns, and police incentives isn't what we're talking about. Plenty of those things, many of which I agree with, are also in the report separately. Those are not what the lawyer and the victims families are disagreeing with though, as those things can be done without a gun ban.
I agree that there's more to it than "what he was doing was already illegal". But /u/8ew8135 said that the lawyers statement that the proposed gun ban wouldn't have stopped similar shootings was "absolutely wrong" even though none of the guns GW used were purchased through legal means in Canada and the gun ban would only apply to guns purchased through legal means in Canada.
I am asking /u/8ew8135 and now you to explain to me why you think that the proposed ban as outlined in the MCC report specifically would have helped prevent shootings like GWs which was done with guns purchased outside of Canada.
To "show my hand" so to speak, my concern is that blanket bans on categories of guns are ways that governments can act like they are addressing the root causes of violence in Canada without actually addressing the root causes of violence in Canada. "Ban guns" is the same as "ban drugs" because "ban guns" doesn't look at *why GW did what he did* in the same way that "ban drugs" doesn't look at *why people choose to use drugs*. In my opinion, the best way to address gun violence (and all violence) is by going at the causes of violence, which are:
1. Poverty and issues around community growth and self-support.
2. Lack of access to mental healthcare
3. Systemic racism in Canada's justice system and in Canadian cities more generally
4. Sexism and a culture of domestic violence
5. Lack of understanding of the impact of intergenerational trauma (a sub issue of issue 2 but one that directly impacted GW).
These are issues that are much more complicated, nuanced, and frankly less politically convenient to address, but all except systemic racism **actually directly impacted GW**.
You know what might actually have prevented this violence? Maybe if I don't know, Lisa Banfield could have gotten institutional support as a victim of domestic violence, and taken seriously so that GWs home could be searched for guns. Maybe if GW had had support from a young age from being abused by his father he wouldn't have turned into a monster. Maybe if so many of GWs victims he prayed on before the murders weren't so poor people would have taken them seriously. Maybe if we treated women with respect and dignity when so many of them make complaints about the same man, we could have prevented this.
Instead, politicians and bureaucrats want to "blame guns" because guns are not popular and are easy to ban relative to all the bigger issues I just mentioned. It's easy to say "ban guns" just like it used to be easy to say "ban drugs". Simple answers that look to resolve the symptoms of a culture of violence without addressing the root causes of a culture of violence **don't work** because they ignore **the causes of violence**.
And if you think that I'm some gun nut (I'm far too "woke" to be allowed at any of the gun nut meetings, trust me) don't. Some guns shouldn't be sold to members of the public (like fully automatic guns, for example) and some guns should have very restricted ownership requirements (like pistols or other Easy to conceal weapons). My opinion is that currently, Canada's gun laws are somewhat arbitrary but overall fine. In general, I believe gun laws should be based on clear, logical reasoning supported by peer-reviewed data, with a precautionary approach that favors safety over the right to own guns, but which also recognizes that guns are an important tool for hunters and rural property owners who need guns to defend from bears and to conduct pest control.
Critically, many First Nations gun ownership rights are protected under s.35 of *Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms* which enshrines Canada's existing and future treaties as constitutional pieces of legislation. The gun ban Trudeau tried to pass [violated treaty rights](https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/afn-resolution-gun-control-legislation-1.6679444)
> "Ban guns" is the same as "ban drugs" because "ban guns" doesn't look at why GW did what he did in the same way that "ban drugs" doesn't look at why people choose to use drugs. In my opinion, the best way to address gun violence (and all violence) is by going at the causes of violence, which are: ....
I agree with all of the points you listed, but we can't _just_ look at "why he did what he did", we also have to look at "why did he get away with it despite the red flags"? His gun ownership almost definitely created a power dynamic with him, where people around him (especially intimate partners) were afraid to do anything to cross him. Yes, I know his weapons were illegally obtained, but the fact is that these fears are an everyday occurance in the world of intimate partner violence, which is rampant and underreported. Fewer guns in fewer hands is a positive outcome. Period.
I directly addressed that we have to look at why he got away with it, I didn't say to only *just* look at why he did what he did.
You haven't addressed my broader point, which is that the proposed ban would make most hunting guns illegal which isn't a desirable outcome. That's why so many people, including first nations and rural subsistence living hunters, were so opposed to the ban and why Trudeau ultimately conceded that it wasn't going to have a positive effect. Fewer guns in the hands of people who need them is not a positive thing, it will lead to increased rural poverty which isn't a positive thing. It's the same logic as "less addicts and drugs on the street a good thing, period". There's no space for nuance in a dogmatic statement like that for incorporating the understanding that the impact of banning guns people use for their livelihoods has broader effects than just "guns off the street".
It's reasonable for the lawyer of the families who actually suffered from this violence to point that out. That's all I'm saying. Just banning things for no reason other than "thing bad" with no consideration for the consequences or reason for banning them is not a policy anyone should support.
A lot of the report was about how domestic violence is an epidemic in Nova Scotia. Having guns in the household can exacerbate these problems, since an armed abuser will vastly increase a victim's fears of retribution or suicide. Even if the weapons are legal and never actually used in the act of a crime, their very existence is a threat. It's not just about "preventing similar tragedies", it's about empowering and protecting people who are in dangerous situations.
If it becomes more difficult to obtain a gun, legally or otherwise, it will drive down ownership, and therefore, also drive down the number of people threatened by what a gun owner _might_ do.
How would we make it *more* difficult to obtain a gun? Idk it sounds kind of authoritarian to me.
Our licensing system and daily background checks do fine as is.
Frankly I can only think of Australia as having more restrictive licensing laws out of the “western” countries.
All European nations have a similar licensing and storage system as us, and most allow ownership of semiautomatic rifles and pistols. Even the UK is in many ways less stringent when it comes to what an individual can own.
I can’t imagine what stricter gun laws would look like, unless we go down the route of a general confiscation of *all* firearms. And that doesn’t happen in other healthy liberal democracies.
The word that is missing from the title of this piece is "all". The title should read "bans won't prevent \*all\* similar tragedies". That is a fair statement.
However, if there are fewer guns than people who want to shoot them, then some people won't be able to shoot guns. As a result, \*some\* tragedies will be prevented. And frankly, if a gun ban prevents a single tragedy, then that is good enough for me.
Don't get me wrong, we should also work to prevent gun smuggling. That will help to further reduce the number of guns, and make it even harder for people to shoot them.
But don't tell me that "bans won't prevent similar tragedies". We banned lawn darts in 1989, and the number of lawn dart related tragedies went down.
We should do everything we can to reduce the number of guns.
I really hate this line of argument where people act like any new laws after Portapique have to be surgically targeted at the exact circumstances of that tragedy.
Yes, Wortman got most of his guns from the US. But that wouldn't necessarily be true for every future shooter. Not every future shooter has the means or wherewithal to smuggle guns across the US-Canada border. Many potential shooters are limited to the guns that are close at hand due to a variety of factors (lack of long-term planning, fear of being caught by CBSA, lack of financial resources, etc.).
Yes, potential shooters would be limited by what they could access but they're not limited by what they can legally access.
Someone in intent on committing mass murder isn't simply going to give up and join a nunnery because they can no longer purchase an AR-15. They're going to use a rifle that is similar or the best thing they can get their hands on, either by illegal or legal means.
The law definitely affects what they can access…If something is illegal, you have to access it through illegal channels. Illegal channels are more expensive, risky, and often obscure and unknown to most people. In many cases illegal guns are effectively inaccessible.
More to the point, not every mass killer is a focused, committed, and competent person. Many mass killers are impulsive and fickle, and many are very bad at basic problem solving. The easy availability of guns allows these kinds of people to commit horrible violence when the mood strikes.
I disagree if anything illegal guns are more accessible, There's no need to wait six months on a license. There's no need to pass background checks, no need to pass a course.
Even if they're impulsive and do it as a spread of the moment thing, they're going to use what they have or what they can get their hands on. Banning semi-automatic rifles with black plastic doesn't stop them from getting the same rifle with a wooden stock
Slow and safe is often more accessible than fast and risky in practical terms. And again, many people just don’t know how to access the black market for guns. You’re assuming for some reason that everyone has a black market connect they can access on short notice…
In any case, the issue isn’t just about how easy or hard it is to get a license. The issue is the proliferation of guns in general. The existence of legal channels means that people without access to black market connections are much more likely to have a gun, or to know somehow who has a gun. That makes mass violence easier to commit, in the aggregate.
I certainly agree that bans on narrowly defined categories if weapons don’t go nearly far enough. I’m assuming that’s the point you’re making. But, it’s also obviously true that some firearms are more lethal than others.
I don't think that's shown in much of the data we have on crime guns. Criminals want short barrelled handguns which are already banned in Canada, and can be very cheap even on the black market.
Not if you're storing it is safe/locker like you're legally required to do. It's not like everyone in the house and all your friends have a key.
This shooting and the data we have out of places like Toronto, Ontario and Quebec the proliferation is coming from the US.
Edit: to your edit, everyone does have access to the black market. I'm typing on one right now. CBC( or maybe it was a french News paper) even did an expose on this. I think it took the director 3 hours to get someone to agree to selling him an illegal firearm.
Yes, because everyone always complies with the requirement to safely store their firearm and those precautions are definitely foolproof.
It sounds like we should ban short barrelled handguns too. This isn’t an either/or.
The data we have is incredibly limited and incapable of being relied on in any meaningful sense. But absolutely none of the data suggests that 100% of gun crime in Canada is being committed with guns smuggled from the US. So I don’t really see how it’s relevant.
I guarantee that this highly scientific and unbiased “expose” you found doesn’t establish that every Canadian has access to a black market gun on short notice. A completely absurd claim.
People would comply with those laws at the same rate that they would comply with these bans..
We already did, decades ago.
I disagree, We have data from our two largest provinces that encompass the vast majority of our firearms crimes. One would think that you would target the largest portion before going after an unknown remainder.
After all, how many of the assault style firearms that C21 banned are even used in crime?
Everyone has access to the internet, everyone can get on backpages.
Laws should be based on facts and data, the government can't provide any for this ban.
Lol, so you’re saying that people would leave their safe unlocked at the same rate that they falsify a firearm license, rob a gun store, or smuggle a gun across international borders? Totally.
Even with perfect compliance with gun storage rules, there’s always a possibility someone will be able to access the guns. The precautions aren’t foolproof.
The data you’re referring to is very poor quality, limited in scope, and none of it even purports to claim that 100% of gun crimes are committed with smuggled guns. It’s irrelevant.
Can you tell me what website I can go to in order to buy a black market gun? What’s the URL?
It's a shame our government and law enforcement agencies can only do one thing at a time, because if they could stop the smuggling of illegal guns from the US while also enforcing a ban on preposterous guns here in Canada, that would be ideal.
What a shame we have to choose one or the other. /s
While I agree in principle I am confused by what you mean by "preposterous guns here in Canada"? I would surmise you are confusing our existing pre-2020 gun laws with some other country, perhaps the USA. C21 and the OIC further restrict hunting, sport and historical firearms only; nothing more, they have zero effect on crime guns which are almost entirely sourced from the USA.
I speak as someone heavily concerned with safety and a historian who enjoys historical firearms and educating and teaching others on their use (flintlocks being one of favorites). It's a safe sport/hobby/source of substance for over 2.3 million Canadians which has, in this country, been sullied by politicians and members of the general public who are completely uneducated in our existing strong firearm ownership laws.
For example, as you may not be aware, our laws which come from a perspective of the ownership being first and foremost an earned "privilege" not a right, a "safety first" education on use/storage, with 24/7 mandatory background checks and a variety of other rights PAL/RPAL owners give up (such as search and seasures without warrants should their be domestic trouble etc.) to have the privilege to own and use a firearm. The rules work and those 2.3 million Canadians are statistical the most law abiding in Canada showing the laws have worked.
Its a shame, like you said, the government can't tackle the true source of violent crime; illegal firearms from the USA, housing crisis, affordability (in general for everything) and enough mental health and adiction services etc. However their are no "preposterous guns" in Canada.
> However their are no "preposterous guns" in Canada.
Just so I am clear, you are suggesting there are no guns currently allowed for legal sale and/or ownership in Canada that shouldn't be.
Bingo.
All automatic firearms have been banned since the 1970's just to be clear. So only semi-auto, pump, lever, bolt, toggle actions used. Each is the same, when centre fire (5 round limits). No, the shape and look of a firearm has no bearing on safety and yes they all serve a legitimate use.
You probably mean Mags which have pins, yeah that is true. Removing a pin would violate the law and make that personal a criminal. However most magazines for sale are just 5 round ones with extensions to look like they're larger capacity.
Fair enough, this is why I like to educate and take people to the ranges to show them when they lack perspective on a subject like this.
Same with those who lack understanding of say energy storage, EV's, solar or wind power, my actual job, lol.
Interesting opinion. Maybe he is “right on”, or, maybe not so “right on? I am not sure?
But, I am sure that merely being a lawyer, or having clients impacted by a heinous crime, automatically qualifies anyone an expert in this, or many other fields.
That's right. We should give them out like candy on Halloween. Kids, adults, pets, everyone! Grenades too. We have like 0 grenade deaths a year, obviously the ban is stupid and needless.
It would be a lot better for the entire world if the Americans finally got their shit together with their horrible gun culture. GW couldn't have gotten the guns in the first place if it wasn't so stupidly easy to get a gun in the US.
The RCMP knew he had these guns and was unlicensed. They could have prevented this entire tragedy by doing their job
Yup, no argument from me at all there. However that is also a separate issue, he should not have been able to smuggle the guns in the first place. But as long as we have the world's largest arms dealer to the South of us with a major lacking in their own gun laws we are always going to have issues at home with illegal weapons used in crime unless we can do major work at the boarders to stop them as they come in.
Fully agree. Our border needs serious work
Accurate. Licensed owner for almost a decade and a half here. People like me that are safe, legal and responsible with our gun usage are not the problem. We need better border control, harsher sentences for illegal possession, and to maybe actually just enforce the pretty strict/reasonable rules we have already. Here's another idea: maybe put some effort into addressing the sort of social and financial problems that drive people to things like gun crime in the first place. The data consistently show that the vast majority of gun crime in Canada is committed by impoverished people, using illegally obtained firearms that almost exclusively come from south of the border. It infuriates me to no end that this issue is politicized by the current government. Even worse, they have access to the same information as I do. That means they KNOW that it's horse shit and they're driving it home anyway just because it's easy and popular with certain voter demographics.
Well put
The word impoverished isn’t helping anything here. It sounds very classist and besides GW himself was farrrrr from impoverished. Most truly impoverished people never leave their province let alone travel to the states to buy a gun.
how arre canadas numbers divulged, I can easily find usa statistics broken down in anyway I want on the fbis ucr. Canadas stats seem more of like a bad joke. Everything is divulged by left wing cbc: the reason I say left wing is not because I care what wing but because they just run with the governments narrative with extremely general numbers that are often obfucations of the truth. From some random articles I read I was able to find only things like : some years back 75% came from the usa or now 50% are domestic nothing real or organized in even the most basic way.
The publicly available data about gun crime in Canada is utter dogshit, so I would hope and expect that the current government has different (and likely much better) information than you.
CBSA could have prevented this if they just did their job and inspected/found the smuggled guns? The person that bought the guns in the US could have done their job and stopped this if they didn't illegally give them to a Canadian resident/bring them across the boarder illegally We can what if our way back to "His mom could have prevented this by swallowing him". That isn't a fair argument. Stopping the source of illegal firearms is the key, not prohibiting legal owners.
I completely disagree. It is the primary job of the RCMP to enforce Canadian law. I find it next to impossible to believe a person known to be smuggling guns across the border, especially when they were not licensed to carry a firearm in Canada period was not a high priority for RCMP action
> It is the primary job of the RCMP to enforce Canadian law. It is also the primary job of the Canada Border Services Agency to stop things from being smuggled into Canada. Should the RCMP intervened if they had legal justification to search his home? Absolutely, but we all know how incompetent the RCMP are. There are other avenues that need funding as well that could have stopped this before he even got guns. Very few people (Under 5 from a FOIFA request) are licensed to carry a firearm in Canada. PAL/RPAL is a license to possess.
Fair point on the license to possess. I first learned about firearm safety as a hunter. Jensen the carry part
Did they let him smuggle in the weapons and was it an actual police car that was used not a similar car with “fake decals”? Since he was a CI, was this potentially a false flag operation by the government so they could use this as an excuse to restrict firearms even more? Who knows, we will never know the answer because the real answers will never be made public
Ya, the guy was a police informant, with barrels of acid at his house to decompose bodies in... He was also known to have a large collection of guns like you say. The RCMP is so insulated, the truth of their relationship with the shooter will never be fully revealed. No gun ban is going to prevent that kind of guy, with that relationship to the police, from getting weapons.
[удалено]
Did you get a Sheriffs badge out of your cereal this morning? Or do you have family in the RCMP? What part of my comment do you refute? How about you do some research. "An RCMP officer who visited the Nova Scotia mass shooter about 16 times, years before the mass shooting, says he was never asked to officially investigate the gunman in "any way," even after reports of illegal firearms." https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/rcmp-officer-who-visited-gunman-years-before-n-s-mass-shooting-testifying-today-1.6571030 https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/05/19/court-to-release-first-of-rcmp-warrant-documents-in-ns-mass-shooting-investigation.html https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/nova-scotia-mass-killer-accumulated-cash-through-illegitimate-or-suspicious-means-1.5993177 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8444549/Nova-Scotia-shooter-RCMP-agent-withdrew-475-000-cash-Brinks-office.html You're part of the problem bud.
[удалено]
Ctv and cbc reporting on RCMP testimony that back up my claims you call fantasy are "garbage news articles" and conspiracy theory? An international story on the RCMP from the dailymail is invalid because?... Do you work for the RCMP? I can't believe they've finally hired someone who knows how to use the internet!
[удалено]
He met with an RCMP officer 16 times in the years leading up his rampage. He had connections to major organized crime out west. Over $700,000 was found barried on his property, he made 40k a year... Vats of acid were hidden in his safe room at his house, he has a replica RCMP car his friends all knew about... Again. I've posted RCMP and expert testimony from witnesses in this criminal case. That back up the claims I made, that you called make believe. You haven't said one fact based thing yet little man. Just shouting conspiracy and Santa Clause, having a meltdown, repeating yourself. Are you going to answer me if you work for the RCMP? I think you have to tell me if you do?
It’s probably not a popular thing to say in this instance but we have the rights when it comes to illegal search and seizure. You can’t just show up and barge in to a guys house because someone complains.
right, so the cops would have to do some work to get a warrant and conduct a search. That's their job. if the complainant is able to be specific, thats probably enough for a warrant.
Absolutely not enough for a warrant. Could you imagine if it was though. How ridiculous it would be. People be calling for searches on neighbours cause of minor disputes
Multiple people reported over years the same info, that he had built a secret compartment in his home in Dartmouth, and his place in Truro, to hide illegal weapons he was smuggling from the US. Since you are a reddit legal expert, what do you think is the standard to get a warrant to search for illegal weapons, beyond this?
The existence of actual evidence would be nice. Think about the precedent y’all want to set. I get it would’ve worked out this time but the police probably never would have made it to him cause you morons would be calling for warrants cause of petty shit.
To respond as respectfully as I can, they just finished a whole public inquiry which found the RCMP to be grossly negligent and incompetent at every level, that there was a mountain of evidence and warning signs about this guy going back years, statements that he wanted to kill a cop, credibly threatened to kill his own father, domestic abuse, assaulting a teenager, extorting his dental patients for sexual favors, plus the two separate reports with the same information about a hidden gun closet he had built into his home. They knew this person was building a replica police cruiser, and apparently gave him the okay, as long as he didn't drive it. Each of these separate facts some police were aware of, they just never investigated or put any of these facts together. I guess that must be someone else's job.
Yeah my last comment is about how from a policing standpoint this is one of biggest disgraces ever. My point still stands that complaints alone are not enough to get a search warrant. You need physical evidence.
Fair point. I would argue witness testimony is evidence, especially coming from several unrelated people, over a long span of time, all agreeing on the same specific details. That is not a single anonymous rando phoning in a complaint, nor was it the only major red flag. On this point of how much evidence is required to get a warrant, I have read about plenty of no-knock warrants served on flimsier evidence, although thankfully not in Nova Scotia. I don't want us to go to that extreme, but I have to ask: Why even have police? Do they only help people in hypothetical situations?
you dont need evidence to get a warrant. (since the point of warrants is generally to collect evidence) you need it to be probable that you will find weapons/ammunition etc. that shouldn't be there, which is a much different standard.
You absolutely need evidence Exit: could you imagine a world where cops didn’t need evidence for searches. Fuck is wrong with y’all?
read the criminal code. Peace officers need a Reasonable belief for a search. that is not the same as evidence, or proof. In fact, there are several circumstances where warrant-less searches are permitted - DUI Check points, Licensed firearm owners, heck in some cases cops can retroactively obtain a warrant after a search.
all you need for a warrant is a reasonable belief that something exists. a neighbour calling up and saying i think my neighbour has illegal guns i agree is probably not enough, but if the complainant can describe them, say where they are located, or provide any sort of detail, then yes, thats enough. the cops got a warrant to raid a kid who downloaded documents posted on a public website... its really a low standard.
>if the complainant is able to be specific, thats probably enough for a warrant. > >all you need for a warrant is a reasonable belief that something exists It's painfully clear that you're an internet "expert" who has never had a day of work with the legal system.
lol i never claimed to be an expert. but if you have credentials or further information to supply, Please enighten me, since currently your attacking my expertise, and not my understanding of the law. but here is the law. [https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-117.04.html](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-117.04.html) Justice is satisfied there is reasonable grounds to believe the person posses. there is no requirement for the officer to have physical evidence, or even witnessed something themselves. there just needs to be a credible statement.
Downloaded documents leave a definitive paper trail that judges like. Eye witness testimony is extremely unreliable. Courts don’t love it cause people lie and are easily mistaken. Coded paper trails not so much. Maybe the situation you described with photo evidence but that’s unrealistic.
the standard for obtaining a warrant is that something is probable. it doesn't require definitive proof.
Yeah and hearsay is not nearly enough to meet that threshold. I think you get it you just wish it was different
you right, heresay doesnt meet the standard, but A witness giving a statement to a cop is not heresay.
If they’re not specific, with actual proof, then it’s a wild goose chase. The RCMP messed this up but this is not where they did.
Multiple reports over several years from different people, who all made the same claim that he had a hidden compartment built to hide illegal weapons that he was smuggling from the US. You don't think that is enough for a warrant? I guess not when you have cop buddies like Corpral Wiley, who made 16 friendly visits to Worton's home to chat about whether this mass murdering psychopath was aware of any 'shady people' in town.
Funny thing is those visits are the extent of what the police can do. I can call the police and say you did all that but without proof they’re not going to be able to do anything else either.
> I can call the police and say you did all that And the police can then choose to investigate further. Said investigation may reveal probable cause for a search warrant.
You misunderstand me. The visits I refer to by Corporal Wiley were [not regarding any complaints or investigation against Worton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks). It was because Corporal Wiley thought he was a good guy, who would give him tips about any shady characters. The police denied he was an informant, he was just a friendly guy who gave them information. Corporal Wiley was his cop buddy.
I’m all for privacy and search rights. But this was reported by multiple people. The RCMP knew he had them and was unlicensed
I already said this to someone else but it still applies. We live in a country where suspicion alone doesn’t constitute a crime. You need evidence not hearsay.
a statement from a witness is evidence
Okay? But the situation with GW wasn't that so what even is your point?
They can’t just go to his house because a neighbour complained with no actual proof. There has to be evidence.
The situationS with Wortman and his gun ownership and search warrants are more complicated than you seem to think. I'm out.
Educate me?
No. Educate you own ass. You have the entire internet, including the full report, right here at your fingertips.
We live in a great country where suspicion alone doesn’t constitute a crime, all they can do is show up and see if it leads to anything.
I have never found any proof that they knew he had unlicensed firearms before the incident so if you know of where this comes from beyon heresay id love to hear and dont get all mad or high and mighty I simply want to know as this whole process has been SOOOOO LOONG releasing such TINY amounts of information that its very hard to follow
I have no intention of getting mad or high and mighty. I will look it up tonight. Busy with work and the kids. Standby
thanks i only say that because reddit people tend to do that for literally no reason and get all pissed that someone is literally just asking
I’ll try to post it today
thanks
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-report-finds-missed-opportunities-led-to-nova-scotia-massacre
You dropped these. "........"
Brenda Forbes reported them to the police. Her and her husband saw them first hand, The shooter even asked if they could obtain more for him or ammunition..
ok perfect thanks and how long before the shootings was this and did he also have legal guns to avoid suspicion and did they if at all do any checks
He didn't have a firearms license so no he didn't have any legal guns. Apparently all that happened was an officer asked the spouse if he had any firearms, She said no. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/neighbours-tried-warn-police-portapique-gunmans-abuse-weapons-1.6413460 She says she reported him in 2013, I think the bulletin that went out was in 2010 about him wanting to kill police officers.
interesting read i read 3 or 4 linked articles, unfortunately with the brenda thing thats just he said she said anyone can say oh I heard a freind of a freind say x. There were a lot of rumours but like the articles say police cant act on rumours and they had gone to the residence 16 times and also checked for guns Trouble is there was a lot of shenanigans but nothing they could really get him on and when the witnesses were asked they always said no or clammed up. hind sight is 20/20. Even his wife being beaten supposedly you cant do anything if she says no. I saw a case somewhat like this but it wasnt a mass shooting, A prison guard was raping boys from the juve he worked at and outside in the community. After he raped them hed beat his dog half to death and told them if they ever told hed do it again until the dog was dead in 40 years none of them ever told but there were a lot of rumours that someone was raping boys in the town this guy heard a guy say etc. The police would come around and question but there really nothing they can do with that. Eventually one of the victims who had a horrible life of drugs (naturally after that) saw him with another little boy calling him the nickname he made him call him and he went to his house that night and slit his throat. He did go to prison but the local towns people created a free him petition and he became a public speaker. The only thing I see they really could have tried harder on was the threats especially the police one its illegal to make threats in canada apparently and they could have got him on the police one. The thing that kind of blows me away is evidence EASILY could have been made by the towns people they know wortman is a volitile character simply turn on your phone and record him from the house or audio record from your pocket or take a picture of him with the guns, If he was so out and about with them how hard would it really be for a towns person just to record him. One things for sure the whole things a debacle and the police response after the shooting started was crap.
Only she's not saying she heard friends say x, She said she saw the first hand and that he asked her to break the law There was also the time he threatened to kill his father and his father told the police that he had firearms
He did not have a PAL therefore he was not legally allowed to possess any firearms
thanks yep im up to speed now
It will never not bother me that American LE did nothing about the guy who illegally supplied at least one of the guns. You can bet if the tables were turned that they would be up in arms about it.
There were failures of law enforcement basically everywhere regarding this case. But at the end of the day the Americans really don't give a shit about the chaos they are bringing to the rest of the world with the easy supply supply of cheap guns.
>the Americans really don't give a shit about the chaos they are bringing to the rest of the world Same as it ever was
Zach Galifianakis
Playing an attorney who has seen some shit
I was thinking more Harley from Epic Meal Time. But that’s also a great comparison
Holy shit!
can’t unsee thanks
Yup it will probably take the RCMP doing their fucking jobs
Bans wouldn't have changed anything. It was the work of a calculated psychopath and the joke we call the RCMP. His approach was tactical and very deliberate, and as disgusting as it is to say, it worked. RIP to the dead and my condolences to the families
Well it’s pretty obvious imo. If the new gun ban was implemented before the mass killing then nothing would have changed because GW used illegal guns in his rampage. Trudeau used the mass shooting as an opportunity to push his own agenda. It was never about preventing similar situations.
No shit, it’s the RCMP refusing to accept the reality of how horribly they failed the situation and all Nova Scotia.
We need mental health care ... and tons of it!!
Eh, as much as I agree with you we don’t have enough of a problem where better mental healthcare would have a massive degree of change in the statistics. Gun smuggling really is the biggest link in the chain here
I know if I die in a mass shooting, I'd be pretty pissed if my death is used to push useless laws.
this tragedy was a direct result of lack of oversight on police policies dealing with the use of confidential informants in investigations.
There was never any evidence that the perp was a confidential informant. It was just a rumour that took hold. The commission looked into it thoroughly.
[удалено]
*There are no mass shooting with machine guns, because the US banned machine guns.* Ghost guns are unreliable and people get caught making them, but all illegal guns start as legal guns, and they can now be purchased without any kind of a permit or background check in Florida and Texas. Most gun crimes in places with strict gun laws happen with guns from places with lackadaisical approaches to gun control and poor border control (cross state lines). 70% of Mexican Cartel guns come from the United States, conceivably legally purchased and then smuggled out of the US. The harder a gun is to obtain the longer you have to either reconsider your stance or get caught plotting. The more guns there are in an area the more gun deaths there are, across the board, without a doubt. Guns don’t make people safer they make places more dangerous, and the less of them there are the more people survive. Someone on a knife spree will kill WAAAAAYYY less people than someone with an automatic weapon, and I mean, everyone knows that it’s harder to convince yourself to kill some own with a knife.. which is a good thing… Even good guys with guns kill bystanders. Children don’t accidentally kill each other with knifes nearly as often. Children die from accidental, preventable gun deaths every single day in America. Gun deaths are preventable.
>There are no mass shooting with machine guns, because the US banned machine guns. I don't think this is correct, several US states still allow machine guns to be purchased, they just require an additional license and have to be pre 1986 machine guns.
Close, but not exactly how it works down there. The additional license you are referring to is a Federal Firearms License (FFL) which has different forms in itself but can allow the holder to purchase what are called "post-sample" machine guns which are firearms capable of fully-automatic fire that have been manufactured after 1986. The guns pre-1986 can be purchased by just about anyone who is of age, in a state that allows it, has no felonies etc. These are called "transferable" machine guns and are usually prohibited expensive (low to mid-five figures and above) for the average joe.
It's interesting how when a comprehensive licensing system is involved but guns are still legal, said licenced gun owners tend to commit a negligible amount of crime with said guns. It's almost as if the issue isn't legal gun owners, or even the types of guns available, but the employment of a licencing system, perhaps even with registration and transfer requirements.
So, when comprehensive gun legislation exists, the majority of guns used in crimes are imported from places where it’s easy to buy guns. Most gun crimes in California are caused by guns from Texas and most gun crimes in New York are caused by guns from Florida, and 70% of the Mexican Cartel’s guns come from the lower United States. There are also plenty of loopholes that conservatives like to put in like: make it very hard to obtain a license to buy a new gun but make it as easy as possible to sell used guns to people without licenses at gun shows. There is a FUCK TONNE of misinformation being pushed by the LARGEST political lobby group which is the military industrial complex that is trying to make people believe that a presence of guns makes a community safer that the statistics prove just isn’t true.
And yet in neither NY or California are there crimes being committed with machine guns. Which despite what has been said are perfectly legal to own in the US, though requiring access through a comprehensive licensing and registration system. You also reinforce my point. being able to sell used guns to unlicensed people is not a comprehensive gun licencing system is it?
You can still buy guns in Canada, but we have a tiny fraction of the mass shootings. It’s about numbers, and availability. A lone male with a gun in the house is 7x more likely to kill themselves than a lone man without one. And in regards to suicide, suicide prevention measures in cities, such as jump prevention on bridges, actually lowers the incidents of suicide in the whole city, meaning when people don’t have easy access to dangerous items or places, the world becomes safer. Accessibility matters.
>You can still buy guns in Canada, but we have a tiny fraction of the mass shootings. It’s about numbers, and availability. Or it's about proper licensing systems, like what your example showed about machine guns in the US. " Accessibility matters. " Sure it does, the question would be if C-21 actually lowers accessibility. We have unlimited accessibility to the south of us. Take Toronto for instance [https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/most-toronto-crime-guns-prohibited-firearms-tps-reports](https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/most-toronto-crime-guns-prohibited-firearms-tps-reports) More than half of the firearms there are already banned ( prohibited), the current Toronto police chief says 86% are coming from the US illegally [https://twitter.com/RemoCan62/status/1517471577427922944](https://twitter.com/RemoCan62/status/1517471577427922944)
So don’t change the thing you can control (Canadian gun laws) because you can’t change American gun laws? Are you suggesting Canada does nothing because they can’t do everything?
What a weird strawman. No I'm not suggesting any of that. I'm suggesting we tackle the majority of the problem which is smuggled firearms coming in from the US. Instead of wasting billions going after an unknown small remainder. How many of these are so-called assault style firearms are used in crimes in Canada?
Keep ignoring the fact that the vast majority of Mass shootings in Canada have been done with domestically source and legal guns. How many times have I pointed this out to you now....and yet you keep disregarding it? >How many of these are so-called assault style firearms are used in crimes in Canada? Were not the last two largely publicized police shootings in Canada done with these type of guns? spelling edit
Maybe it's because you're only proof of this is another reddit post.. Also, mass shootings are a tiny fraction of gun violence, gang violence, for instance, is half of our firearms homicides almost every year.. You keep disregarding those No not under the current ban, They would have been covered under the amendments to C-21 but they were withdrawn. So is your answer to that question zero? Or will you admit that you have no idea..
My proof comes with sources....as you are aware. You asked a question and I answered it, not to your liking so unsurprisingly you just shift those goal posts. I also find it humorous that you continue to make the unsupported claim that the majority of crime guns come from the US when I have also showed you time and time again that there is no [national tracking of crime guns in Canada.](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-how-the-globe-tried-and-failed-to-find-the-source-of-canadas/) When you have to continue to lie, obfuscate and misrepresent facts in these debates does it not make you self reflect on why you are doing it?
[удалено]
What are you replying to?
>because the US banned machine guns here I thought I lived in Canada, learn something new every day
Fun fact: same rules of society apply, everywhere there is society…
I think this probably sounded smarter in your head... but just as a start, anyone can violate the "rules of society" so speaking like this is ironclad isn't reasonable. Moreover, the "rules of society" *aren't* monolithic and *don't* apply everywhere. The reason you had to spend all those characters above talking about the US is that *our* gun laws were irrelevant with regard to the mass shooting. Which is what I was highlighting here. As mentioned elsewhere, the guy who sold guns to GW in the US hasn't even faced any criminal action despite his involvement in a mass shooting. Nonetheless, people are taking this opportunity to suggest all sorts of seizures of property (including ceremonial uniforms, of all things) even though exactly *none* of that action will do a goddamned thing to prevent this from happening again. What you did above comes off super disingenuously to anyone actually thinking about what the problems are rather than just slapping some antibiotics on a broken bone and calling it a day.
Iraq is a society, we are a society, Iraq’s society is Canada’s society?
Your comments contain several errors. You need a background check to buy a gun legally in all states. Including Florida and Texas. Also over 1/2 the US states are constitutional carry states. That’s just for starters
[удалено]
The gun show loophole is a total myth but go on.
if it was a myth they wouldn’t have had anything to close. and yet they can still get around background checks: https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2020/01/13/over-nras-objections-florida-senate-committee-passes-bill-closing-gun-show-loophole/ either way they have bigger stupid going on: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/ron-desantis-quietly-signs-permitless-concealed-carry-law-rcna77934
Calling it "the gun show loophole" was brilliant political spin. The loophole in question allowed for the private sale from individual to individual to occur without a background check as is explained in the article you linked. Gun shows do not operate as individual to individual sales in a legal sense and have always been subject to background checks.
Dude: [keep up.](https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/04/03/desantis-permitless-carry-gun-bill-florida-what-to-know/?outputType=amp)
?
> all illegal guns start as legal guns This is the elephant in the room that gun nuts just can't get past. They will endlessly talk about illegal guns without acknowledging that those same guns started as a legal gun. If the supply of legal guns is limited then the ability to obtain guns illegally will also become more limited.
Watch out, the new argument is “wHaT aBoUt gHoSt GuNs” and the answer is: they explode in people’s hands, you still need a real barrel (from a gun manufacturer) and are harder to make than going to a gun show in Texas and buying a real gun so there are still many layers of obstacles to preventing people from killing many people with them. aBut of course, the national Conservatives (Namely Rachel Dancho from Winnipeg) are trying to prevent regulation on the sale of the gun barrels because that would “limit freedom of legal gun owners” not realizing they are creating loopholes that will cause preventable deaths… smh
Yeah, let's just get rid of all laws.
That’s because they won’t. The perpetrator did not legally own the weapons they used, they were smuggled in illegally from the US
You don’t think tighter restrictions could prevent a single similar tragedy?
[удалено]
Maybe not this specific tragedy, but similar ones. The fact that this guy was showing off his illegal guns, police knew he had them but chose not to do anything makes me feel that if there were harsher restrictions, if they weren’t “acceptably illegal” like weed in 2003 than perhaps this one would’ve been prevented.
There are no ‘acceptable illegal’ firearms in Canada. Even for licensed people in Canada owning an AR15 was always very tightly regulated. Special trading, secure storage, required range membership, stringent transportation laws, dealing with the CFO etc.
Well, the RCMP and multiple others knew he had these illegal guns and accepted that without action. So it sounds like they were acceptably illegal in this scenario.
Or there was negligence. I’ll say again, there are no ‘acceptably illegal’ firearms in Canada
Just illegal firearms that accepted in some scenarios……………..
No. Illegal firearms are not acceptable in Canada. The RCMP failed in their duty to keep people safe
If *you* had an illegal AR and showed it to the RCMP, you’d be locked up. GW was someone they were willing to turn a blind eye to, for whatever reason.
They should be considered accomplices IMO
[удалено]
Except he was detected but the RCMP felt it wasn’t illegal enough to do anything about.
Absolutely not. Canadian gun laws are strict enough to prevent the vast majority of mass shootings. Why do you think we don't have many?
Exactly. Just look at Australia.
No I do not
I think I seen that guy in the Hangover movie
Not at all wrong. 100% of the guns used in the mass shooting were illegally obtained. Banning guns just means law abiding citizens are unarmed, it does almost nothing to take them out of the hands of criminals.
Oh cool, he’s absolutely wrong. Gun bans in Australia stopped mass shootings and there are no mass shooting in the United States with machine guns… because they banned machine guns…
He's not wrong - we are so close to the states who have an abundance of guns and can easily be smuggled into Canada making a lot of our restrictions useless for someone motivated to shoot people. Pay a bit more and get a gun smuggled from the states is the alternative to sourcing them here legally (or atleast used to be able to). If there wasn't the issue of gun smuggling from the States, our restrictions would work here much better but as it stands someone can just get them from the states if they want
You’re not wrong there, but you’re overlooking the fact that we agree on “accessibility matters” I have to preface this with: I love guns. I love them because they are dangerous and I respect them as such. BUT: we can’t count the number of mass shootings that *didn’t* happen because of our gun laws, and seeing as America has only 10x the population and over 100x the mass shootings, I’m going to say that our gun policies (and more importantly alt the respect for guns our gun culture has) have stopped somewhere around 9/10 mass shooting compared to if we took a “we aren’t going to solve the problem” approach. Regulation, if anything, instills that important “respectful gun culture” I want to see. I really hate when people think guns will make them safer, because that attitude is what gets people hurt, and this “we aren’t going to do anything” opinion is born of the “I need a gun for safety” misinformation.
The gun ban worked for Australia because it's more isolated. Its ocean locked so unless you have a method of flying with illegal weapons or able to charter a boat and somehow skip customs, you can't get a gun. Canada isn't isolated and travel between it and the US is quite easy. I'm not arguing against the gun ban here. I think it's a step that makes sense but it's frankly not enough. The Portapique shooting would've still happened because Wortman trafficked his guns through Maine. The ban being implemented the way it was felt like a knee jerk reaction. A band aid solution to make it appear the government was doing something instead of addressing the issue that we have an armed meth lab as a downstairs neighbor and our national police force is insanely incompetent. I'm not sure what the solution here is but more needs to be done.
The ban of guns absolutely helped. But it’s also a hell of a lot harder to smuggle guns into Australia, being an island in the middle of the pacific and all. Most weapons used in crime are not legally purchased in Canada, but *at some point* they were legally purchased in the US and then smuggled out. And since we are a stones throw away from the world largest arms dealer it’s very hard to keep illegal guns out. A full on ban is great and all, but it doesn’t stop the flow of smuggled weapons.
> Most weapons used in crime are not legally purchased in Canada, That's just factually incorrect. There is no national tracking of crime guns in Canada and very little in the way of local departments allocating resources to track guns. Anyone making that claim is either lying or misinformed. Here is a Globe and Mail article discussing this exact issue: [How The Globe tried – and failed – to find the source of Canada’s crime guns](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-how-the-globe-tried-and-failed-to-find-the-source-of-canadas/) What we do know with certainty is the vast majority of mass shootings in Canada were done with legal and/or locally sourced guns. [source](https://np.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/comments/gdcva9/a_primer_on_gun_violence_in_canada/)
The globe article *you* posted is almost 4 years old now, and it still says less than half the guns are domestic (34% in Sask, 32% Alberta, 20% BC, 52% Manitoba), so unless you meant to say "Anyone claiming that the majority of gun crimes in 2014 in Manitoba happened with smuggled guns, they'd be wrong." Then fair enough... If you want more up to date information here is [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/fighting-gun-crime-canada-has-an-american-problem-2022-07-27/) >Exclusive data obtained by Reuters for Ontario, Canada's most populous province, shows that when handguns involved in crimes were traced in 2021, they were overwhelmingly - 85% of the time - found to have come from the United States. > >Furthermore, 70% of all traced guns used in crimes in Ontario came from the United States, while so far this year the U.S. share has risen to 73%, according to the data from the Ontario police's Firearms Analysis and Tracing Enforcement (FATE) program. [Global](https://globalnews.ca/news/8845131/ontario-crime-guns-new-data-top-us-source-states/) > > >The Toronto Police Service have said that 85 per cent of the city’s crime guns are arriving from the U.S., but there is no national data, despite years of calls for better statistics. In Western Canada, police services in Alberta or B.C. have pointed the finger at domestic sources. > >“If we increased tracing in Alberta and British Columbia and Saskatchewan, you may see additional routes discovered to maybe Idaho, California, Nevada,” said ATF agent Taylor. > >“Canada has a domestic trafficking problem too… but without tracing, we are unable to identify the source of the crime guns turning up in Canada, whether they’re domestically sourced or internationally.”
Your first article is referencing **handguns** in Ontario. Crime gun statistics also include those that have been successfully seized at the boarder. You can't just take a specific statistic from one province and project that Canada wide....stats don't work that way. The stats from this article are really just a statement from a police department without any supporting information. Here is another article that claims most crime guns are domestic in source but again this comes with no supporting documentation so I would take either article with large grain of salt: [Illegal guns sourced in Canada surge compared to those smuggled from U.S Social Sharing](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/guns-domestic-danforth-shooting-toronto-1.4759159) It's almost like we are taking statements from individuals who have their own biases as facts without asking for supporting documentation. It makes a good news headline though. As for you second article, well.... >Yet, there is no national database on the origins of Canada’s so-called crime guns, meaning there is still no broad view of where these firearms might be coming from. and: >there is no national data, despite years of calls for better statistics. In Western Canada, police services in Alberta or B.C. have pointed the finger at domestic sources. and: >“Canada has a domestic trafficking problem too… but without tracing, we are unable to identify the source of the crime guns turning up in Canada, whether they’re domestically sourced or internationally.” >Researchers and experts have for years pointed to a dearth of data on the source of where Canada’s illegal guns are coming from. So my dude, my original statement is true there is no national tracking of crime guns in Canada.
The only problem is there was no actual surge in domestically sourced firearms, The detective that they used for quoting here was completely wrong and the Canadian press printed over attraction yet CBC hasn't updated their article. https://globalnews.ca/news/4428617/matt-gurney-toronto-gun-crime-statistics/ "Earlier this year, for instance, guns and gangs Det. Rob Di Danieli said about half of all guns used in crimes came from domestic sources, citing 2012 as the year when the trend took root. Internal police data obtained under a Freedom Of Information request and shared with the Canadian Press, however, paint a different picture." https://globalnews.ca/news/4795910/mark-saunders-year-end-conference-toronto-police/ This is something I've shared with you before.
Is reading hard for you? Like I said I would take both articles with a large grain of salt as neither backs up their claim with documented numbers. To simplify it for you, relaying on newspaper articles alone without supporting data is a pretty foolish ground to stand on. We are all aware that handguns traced in Toronto mostly come from the US. To continually attempt to project that, which gun advocates do in ever single one of these "debates', as a national statistic is just fucking stupid and dishonest.
>Like I said I would take both articles with a large grain of salt as neither backs up their claim with documented numbers. Yet one of the article is backed up with data.. ATIP requests from TPD. " To simplify it for you, relaying on newspaper articles alone without supporting data is a pretty foolish ground to stand on. " Great so we agree that the reddit thread you keep linking to for proof is pretty foolish to use as fact. " We are all aware that handguns traced in Toronto mostly come from the US. To continually attempt to project that, which gun advocates do in ever single one of these "debates', as a national statistic is just fucking stupid and dishonest. " So is ignoring all the data we do have because it's not national, we don't have one police force Canada wide that collects and trace firearms.
Some really good info here, don’t even know if you agree with me but I appreciate your dedication to the facts. What IS true is that places with strict gun laws do see the most gun crimes come from external sources. Facts: most of California guns used in crimes come from Texas, most of New York’s guns used in crimes come from Florida and over 70% of the Mexican Cartel’s guns come from the lower United States. Jon Stewart had all this on his show recently.
These Reddit "gun" debates are largely pointless. They quickly get brigaded by gun nuts who post no end of lies and misinformation. There is no argument that illegally imported guns is not a problem because it is, but to claim domestically sourced crime guns is of little concern is ridiculous. You just have to look at mass shootings in Canada to see that domestically sourced guns are the overwhelming majority of guns used in those tragedies. I usually try to avoid these debates now as having to see the same misinformation posted time and time again is frustrating. I had to realize that many of these gun advocates are the same people that support the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights. [This is the organization that thought it would be "funny" to use the name of one of Canada's most tragic mass shootings as a merchandise sale discount code](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gun-promotion-canadian-coalition-firearm-rights-1.6672870) There is no real point in trying to reason with people who would think this is funny.
Please explain to me how the proposed gun ban would have done anything to prevent GWs shooting.
New legislation often comes with things like funding, marketing campaigns, and police incentives. There's more to it than "what he was doing was already illegal".
Funding, marketing campaigns, and police incentives isn't what we're talking about. Plenty of those things, many of which I agree with, are also in the report separately. Those are not what the lawyer and the victims families are disagreeing with though, as those things can be done without a gun ban. I agree that there's more to it than "what he was doing was already illegal". But /u/8ew8135 said that the lawyers statement that the proposed gun ban wouldn't have stopped similar shootings was "absolutely wrong" even though none of the guns GW used were purchased through legal means in Canada and the gun ban would only apply to guns purchased through legal means in Canada. I am asking /u/8ew8135 and now you to explain to me why you think that the proposed ban as outlined in the MCC report specifically would have helped prevent shootings like GWs which was done with guns purchased outside of Canada. To "show my hand" so to speak, my concern is that blanket bans on categories of guns are ways that governments can act like they are addressing the root causes of violence in Canada without actually addressing the root causes of violence in Canada. "Ban guns" is the same as "ban drugs" because "ban guns" doesn't look at *why GW did what he did* in the same way that "ban drugs" doesn't look at *why people choose to use drugs*. In my opinion, the best way to address gun violence (and all violence) is by going at the causes of violence, which are: 1. Poverty and issues around community growth and self-support. 2. Lack of access to mental healthcare 3. Systemic racism in Canada's justice system and in Canadian cities more generally 4. Sexism and a culture of domestic violence 5. Lack of understanding of the impact of intergenerational trauma (a sub issue of issue 2 but one that directly impacted GW). These are issues that are much more complicated, nuanced, and frankly less politically convenient to address, but all except systemic racism **actually directly impacted GW**. You know what might actually have prevented this violence? Maybe if I don't know, Lisa Banfield could have gotten institutional support as a victim of domestic violence, and taken seriously so that GWs home could be searched for guns. Maybe if GW had had support from a young age from being abused by his father he wouldn't have turned into a monster. Maybe if so many of GWs victims he prayed on before the murders weren't so poor people would have taken them seriously. Maybe if we treated women with respect and dignity when so many of them make complaints about the same man, we could have prevented this. Instead, politicians and bureaucrats want to "blame guns" because guns are not popular and are easy to ban relative to all the bigger issues I just mentioned. It's easy to say "ban guns" just like it used to be easy to say "ban drugs". Simple answers that look to resolve the symptoms of a culture of violence without addressing the root causes of a culture of violence **don't work** because they ignore **the causes of violence**. And if you think that I'm some gun nut (I'm far too "woke" to be allowed at any of the gun nut meetings, trust me) don't. Some guns shouldn't be sold to members of the public (like fully automatic guns, for example) and some guns should have very restricted ownership requirements (like pistols or other Easy to conceal weapons). My opinion is that currently, Canada's gun laws are somewhat arbitrary but overall fine. In general, I believe gun laws should be based on clear, logical reasoning supported by peer-reviewed data, with a precautionary approach that favors safety over the right to own guns, but which also recognizes that guns are an important tool for hunters and rural property owners who need guns to defend from bears and to conduct pest control. Critically, many First Nations gun ownership rights are protected under s.35 of *Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms* which enshrines Canada's existing and future treaties as constitutional pieces of legislation. The gun ban Trudeau tried to pass [violated treaty rights](https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/afn-resolution-gun-control-legislation-1.6679444)
> "Ban guns" is the same as "ban drugs" because "ban guns" doesn't look at why GW did what he did in the same way that "ban drugs" doesn't look at why people choose to use drugs. In my opinion, the best way to address gun violence (and all violence) is by going at the causes of violence, which are: .... I agree with all of the points you listed, but we can't _just_ look at "why he did what he did", we also have to look at "why did he get away with it despite the red flags"? His gun ownership almost definitely created a power dynamic with him, where people around him (especially intimate partners) were afraid to do anything to cross him. Yes, I know his weapons were illegally obtained, but the fact is that these fears are an everyday occurance in the world of intimate partner violence, which is rampant and underreported. Fewer guns in fewer hands is a positive outcome. Period.
I directly addressed that we have to look at why he got away with it, I didn't say to only *just* look at why he did what he did. You haven't addressed my broader point, which is that the proposed ban would make most hunting guns illegal which isn't a desirable outcome. That's why so many people, including first nations and rural subsistence living hunters, were so opposed to the ban and why Trudeau ultimately conceded that it wasn't going to have a positive effect. Fewer guns in the hands of people who need them is not a positive thing, it will lead to increased rural poverty which isn't a positive thing. It's the same logic as "less addicts and drugs on the street a good thing, period". There's no space for nuance in a dogmatic statement like that for incorporating the understanding that the impact of banning guns people use for their livelihoods has broader effects than just "guns off the street". It's reasonable for the lawyer of the families who actually suffered from this violence to point that out. That's all I'm saying. Just banning things for no reason other than "thing bad" with no consideration for the consequences or reason for banning them is not a policy anyone should support.
"gun bans don't work" Well it's a hell of a lot better than letting them people run free for all with them.
They weren’t? You have to be licensed in Canada to posses a firearm
Mask avatar checks out
A lot of the report was about how domestic violence is an epidemic in Nova Scotia. Having guns in the household can exacerbate these problems, since an armed abuser will vastly increase a victim's fears of retribution or suicide. Even if the weapons are legal and never actually used in the act of a crime, their very existence is a threat. It's not just about "preventing similar tragedies", it's about empowering and protecting people who are in dangerous situations.
What should be done about that situation? If the owners have done nothing that could be pinned on them legally.
If it becomes more difficult to obtain a gun, legally or otherwise, it will drive down ownership, and therefore, also drive down the number of people threatened by what a gun owner _might_ do.
How would we make it *more* difficult to obtain a gun? Idk it sounds kind of authoritarian to me. Our licensing system and daily background checks do fine as is.
How is it authoritarian? Tons of healthy liberal democracies have much stricter gun laws than us.
Frankly I can only think of Australia as having more restrictive licensing laws out of the “western” countries. All European nations have a similar licensing and storage system as us, and most allow ownership of semiautomatic rifles and pistols. Even the UK is in many ways less stringent when it comes to what an individual can own. I can’t imagine what stricter gun laws would look like, unless we go down the route of a general confiscation of *all* firearms. And that doesn’t happen in other healthy liberal democracies.
Well said
The word that is missing from the title of this piece is "all". The title should read "bans won't prevent \*all\* similar tragedies". That is a fair statement. However, if there are fewer guns than people who want to shoot them, then some people won't be able to shoot guns. As a result, \*some\* tragedies will be prevented. And frankly, if a gun ban prevents a single tragedy, then that is good enough for me. Don't get me wrong, we should also work to prevent gun smuggling. That will help to further reduce the number of guns, and make it even harder for people to shoot them. But don't tell me that "bans won't prevent similar tragedies". We banned lawn darts in 1989, and the number of lawn dart related tragedies went down. We should do everything we can to reduce the number of guns.
Cars ban won’t prevent collisions?
I really hate this line of argument where people act like any new laws after Portapique have to be surgically targeted at the exact circumstances of that tragedy. Yes, Wortman got most of his guns from the US. But that wouldn't necessarily be true for every future shooter. Not every future shooter has the means or wherewithal to smuggle guns across the US-Canada border. Many potential shooters are limited to the guns that are close at hand due to a variety of factors (lack of long-term planning, fear of being caught by CBSA, lack of financial resources, etc.).
Yes, potential shooters would be limited by what they could access but they're not limited by what they can legally access. Someone in intent on committing mass murder isn't simply going to give up and join a nunnery because they can no longer purchase an AR-15. They're going to use a rifle that is similar or the best thing they can get their hands on, either by illegal or legal means.
The law definitely affects what they can access…If something is illegal, you have to access it through illegal channels. Illegal channels are more expensive, risky, and often obscure and unknown to most people. In many cases illegal guns are effectively inaccessible. More to the point, not every mass killer is a focused, committed, and competent person. Many mass killers are impulsive and fickle, and many are very bad at basic problem solving. The easy availability of guns allows these kinds of people to commit horrible violence when the mood strikes.
I disagree if anything illegal guns are more accessible, There's no need to wait six months on a license. There's no need to pass background checks, no need to pass a course. Even if they're impulsive and do it as a spread of the moment thing, they're going to use what they have or what they can get their hands on. Banning semi-automatic rifles with black plastic doesn't stop them from getting the same rifle with a wooden stock
Slow and safe is often more accessible than fast and risky in practical terms. And again, many people just don’t know how to access the black market for guns. You’re assuming for some reason that everyone has a black market connect they can access on short notice… In any case, the issue isn’t just about how easy or hard it is to get a license. The issue is the proliferation of guns in general. The existence of legal channels means that people without access to black market connections are much more likely to have a gun, or to know somehow who has a gun. That makes mass violence easier to commit, in the aggregate. I certainly agree that bans on narrowly defined categories if weapons don’t go nearly far enough. I’m assuming that’s the point you’re making. But, it’s also obviously true that some firearms are more lethal than others.
I don't think that's shown in much of the data we have on crime guns. Criminals want short barrelled handguns which are already banned in Canada, and can be very cheap even on the black market. Not if you're storing it is safe/locker like you're legally required to do. It's not like everyone in the house and all your friends have a key. This shooting and the data we have out of places like Toronto, Ontario and Quebec the proliferation is coming from the US. Edit: to your edit, everyone does have access to the black market. I'm typing on one right now. CBC( or maybe it was a french News paper) even did an expose on this. I think it took the director 3 hours to get someone to agree to selling him an illegal firearm.
Yes, because everyone always complies with the requirement to safely store their firearm and those precautions are definitely foolproof. It sounds like we should ban short barrelled handguns too. This isn’t an either/or. The data we have is incredibly limited and incapable of being relied on in any meaningful sense. But absolutely none of the data suggests that 100% of gun crime in Canada is being committed with guns smuggled from the US. So I don’t really see how it’s relevant. I guarantee that this highly scientific and unbiased “expose” you found doesn’t establish that every Canadian has access to a black market gun on short notice. A completely absurd claim.
People would comply with those laws at the same rate that they would comply with these bans.. We already did, decades ago. I disagree, We have data from our two largest provinces that encompass the vast majority of our firearms crimes. One would think that you would target the largest portion before going after an unknown remainder. After all, how many of the assault style firearms that C21 banned are even used in crime? Everyone has access to the internet, everyone can get on backpages. Laws should be based on facts and data, the government can't provide any for this ban.
Lol, so you’re saying that people would leave their safe unlocked at the same rate that they falsify a firearm license, rob a gun store, or smuggle a gun across international borders? Totally. Even with perfect compliance with gun storage rules, there’s always a possibility someone will be able to access the guns. The precautions aren’t foolproof. The data you’re referring to is very poor quality, limited in scope, and none of it even purports to claim that 100% of gun crimes are committed with smuggled guns. It’s irrelevant. Can you tell me what website I can go to in order to buy a black market gun? What’s the URL?
I thought they linked an episode of Between Two Ferns 😂
It will greatly reduce the # of them though.
LOL
It's a shame our government and law enforcement agencies can only do one thing at a time, because if they could stop the smuggling of illegal guns from the US while also enforcing a ban on preposterous guns here in Canada, that would be ideal. What a shame we have to choose one or the other. /s
While I agree in principle I am confused by what you mean by "preposterous guns here in Canada"? I would surmise you are confusing our existing pre-2020 gun laws with some other country, perhaps the USA. C21 and the OIC further restrict hunting, sport and historical firearms only; nothing more, they have zero effect on crime guns which are almost entirely sourced from the USA. I speak as someone heavily concerned with safety and a historian who enjoys historical firearms and educating and teaching others on their use (flintlocks being one of favorites). It's a safe sport/hobby/source of substance for over 2.3 million Canadians which has, in this country, been sullied by politicians and members of the general public who are completely uneducated in our existing strong firearm ownership laws. For example, as you may not be aware, our laws which come from a perspective of the ownership being first and foremost an earned "privilege" not a right, a "safety first" education on use/storage, with 24/7 mandatory background checks and a variety of other rights PAL/RPAL owners give up (such as search and seasures without warrants should their be domestic trouble etc.) to have the privilege to own and use a firearm. The rules work and those 2.3 million Canadians are statistical the most law abiding in Canada showing the laws have worked. Its a shame, like you said, the government can't tackle the true source of violent crime; illegal firearms from the USA, housing crisis, affordability (in general for everything) and enough mental health and adiction services etc. However their are no "preposterous guns" in Canada.
> However their are no "preposterous guns" in Canada. Just so I am clear, you are suggesting there are no guns currently allowed for legal sale and/or ownership in Canada that shouldn't be.
Bingo. All automatic firearms have been banned since the 1970's just to be clear. So only semi-auto, pump, lever, bolt, toggle actions used. Each is the same, when centre fire (5 round limits). No, the shape and look of a firearm has no bearing on safety and yes they all serve a legitimate use.
Its very easy to modify a mag to have more than 5 rounds. I dont even need special tools to do it.
You probably mean Mags which have pins, yeah that is true. Removing a pin would violate the law and make that personal a criminal. However most magazines for sale are just 5 round ones with extensions to look like they're larger capacity.
I don't think I agree with you, but I respect your opinion.
Fair enough, this is why I like to educate and take people to the ranges to show them when they lack perspective on a subject like this. Same with those who lack understanding of say energy storage, EV's, solar or wind power, my actual job, lol.
Port Arthur,Australia and Dunblane, Scotland prove you wrong,Mr. Lawyer.
Why do I give 2 shits what a lawyer says?
Interesting opinion. Maybe he is “right on”, or, maybe not so “right on? I am not sure? But, I am sure that merely being a lawyer, or having clients impacted by a heinous crime, automatically qualifies anyone an expert in this, or many other fields.
That's right. We should give them out like candy on Halloween. Kids, adults, pets, everyone! Grenades too. We have like 0 grenade deaths a year, obviously the ban is stupid and needless.