Gang-related violence has surged in Canada in recent years. Much of the violence involves firearms. Where the gangs get their guns is a matter of obvious concern. If Canadian criminals are getting their guns from legal Canadian sources, that indicates that our gun control laws are insufficient. If they’re getting them from external sources — primarily smuggling from the United States, which is awash in guns — then it’s not a gun control problem, and changing our gun control laws won’t help.
Data and police experience had long shown that Canadian crime gangs were arming themselves with guns sourced to the U.S., sold here at massive markups. But in the summer of 2018, The Canadian Press wire service ran a story that told the public that this long-observed trend was no longer true. It reported that the number of crime guns that were sourced in Canada had “surged dramatically,” according to a detective with the Toronto police, and that Canadian guns were now roughly equal with smuggled American guns on Toronto’s streets — basically a 50-50 split.
The Canadian Press story was wrong. It didn’t take long for the single-source’s central claim to be completely discredited. The Toronto Police Service’s own internal information, obtained via freedom of information requests, showed no “dramatic surge” in legally owned Canadian guns being used in crimes.
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