Catching gun runners a better answer to gun crime
Canadian gun smuggler nabbed in U.S. by U.S. cops. We should invest in more of this.
A Canadian man with a car full of guns, allegedly destined for street gangs and murderers in Canadian cities, was arrested this week in the United States. It’s the kind of policing that saves lives in Canada. And, it’s the kind of excellent police work Canada’s government should be investing in – even if it’s in the U.S. not Canada.
Ontario resident Badri Ahmed-Mohamed, 36, was apprehended in Mount Morris, just south of Rochester, New York. During what police describe as a routine traffic stop, officers say they found 58 handguns in Ahmed-Mohamed’s vehicle and allege he was planning to smuggle them into Canada.
What we know about gun crimes in Canada
According to Statistics Canada, there were 743 homicides in Canada in 2020. This was a marked increase from the previous year, owing largely to an unprecedented mass-murder event in Nova Scotia that killed 22 people plus the gunman. The rate of homicides has generally been declining in Canada since its high in the mid 1970s.
Public Safety Canada tells us 277 of those 743 homicides in Canada in 2020 were committed with guns. Most guns used in Canadian murders are handguns, which calls into question the Liberal government’s 2020 decision to “ban” so-called “military style” rifles which are popular with target shooters, but not criminals who almost never use them here.
Police sources, including chiefs of police across the country, have repeatedly told us between 80 to 90 percent of guns used in crimes are smuggled illegally from the United States. In February testimony before the House of Commons Public Safety Committee, Toronto Deputy Chief Myron Demkiw put the number at 86 percent. Even criminals agree, with one former gang member telling Toronto’s CityTV it’s easy to get a smuggled gun on the street if you have the cash.
Why is this arrest important?
Arresting gun runners who smuggle firearms into Canada is a great way to reduce gun crime in this country, because they are the largest source of guns used by criminals. In this case, 58 handguns were seized. We do not know how many other trips this guy may have made before being caught. We can hope he doesn’t make any more.
With more arrests like this, the attractiveness of gun running as a source of “easy money” for smugglers may decrease, reducing the number of guns available to criminals here. Certainly, any increase in risk for smugglers will further increase the cost of buying or renting a gun for use in crime, perhaps reducing their ubiquitousness on our streets.
Ottawa’s past attempts to combat gun crimes have historically focused on restricting and punishing the legal use of firearms. None of these efforts have ever had an impact on gun crime, for the obvious reason that legal gun users are not the problem: they aren’t committing the crimes and they are not the source of firearms for those who do commit gun crimes.
Shockingly, it turns out criminals who murder people do not obey any of Canada’s numerous gun control laws.
So, if we want to stop criminals from getting guns, we should target the principal source of the guns: the United States.
As the Toronto Sun points out, many of the guns used to shoot and murder Canadians are purchased by gun runners at legal gun shows in the US. They are then hidden in vehicles and smuggled illegally into Canada to be sold through criminal gangs to thugs and villains.
What should government do?
Tightening up U.S. gun laws – making it harder to buy large numbers of guns at gun shows, for example – may help slow the trade of illegal firearms into Canadian hands. There may be some lobbying and gentle suasion Canada could apply to our American friends, but their constitutional framework is so fundamentally different from ours, this is – rightly or wrongly – probably a waste of time
Changing the focus of the Canada Border Services Agency to be less concerned with collecting taxes on your over-limit booze bottles and cigarette cartons, and more concerned with detecting and preventing the illegal entry to Canada of dangerous people and weapons would be a good start. This would begin with better criminal intelligence work, including closer cooperation with American law enforcement agencies. But, it must also include technology and manpower – even dog power – to better detect hidden firearms in vehicles and cargo entering the country at lawful border crossings.
Canada also needs to vastly improve its ability to monitor the 8,890 km of unfenced frontier between legal entry points on the Canada-U.S. boundary. Anybody can simply step or drive across almost anywhere carrying almost anything.
But the type of police work done in New York this week by a small town police department is essential to keeping Canadians safe.
Canada’s federal government should invest significantly in helping U.S. law enforcement protect Canada. Canadian police and border agents should work inside the U.S., cooperatively with American law enforcement agencies, to monitor traffic from legal gun shows heading to the Canadian border. Identifying and flagging suspect vehicles for detailed inspection at the border. Assisting and encouraging U.S. police to intercept these vehicles before they get to the border, if possible.
Preventing illegal guns from entering Canada should be government’s “gun control” goal. Intercepting illegal guns before they even get to border, as in this recent case, is the ideal. Stopping them at the border is essential.
Targeting the criminal use of guns to prevent the criminal use of guns seems an obvious tactic with a higher probability of success than anything the current federal government has done so far to prevent shootings in our parks and streets. Because punishing the legal use of guns to prevent the illegal use of guns has never worked and, when you think about it, couldn’t possibly.