FIREARMS
FACTS UPDATE
RCMP
STATISTICS ON LOST/STOLEN/RECOVERED FIREARMS
By Garry Breitkreuz, MP – September 11, 2003
BREITKREUZ'S ACCESS TO INFORMATION ACT REQUEST - DATED JULY 16, 2003:
The RCMP Registrar’s 2001 report to the Solicitor General under the
heading: “Identifying lost or stolen firearms” stated: "Firearm
registration allows for positive identification of legitimate firearms. It
provides an itemized list that helps owners and police identify lost or stolen
firearms accurately when they are recovered. This enables the police and courts
to prosecute more successfully any individuals found in possession of stolen
firearms. It also enables police to return to their rightful owners the lost or
stolen firearms that they recover every year." AND the Webmaster for the
RCMP’s National Communications Services stated: “Firearms being registered
in CFRS are also queried against CPIC to determine if there are any outstanding
issues.”
Please provide copies of reports showing: (1) Why the “itemized list”
of stolen firearms was removed from public access; (2) How many lost or stolen
firearms are recovered every year and how many are returned to their rightful
owners; and (3) Since December 1, 1998 how many times was the CFRS “…
queried against CPIC to determine if there were any outstanding issues.”
RCMP RESPONSE - ATIP2003-27468 - DATED AUGUST 20, 2003
(Received: September 4, 2003):
QUESTION (1) Why the “itemized list”
of stolen firearms was removed from public access?
RCMP RESPONSE TO QUESTION (1): "The
itemized list referred to was for registered firearms, not stolen firearms and
was never accessable to the public."
QUESTION (2) How many lost or stolen
firearms are recovered every year and how many are returned to their rightful
owners?
RCMP RESPONSE TO QUESTION (2):
1998
Lost/Missing
= 2,219
Stolen
= 3,613
Recovered
= 1,350
1999
Lost/Missing
= 2,166
Stolen
= 3,378
Recovered
= 1,622
2000
Lost/Missing
= 1,122
Stolen
= 2,733
Recovered
= 1,889
2001
Lost/Missing
= 932
Stolen
= 2,706
Recovered
= 1,379
2002
Lost/Missing
= 858
Stolen
= 4,090
Recovered
= 1,879
QUESTION (3) Since December 1, 1998 how
many times was the CFRS “… queried against CPIC to determine if there were
any outstanding issues"?
RCMP RESPONSE TO QUESTION (3):
"Since December 1, 1998 CFRS queried 7,103,715 different firearms against
CPIC, through automated checks, to determine if there were any outstanding
issues."
NOTE: Versions of this story also ran in: The Ottawa Citizen, The
Saskatoon Star Phoenix and the Victoria Times Colonist.
DATE:
2003.07.12
EDITION:
National
SECTION:
Canada
PAGE:
A7
COLUMN:
In Ottawa: At the United Nations
BYLINE:
Joe Paraskevas in Ottawa and Steven Edwards at the UnitedNations
SOURCE:
CanWest News Service
DATELINE:
OTTAWA; UNITED NATIONS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Registry fails to spot stolen rifle, critics outraged: Evaded three
checks: New owner could have been arrested, store manager says
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OTTAWA and UNITED NATIONS - Critics of the national gun registry
expressed outrage yesterday after the Ontario Provincial Police seized a gun
that had been reported stolen over a decade ago but had remained in circulation
by evading three separate registry checks. The failure of the registry to spot
the stolen gun could have wrongly implicated a future owner, critics said.
Police took possession of the gun, a Browning .30-06 single-shot rifle, at a
store in Orillia, Ont., about 100 kilometres north of Toronto.
The weapon had been reported stolen in Quebec in 1992. The national
registry had both the model and registration number of the stolen weapon on
file. In May, an Ontario man brought the gun with its registration papers, to
Ellwood Epps Sporting Goods in Orillia, to sell, said the store manager Wes
Winkel.
Mr. Winkel then called the Canadian Firearms Centre and was given a
number that acknowledged transfer of ownership. He then registered the weapon
himself. On June 29, when Mr. Winkel went to sell the gun, he was told he could
not receive authorization. This week, he was told it had been reported stolen.
RCMP said the registration papers Mr. Winkel originally received when he
purchased the weapon were legitimate.
Mr. Winkel said he couldn't understand why the registration system did
not identify the gun as stolen on the three earlier checks. The slips could have
led to the arrest of an innocent owner who would have tried to register the
weapon without knowing its history, he said. "It's unbelievable," he
added. "How many people are out there with stolen guns?"
Dennis Young, a spokesman for Saskatchewan Canadian Alliance MP Garry
Breitkreuz, also expressed incredulity that the gun had remained on the street.
"This is proof positive of their total incompetence," Mr. Young said
of the registry staff. Mr. Breitkreuz has led opposition to the registry, often
criticizing it as a waste of money. A spokesman for Wayne Easter, the
Solicitor-General, could not be reached for comment.
Last week, Ottawa said it was close to accounting for almost all 7.9
million firearms in Canada. Among them were about 613,000 guns exported,
destroyed or deactivated.
The gun registry has been criticized by gun owners, firearms lobbyists
and law enforcement agencies alike for being inefficient and expensive. Sheila
Fraser, Canada's Auditor-General reported in December, 2002, that the net cost
of the registration system would be $1-billion -- some 500 times more than the
original $2-million estimate.
However, Canada continued to promote its gun control measures
internationally yesterday. On the last day of a week-long United Nations
conference on small-arms trafficking, Canada underscored its support for a
global gun- tracing centre that would seek to keep track of weapons each time
they are sold.
Agreement on how to mark and trace guns should also be set out in an
international treaty, Robert McDougall, Canada's chief representative at the
conference, told delegates of the UN's 192 member countries. "Tracing is
not an aim in and of itself. Nor is marking," he said. "They are tools
to enable us to stem the flow of illicit small arms and light weapons." He
offered Canada's help to any country that wanted to establish a marking and
tracing system.
Addressing the conference on Wednesday, a Canadian lobby group warned
that establishing a tracking system internationally could lead to an increase in
deaths worldwide by denying funds to humanitarian programs that are currently
saving lives. Tony Bernardo, executive director of the Canadian Institute for
Legislative Action, said Canada's huge budget over-run for its gun registry
signalled equally massive costs for any international attempt at gun control.