PUBLICATION:        The Toronto Sun 

DATE:                         2003.12.17

EDITION:                    Final 

SECTION:                  News 

PAGE:                         6 

BYLINE:                     MARK BONOKOSKI 

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GUN REGISTRY MESS GOES BACK 70 YEARS

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James Brown a former cop in the old Metro force, and later in Durham region -- returned home from another night shift on provincial security detail to find the calling card of a detective in the Toronto Police Service's guns-and-gangs task force stuck in his mail slot.

What prompted Det.-Const. Soon Lum's impromptu visit was a "hit" from a computer in the the billion-dollar wasteland known as the National Gun Registry, which claimed the German Mauser K-98 bolt-action rifle Brown had legally registered under penalty of law was the same German Mauser K-98 that had recently been stolen during a house burglary in Fredericton, N.B.

"But I have never been to Fredericton," said Brown. "And neither has the rifle."

It was a quandary.

The rifle in question was purchased back in 1965 when Brown was a 20-year-old lad two years shy of becoming a cop, and all that was needed to buy a long gun was enough money to equal the price on the sales slip.

No permit, and no registration, was required.

"I bought it at an old sporting goods and army-surplus store at the top end of Kingston Rd.," said Brown. "For 30 bucks, you couldn't go wrong.

"I remember a BP gas station along that same stretch of road that was selling Martini-Henry rifles for $8 -- but only if you got an oil change for your car.

"Things were different then."

After finding the card in his mail slot, Brown called the guns-and-gangs task force and they were soon at the door of his Scarborough home -- carrying an empty cardboard box with which to transport his rifle, and wearing latex gloves so as to not contaminate the evidence.

"It was all done very politely and very professionally," said Brown. "All they said was that the information on my rifle matched information on one stolen in New Brunswick.

"All I could think of was that the gun registry was wrong, which should not be surprising to anyone who has anything to do with it." 

Three days later, just as Brown predicted, his World War II German army rifle was returned.

It was clean, and so was he -- but with no explanation, at first, as to what went wrong at the National Gun Registry.

"All I was told when the rifle was returned was that everything was on the up-and-up," Brown said.

According to John St. Amour, owner of Ottawa-area Marstar Canada, the world's largest importer and exporter of Mauser rifles, there are potentially a couple of dozen Mauser rifles in circulation with the same number markings as on Brown's rifle, simply because the Germans manufactured them with serial numbers followed by alpha letters.

"It was all done to confuse the enforcers of the World War I peace treaty, and later to confuse the Allies," said St. Amour, indicating his company has handled at least 150,000 Mauser rifles over the last 20 years.

"If the person who registered his Mauser in New Brunswick failed to add the alpha letter that followed the serial number, then that's where the problem could have started."

The serial number on James Brown's Mauser is 8544. There is no alpha letter following.

But somewhere out there, however, there is Mauser 8544a, and Mauser 8544b, and so on.

And therein lies the rub.

There are even a few "sanitized" or "mystery" Mausers in circulation -- World War II vintage rifles that carry serial numbers, but no markings to indicate the place of manufacture, or the year in which they were made.

In fact, St. Amour's company Web site recently noted it "uncovered an extremely small batch of (these) fine German Mauser K-98 rifles," which could be purchased for $279 apiece.

All have apparently since sold out.

Det.-Sgt. Gary Keys heads up the guns-and-gangs task force and he quite freely admitted, "It's busy."

While weekly numbers are not kept, Keys said that whenever there is a "hit" at the gun registry from anywhere in Canada that points to Toronto, it is his unit's job to investigate and clear the matter -- whether the end result is the laying of charges or, as in the case of James Brown, having the weapon returned.

What Keys' investigation discovered was exactly what Mauser importer-exporter John St. Amour knew all along -- that there are a series of duplicate serial numbers for virtually every Mauser ever manufactured.

"It appears the Germans didn't want anyone to know the number of guns they were manufacturing in the buildup towards war," said Keys.

And those duplicate serial numbers, said Keys, were "why and how the confusion began" when a rifle stolen in New Brunswick carried the same serial number as a rifle legally registered to an ex-cop in Toronto named James Brown.

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RCMP REPORT PROVES THEY HAVE REGISTERED 4,438 STOLEN FIREARMS (SO FAR)!

250,305 FIREARMS IN THE GUN REGISTRY HAVE THE SAME SERIAL NUMBERS AS GUNS LISTED AS STOLEN IN CPIC. 

http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/RCMP-ATIStolenGunsRegistered-2003-09-11.pdf