SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

8888 UNIVERSITY DRIVE BURNABY, BRITISH COLUMBIA CANADA V5A 1S6 Telephone: (604) 291-3708 Fax: (604) 291-4920

January 9, 2006

Garry Breitkreuz, MP January 9, 2006
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario

Dear Garry:

I am writing to inform you about my research into the source of guns used in violent crime. Given that the firearm registry has cost Canadian taxpayers more than $2 billion, it is particularly important to assess the extent to which crime guns are stolen from law-abiding Canadians.

The recent claim by Toronto Mayor Miller that “about half (of the guns on the street) are stolen from legal gun owners in and around Toronto” is at sharp variance with other authoritative estimates. To assess the Mayor’s claim, I decided to analyze the available data from the Toronto Police Services and to compare these percentages with other published estimates.

Public statements about the source of crime guns show some diversity:

1. Toronto Mayor Miller said in December 2005 that, “about half (of the guns on the street) are stolen from legal gun owners in and around Toronto.” This implies of course that “about half” of all crime guns were registered, because otherwise they would not have been legally owned.

2. In 2003, former Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino stated that, "None of the guns we know to have been used (in crime) were registered.” Thus, in his opinion, none of Toronto crime guns were stolen from legal owners.

3. In 2005, the Vancouver Police Department estimated that 94% of the guns seized by them in 2002 originated in Washington State in the United States . This would imply that no more than 6% of these firearms could have been stolen from legal owners in Canada.

4. Unfortunately, Criminal Intelligence Service Canada statements on this issue are not very helpful. CISC reported in their 2004 Annual Report on Organized Crime in Canada that, “Organized crime groups and street gangs acquire the majority of their firearms either from domestic thefts or smuggled from the United States.” Thus, CISC is silent on the percentage that was stolen from legal owners.

Is Mayor Miller correct? Has the source of crime guns changed since former Police Chief Fantino’s estimate in 2003? To answer this question, I will first analyze the available data from the Toronto Police Services and then examine other authoritative estimates.

My analyses of two Toronto Police Service data sets determine that between 9% and 16% of guns used in crime have ever been legally registered in Canada or had been stolen from a law-abiding Canadian citizen.

The first Toronto Police Service data set to be analyzed was published in a 2004 report by the Toronto Police Services (TPS) . In this report, the TPS analyze “crime guns” collected between January 1, 2003 through September 9, 2003. Of the total of 1,468 guns collected, 183 were classified as “crime guns.” Many of the firearms recovered by the police are voluntarily turned in by elderly Canadians who are no longer interested in keeping them; others are old war trophies, handguns from World War I or II, turned in by the heirs of deceased veterans .

The Gang and Gun Task Force further classified these crime guns into the following categories:

What is most striking is how little information is available for many of these firearms. Therefore it is impossible to determine whether these firearms were stolen from law-abiding Canadians or not.

123 (67%) of the 183 firearms were unable to be traced for various reasons (26, long barrelled; 4 had no serial number; 16 were too old; 32 had obliterated serial numbers; 45 were still under investigation).

16 (9%) of the 183 firearms (11 registered and 5 reported stolen) came from lawful Canadian owners.

44 (24%) of the 183 firearms were submitted to the BATFE for analysis. 30 of these have already been confirmed to have originated in the U.S., but results are pending on the remaining 14. A total 24% of the crime guns originated in the US if we assume that all of the 44 firearms submitted to BATFE will be eventually confirmed to have originated in the US, and are therefore presumed to have been smuggled into Canada.

It is important to note that the TPS provides no information about how many “crime guns” originated from the Canadian police or military. The police might understandably be hesitant to report such figures, but internationally a large percentage of “crime guns” has been found to originate from local police and military stock . Unfortunately, Canadian government records are incomplete because Canadian police and military are not required to either register their firearms nor to report regularly to Parliament how many firearms they lose or have stolen from them. Nevertheless, partial figures show that in 2002 the Canadian military reported over 400 guns as “lost” or stolen . As well, the RCMP admitted in 2003 in response to a request under the Access to Information Act that 108 firearms were lost by, missing or stolen from the RCMP .

The second data set to be analyzed also comes from the Toronto Police Services . This is a set of 214 handguns that were identified as “potential ‘crime guns’” by the Gun and Gang Task Force in 2004.

Again, one is struck by the absence of information about a large number of these handguns. The TPS reports that the origins of 71 (45%) of the 214 handguns were impossible to determine (26 were not registered; 6 were too old; and 65 were of unknown status).

35 (16%) of the 214 handguns were stolen from law-abiding Canadian owners.

The TPS went further attempting to further analyze the guns of unknown status. The TPS warns the reader that the results are not based upon “scientific analysis” but the “estimate of an experienced police officer”.

The TPS speculates that the remaining 48% of the firearms have a Canadian source. Importantly, if we attempt to categorize the Canadian sources as legal or illegal, we discover that Canadian sources that are illegal or probably criminal vastly outweigh guns that come from legal owners.

In summary, one TPS study identified 16% of the crime guns as having been stolen from legal Canadian owners, and the other study identified 9% as either stolen or had been registered, which also implies that it was a legal firearm .

How do the results of the two TPS studies compare with other estimates about the share of crime guns that are either registered or have been stolen?

Three other studies will be examined here. The Homicide Survey, a report on the Firearms Tracing Enforcement (FATE) program, and Project Gun Runner.

Project Gun Runner reported that, according to their 1993 study of crime guns in Toronto, 14% of firearms used in crime in Toronto had been registered at some point in the past, i.e., they were obtained from law-abiding Canadian firearm owners, while 86% of the handguns used in crime in the Toronto area had never been registered . The stability of this percentage is impressive, given that approximately 7.1 million firearms were reported to be in the firearm registry in 2005, and only approximately 1 million were registered in 1995 .

The Annual Report for the Toronto Police Services for 2000 reported that the Firearms Tracing Enforcement (FATE) program traced 87 Toronto “crime guns .” Of the 53 traces returned that year, 20 different American States were identified as the source, with 1 gun being traced to Canada. In percentage terms, that means that 2% of the firearms came from Canadian owners, with 37% from the US. The legal status of the Canadian owners is not clear from this report. This gun could have come from Canadian police stock or from a Canadian criminal. Note also that no information is known about the vast bulk of “crime guns” recovered by the police.
Finally, the Homicide Survey project of the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics also found 16% of the firearms used in homicide were in the registry . The CCJS analyzed the 1,349 firearms-related homicides between 1997 and 2004. The registration status of 748 firearms involved in these homicides was reported as unknown; with 84% of the remaining firearms were found not to be registered.

In conclusion, there is little support for Mayor Miller’s claim. Estimates range from 2% to 16% of “crime guns” that have been stolen from law-abiding Canadian citizens. A proper analysis of Toronto Police Service data also yields percentages that fall within this range.

Unfortunately, the TPS provides no information about how many “crime guns” originated from the Canadian police or military. This is especially disturbing in the light of international reports that show a large percentage of “crime guns” have been diverted from local police and military supplies. The Canadian government reports are incomplete, but partial figures show that the Canadian police or military have reported that they have lost or had stolen over 500 guns.

A final comment is that guns are fairly easy to make (e.g., criminals even make them in prison). Illegally manufactured firearms may account for an important share of the firearms that were found by the police not to have serial numbers. Of course, these guns would never be registered.

I trust that this information will be of use to you. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Respectfully yours,

Gary Mauser, Ph D
Professor
Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies
Faculty of Business Administration
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby BC
CANADA V5A 1S6
604-291-3652 office
604-291-4920 fax
www.sfu.ca/~mauser/