A former trucker from Florida has been sentenced to more than four years in U.S. prison after smuggling handguns into Canada that were later recovered at 10 crime scenes in Ontario and Quebec, and linked to two killings.
Court documents reviewed by CBC News provide a rare glimpse into a cross-border pipeline for crime guns.
The scheme saw U.S. firearms purchased legally, then transported up to 2,000 kilometres north to be re-sold to a Canadian trafficker for the retail price of the gun, plus a $1,000 fee for each weapon.
One of the weapons was found in Toronto after what police described as a “reckless” shootout in November 2024 that they said highlighted the “real and present danger” posed by illegal firearms.
The OP is specifically about handguns.
Long guns can be cut down. 20 mins and a hacksaw blade get you a saw-off shotgun. Not quite as pocketable as a small handgun, but very lethal at close range.
You are forgetting that pocket pistols have been prohibited in Canada since the early 90s.
I can’t forget that because I didn’t know it.
(Partially because I moved to Canada about 10 years ago 😁)
Then I will give you a primer. Handguns with a barrel length below 4 inches were prohibited in the 90s, some handgun calibers like those in .25 ACP were also banned with narrow exceptions.
For short barreled rifles and shotguns the law is different in Canada vs. The US. In the US any rifle with a barrel length below 16 inches and any shotgun with a barrel below 18 inches is regulated under the NFA. In Canada there was no such prohibition. Canadian AR-15s were routinely in the 14.5 inch range and pump action shotguns with barrels as short as 9 inches are legal.
What is very illegal, however, is hacking off the barrel. If you bought a double-barrel shotgun with 24 inch barrels but cut them down to 14 inches yourself, you committed a big crime. However if you swap them for factory made barrels that length it would be legal.
Basically you have it be any length you want as long as it is how it is made in the factory or with legally sourced factory components.
I was referencing this quote …
They generalized guns when the article focused on handguns.
They banned over 15,000 models of rifle and are now targeting shotguns for future bans. This is despite the fact that the use of shotguns in crime has been diminishing for decades in all places without legislative changes.