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.

  • Nils@lemmy.ca
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    9 days ago

    The past couple of weeks, I have been seeing a bunch of news about USA smugglers bringing weapons and drugs to other countries.

    When people say that USA politicians speech are mostly projection, it is very ironic to see that it is to this extent

    … sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists… - Doland J Trump

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      The US gun, drug, and crime problems directly affect their neighbors.

      Most Mexican Cartels get weapons from the US and demand for drugs makes a lucrative market which, due to criminalization, creates excessive crime.

      The US has also exported its fascism around the world forcing countries to become vassals to their imperialism.

    • JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca
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      9 days ago

      After the Clownvoy, ‘trucker’ is a term that carries a specific kind of weight here

      I don’t personally associate “trucker” with the convoy automatically. There were a lot of yahoos in the convoy who weren’t truckers.

      • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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        9 days ago

        I do too, now.

        What bugs me is now whenever the term trucker is used, especially by Canadian news outlets, I pull in all of these associations that don’t necessarily have any bearing on or relation to the facts at hand. And (the part where I might just be losing my mind/being paranoid) it sort of feels deliberate.

        I recently encountered someone that really seemed like they were prodding for how easily I could be influenced to agree with or engage in some really wacky shit. It was a very similar feeling to when I see these terms. And I’m just trying to figure out when and if that feeling, when it pops up in a media context or just irl talking with your craftier brand of crazies, is justified or just paranoia.

        Sorry - doesn’t really have that much to do with the article, the word in this context just triggered that same feeling. And this whole “how to tell when you’re being influenced and what to watch for, while not succumbing to paranoia or just taking comfort in your personal biases” thing has been something rolling around in my brain the past couple of weeks.

        I also know that I’m part of a demographic (at the moment) that has some pretty wacky stuff targeted at them online (lot of manosphere stuff, for example, finds great targets in recently separated/divorced dudes in algorithmic media formats), which lends more personal interest to the topic. Idk, might just need to touch grass more.

        • A Flock of Beagles@beige.party
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          9 days ago

          @Cracks_InTheWalls it is deliberate. the media people who write about this topic refuse to educate themselves beyond a very superficial level, which enables more of the equivocal liberalism they are also doing. they are very much a part of the problem, as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. outlined in his letter from Birmingham jail. he said it is not the swastika-tattooed nazis nor the hood-wearing klansmen he feared the most, but the white “moderates” who enable them.

          no one is immune to propaganda, so it’s always important to check and do your due dilligence to make sure you don’t fall for fascist nonsense. Canadian media isn’t any less full of it than any other. most of our news is owned by one or two companies, both of which are owned by fascists. there are as many unscrupulous cranks writing for the Ottawa Citizen and the Globe and Mail as there are writing for The SUN. 000000000000000

  • NoxAstrum@lemmy.ca
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    10 days ago

    Well, we’d better take all my legally owned guns away then. They’re obviously the problem. Let’s ignore the largest source of firearms used in crime: the border.

    Absolute genius level governance.

    • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      10 days ago

      Not sure how a story about FloridaMan bringing illegal guns into Canada has anything whatsoever to do with your ability to own legal guns.

      But you do you I guess.

      • Scratch@sh.itjust.works
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        10 days ago

        Because crime is used as a reason to restrict legitimate access to firearms.

        Two years ago today, we froze the handgun market and stopped handguns from being bought, sold, or transferred anywhere in Canada.

        We choose your safety over the gun lobby — every time.

        — Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) October 21, 2024

        While I do agree there are certain firearms that are higher risk than others, I don’t think stopping legitimate owners and users was the right call to curb crime and improve safety.

        • ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca
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          9 days ago

          The handgun freeze did nothing to keep anyone safe. The gun bans are entirely against shooting sports and legitimate firearm activities (such as collecting).

          I demand that Trudeau show one shred of evidence of what he said. Just one.

          I am on my phone and I would like to write a long ass rant, but it is going to have to wait.

        • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          10 days ago

          Well tbh your quote is specifically about handguns, not firearms in general. So no, I don’t agree with you at all.

          Handguns can be concealed and are often used in robberies and murders. Long guns are usually used for hunting.

          • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            The government recently banned a ton of long guns that were previously legal, in the name of crime prevention and that fact they look scary. The compensation program for the buy back is nearly a lottery, there are not enough funds to refund the expected number of returned firearms.

            • ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca
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              8 days ago

              Those rifle bans are dumb, but they’re basically how they’ve always done things. When they were deciding on what was a ‘restricted’ vs ‘prohibited’ rifle in the 90s when the licensing scheme first got into play, it was clear that they looked up a gun digest and simply picked out a lot of stuff at random and it made no sense.

              For example AK rifles were prohib, but ARs were not. AR rifles were restricted, but plenty of equally capable rifles were non-restricted. Some bans literally made no sense. The G41 assault rifle, an experimental German rifle that never went beyond the prototype phase, was added to the prohib list anyway. That gun was produced in such limited quantities and uses such unique and highly specialized ammunition (it was an experimental caseless round) that no criminal or criminal organization can get a hold of no matter what.

              The whole point is their thinking is ‘I hate guns and I want to destroy any and all shooting sports and hunting’ This even apparently is extending to subsistence hunters who need a rifle to survive. This is why the SKS is not yet banned even though they have been trying to for a very, very long time. If they ban that it will cause a hell of a lot of problems for a lot of people… and they’re still trying anyway!

          • Scratch@sh.itjust.works
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            10 days ago

            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.

              • Scratch@sh.itjust.works
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                9 days ago

                I can’t forget that because I didn’t know it.

                (Partially because I moved to Canada about 10 years ago 😁)

                • ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca
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                  8 days 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.

            • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOP
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              9 days ago

              I was referencing this quote …

              Well, we’d better take all my legally owned guns away then.

              They generalized guns when the article focused on handguns.

              • ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca
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                9 days ago

                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.

          • ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca
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            9 days ago

            Legally owned handguns in Canada are and were the rarest type of firearm encountered in crime. More stolen police guns are used for murder and robbery in Canada than privately owned pistols.

            Edit: long guns have held the record for worst mass shootings, and banning semi-autos hasn’t diminished their deadliness.

            • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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              9 days ago

              Semi autos are not banned. Fully automatic is banned and there are significant restrictions on barrel length and magazine capacity. Legal guns, such as the sks, are often semi auto.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        Because every time there’s an incident, it’s never the thousands of illegal guns pouring over the border that gets the blame, it’s somehow legal gun owners that need to pay a new price.

        It’s like giving more money to cops instead of addressing mental health issues to stop crime. Dog and pony show.

        • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          Its like shutting down legal pharmacies to end an illegal drug trade, thats Canada’s attitude towards gun control.

      • ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca
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        8 days ago

        Have you been paying attention to how gun legislation has transformed so dramatically in the past 6 years since covid?

  • ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca
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    9 days ago

    Yes but let us destroy shooting sports in Canada and continue to punish legal handgun owners (who have grandfathered handguns. No new registration certificates can be issued) even more. Despite the fact that Canadian sourced private handguns are the most rarely used in crime. More police guns (stolen or used by crooked cops) are found in crimes than that.

      • ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca
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        9 days ago

        We permit all manner of bullshit in society that actively harms millions of people in ways that handguns don’t even come close. Yet you want to ban a sport because you don’t like it. Costing billions of dollars over jackshit both in maintainence of the law and its failures in enforcement AND in lose tax revenue in sales, taxes, and licensing fees.

        Let’s continue to leave countless social problems untouched while insisting ‘at least they can’t buy a handgun from a gun store’ which they haven’t been able to do since well before many of us have even been born.

        • TemplaerDude@sh.itjust.works
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          8 days ago

          Yes, I do want to ban your phony “sport” and no amount of paragraphs are going to convince me otherwise. Take your shitty weapons down south if you want a right to them. You don’t have that in Canada.

            • TemplaerDude@sh.itjust.works
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              8 days ago

              Guns have almost no place in decent society. The list of people who need a gun is very small and your phony “sport” isn’t included. If that’s a problem with you, go to America. I hope they ban them all. Any argument to the contrary is an obscene affront to human life. Guns are made to kill. End of story.