If someone is motivated enough to create a so-called “ghost gun” – some experts say there’s not much they can do to stop it.
Weapons that are created from parts ordered online or made by 3D printers are a growing concern among law enforcement agencies and governments.
They were used in some high profile shootings in USA. And according to Radio-Canada sources, police believe 26-year-old Montreal resident Abdullah Sheikh assembled the gun he was found with last Thursday.
Sheikh, who had mental health issues including schizophrenia, is said to have randomly shot and killed three people in 24 hours.
Montreal police killed Sheikh on Thursday morning while conducting a search operation at a motel in the Saint Laurent district.
Police shot and killed Abdullah Sheikh on the morning of August 4 as they searched a motel in the Saint Laurent neighborhood. Sheikh was suspected of killing three people within 24 hours. (Kolya Hubacek-Gilbeau/Radio-Canada)
The gun would have been relatively easy for him to assemble, says retired Montreal police officer Andre Gelinas.
“There are many tutorials available on the internet. Creating the parts takes experience, but if you have them all, it’s child’s play,” Gelinas said.
He says many components such as the barrel, slide and magazine can be legally purchased online, sometimes in convenient kits — even without a firearms license.
It is only after the weapon is assembled that the legal threshold is crossed, as this would make the builder a manufacturer and owner of a firearm, which requires a license and certificate of registration.
Gélinas says that even the federal Liberal government’s Bill C-21, which aims to stop the sale and importation of handguns into Canada, among other measures, it would not make the acquisition and creation of ghost gun components illegal.
There is also nothing in the Firearms Act or related regulations that prohibits a person from possessing a digital 3D firearm plan, the RCMP told the CBC in a statement.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante says that’s not enough.
“We need to make sure that everywhere in the country is safe and that it’s not easy to have access to illegal guns, whether it’s through your 3D printer or by ordering parts online,” Plante said.
Prevention is the best solution
What may be having some effect is a new law in the US, where about 5,000 ghost guns are seized by police each year, according to Erwin Waller, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa.
The law makes some websites that sell parts or kits illegal, forcing them to shut down.
Waller says Canadian border officials sometimes intercept the parts or kits as they cross the border as mail, but ultimately there’s nothing authorities can do that would be more effective than completely reducing the demand for illegal firearms.
A police operation in Montreal that ended with the killing of Abdullah Saik’s employees in a motel began on Thursday morning. (Charles Contant/CBC)
“More of the same is not going to give us the really significant reductions that smarter investment and upstream prevention … will give,” Waller said.
Waller says that research has shown that community outreach, economic development and education about violence, anger and toxic masculinity in communities where gun use is more prevalent produces better results than any changes in laws or law enforcement.
In a statement to the CBC, a spokesperson for Marco Mendicino, the federal minister of public safety, said that in addition to Bill C-21, the government’s efforts to curb gun violence include “investing in prevention and community programs to stop gun crime before it starts.”
How to prevent a case like Sheikh’s
The early reaction of Shaikh’s family suggested that they were unaware that he had acquired or assembled a firearm.
When investigator Géhane Kamel investigates the deaths of André Lemieux, Mohamed Belhaj and Alexis Lévis-Crevier – Shaikh’s alleged victims – she may shed some light on whether anyone who was in contact with him had any inclination.
It remains to be seen what could have prevented him from acquiring and using it other than institutionalization, but Kamel can pick up some red flags that those around Sheik and those who care for him may have missed or ignored.
Radio-Canada sources say he has spent considerable time online in recent months, including on forums where radical topics are discussed.
A Quebec mental health board review earlier this year said Sheikh was psychologically unstable at times, events that were exacerbated by accidentally refusing to take prescribed medication and instead consuming cannabis.
The review, carried out after he was found not criminally responsible for charges related to several incidents at airports in 2018, concluded that Sheikh did pose a danger to the public, but that freedom with conditions was still preferable to institutionalisation.
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