RCMP ‘Crime Gun’ Story Has a Major Numbers Problem

CTV News recently published an article about “crime guns” traced by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Careful analysis of the information provided shows the article is as much about spin as enlightenment.

Only 8% of firearms crime result in a firearm being recovered. Of those, only 20% of firearms seized by police are sent for tracing. Of the ones sent in for tracing, the sample in the CTV News article excluded most of the traces done in Ontario and Quebec. Of those, the definition of a “crime gun” is broad, and includes many non-violent crimes.

Ontario and Quebec have their own firearm tracing systems. Information from those systems was not included in the article. Quebec and Ontario contain about 61% of Canada’s population.  Information from the most populated parts of Canada was not included. The sample for the article for CTV news was not representative of the Canadian population.

The way the numbers are used is confusing. For example: the article says the RCMP completed 6,951 firearm traces. Then it says 4,197 of those were identified as “crime guns”. Of the 4,197 “crime guns” it says 2,814 had a known source. The implication is: of the 4197 “crime guns” 1,384 did not have a known source. If the 1,384 did not have a known source, how could a trace have been completed? Perhaps the author meant to write the RCMP attempted to trace 6,951 firearms, but was only successful in tracing 67% of those.

The article then states 71 percent of the firearms traced in 2024 (by the RCMP) were domestic long guns. Long guns are the vast majority of firearms in Canada (89%). We know 2,654 of the 6,951 guns “traced” were not crime guns.  Those would be 39% of the firearms traced. If the vast majority of those were long guns, as would be expected, over half of the 71 percent of long guns traced were not “crime guns”.

The definition of “crime guns” is broad and worth considering. From the article:

The RCMP centre defines crime guns as firearms that were used or suspected to have been used in criminal offences, guns whose serial numbers have been obliterated or altered, firearms that were found but not reported lost or stolen, and replicas, toys, 3D-printed guns, pellet or air guns that have been used in criminal offences.

The article does not break out the numbers of toys, replicas, pellet and air guns from the total. The article lists 67 home manufactured guns or “ghost guns”.  Those can be made in a number of different ways than 3D printing.  3D printing can be used to make replicas or toy guns.

Of the guns which were traced, or perhaps attempted to be traced, 17% were identified as smuggled handguns, or 1,165. Presumably, these were all classified as “crime guns”, because they were smuggled. Handguns in Canada are required to be registered. Nine percent (616) were domestically sourced handguns. This probably means they were registered in Canada at some point. Handguns do not appear to have been commercially manufactured in Canada since Para-Ordinace moved to the USA in 2009.   From the above numbers, about 65% of the handguns were smuggled handguns. 9+16 = 26, so only 26% of the total firearms mentioned in the RCMP traces were handguns. Only two percent (137) were smuggled long guns.  Almost 1% (67) were privately manufactured firearms sometimes called “ghost guns”.

Of the 2,814 “crime guns” where the source could be identified, 86% were found to have come from within Canada. Only 14% were smuggled. The number may be biased because Canadian guns are more likely to be successfully traced.  The vast majority of traces for the largest Canadian urban centers were not included. This could explain the relatively low handgun figures.

In an official Canadian government report published in 2025, 49% of violent firearms crimes in Canada were committed with handguns.  It is obvious “crime guns” includes a great many non-violent crimes. When firearms are involved in violent crime, very few are recovered. From the article referenced above:

  Where these data were available, more than nine in ten (92%) incidents of firearm related violent crime did not involve the recovery of a firearm, eight in ten (81%) did not involve the seizure of a firearm and nearly all (99%) did not involve a firearm being reported as stolen.

In a separate Parliamentary report using data from 2020, 58% of firearms traced in Canada were reportedly from Canada, and half of those were handguns.  This means 29% of the firearms which were traced were handguns from Canada. The same report states 28% of handguns traced were domestically sourced.  If 29% of all firearms traced are handguns from Canada, and 28% of handguns traced are from Canada, then 29% of firearms traced cannot be long guns from Canada. The use of percentages instead of raw numbers allows many statistical games to be played.

The percent of successful traces done by the RCMP in 2024 matches precisely with the report for all of Canada for 2023. 67% of traces were successful.

The raw numbers show there were only 277 firearms homicides committed in all of Canada in 2020. Less than half of those, only 135, were committed with handguns. 135 deaths, or even 277 deaths of the 300,000 annual deaths in Canada is a very small percentage. Homicides are shocking events, but less than .1 percent of deaths is a very small number. For handguns alone, it is .044%. Nearly three times as many people die in drowning accidents each year in Canada.

Analysis: One of the ways to lie with statistics is to pick a sample which delivers the result you want. When the Canadian government wants to ban handguns, the reports emphasize the percent of homicides committed with handguns. When the Canadian government wishes to ban large numbers of long guns, the article attempts to frame firearms crime in Canada as mostly involving long guns. Firearms in Canada are not a serious problem. 

In Canada, 80% of firearms related deaths are suicides, about 19.8% are homicides and .8% are accidents. The numbers of Canadian suicides by firearms were listed  at 80% without precise numbers. Rounding results in slightly over 100% total.

Draconian firearm restrictions may reduce the number of suicides committed with firearms. They do not reduce the total number of suicides. Draconian firearm restrictions may reduce the number of homicides committed with firearms. They do not reduce the total number of homicides.  The per capita rate of firearms ownership in the United States is unrelated to the homicide rate.

Playing games with the number of firearm traces reduces the credibility of the source.

©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch  

Source: http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2026/07/rcmp-crime-gun-story-has-major-numbers.html