Ghost guns challenge police enforcement

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This article was published 18/11/2019 (2161 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The so-called ghost guns that have become an enforcement nightmare in different jurisdictions have come to Winnipeg, adding to the challenges faced by local police coping with a sharp rise in crime related to firearms.

Ghost gun is slang for a homemade firearm that doesn’t have an identifier such as a serial number. They’re often made by people who want to bypass background checks and registration regulations.

Homemade guns are nothing new in Winnipeg — earlier versions were dubbed zip guns or pipe guns — but modern technology, such as online ordering and 3D printers, has made it much easier to obtain the knowledge and pieces to construct improvised guns of much higher quality.

A relatively new form of ghost gun is sold as an easy-to-assemble kit that contain metal barrels, plastic frames and all the smaller pieces necessary to construct a weapon.

It’s purchased as pieces, not as a finished weapon, which lets owners get around gun laws in many jurisdictions. Assembly doesn’t require special skills or tools beyond a hand drill for holes that allow pieces such as the trigger housing to be attached to the frame before the weapons are ready to fire.

Winnipeg Police Service confirmed to the Free Press last week that ghost guns have been seized in this city, although fortunately, they are still relatively rare here. It’s not as if investigators need another source of guns to worry about.

On Oct. 16, police seized 10,000 rounds of ammunition and 73 firearms, including several submachine guns and an AK-47 assault rifle, from a home in Windsor Park.

On Nov. 8, police seized 22 firearms, including four semi-automatic handguns, from a home in Normand Park.

A police spokesman told a news conference last week that gun incidents and gun-related crimes in Winnipeg have increased more than 60 per cent in the past five years.

Another form of ghost gun, this one built with pieces created by three-dimensional computer printers, was at the centre of a high-profile court case last week. The Trump administration was trying to let a Texas company post blueprints online to help people construct guns using their 3D printers, but a U.S. judge in Seattle ruled that was illegal.

Undeterred, gun-rights campaigners said they will find other ways to share their blueprints, which concerns authorities because 3D-printer guns are largely made of plastic parts and can be undetectable by the metal detectors in security screening.

The new forms of ghost guns are proving a challenge in the U.S., with several states, including New York, banning them altogether, but other states, such as California, trying for a middle ground that allows for their use by hobbyists.

In Canada, possession of unregistered firearms remains illegal, regardless of how the gun was made. This message should be reinforced with high-profile prosecutions, such as the campaign by Toronto police that resulted in 23 people charged with making and selling 120 ghost guns.

Winnipeg police are encouraged to continue their effort to get illegal guns off the streets, including the weapons that scofflaws are making at their kitchen tables.