Ottawa looks at regulating imitation guns after police shootings
A BB gun – one of the imitation weapons that Ontario coroners’ inquests into police shootings want Ottawa to regulate. comments The Trudeau government is looking into whether it should regulate imitation firearms following three Toronto incidents which saw police shoot and kill men brandishing relatively harmless guns. Dr. Dirk Huyer, Ontario’s chief coroner, alerted federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and her officials to the cases, which led three coroner juries to recommend Ottawa revise the Criminal Code to help prevent such fatalities. The minister confirmed in a letter last month to Huyer that the department is reviewing proposals to tighten controls on look-alike weapons that police often have no choice but to treat as genuine. A spokesman for the minister, Simon Rivet, told CBC News that officials are "examining the recommendations" and consulting on them with Public Safety Canada, which also helps set Ottawa’s gun policies. Ian Pryce was a Toronto resident who suffered from paranoia. He died in November 2013, when officers shot him as he brandished a look-alike weapon. (Heather Thompson) The review follows years’ of pressure from police groups which have warned that free access to unregulated imitation weapons poses grave risks to the public. As far back as 1994, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has been calling for bans and regulations on such faux weapons. The Canadian Medical Association also has called for curbs on unregulated low-velocity firearms – such as pellet and paintball guns – after research showed several hundred children […]
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