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Using the same measure reported by municipal police forces, rather than by all policing authorities within CMAs, Toronto had the most violent gun crime in 2018, but, among the same group of six municipalities, Ottawa was second.

Photo by Ottawa Police Service

What all this data don’t consider, however, are the circumstances in which gun crimes occurred and how these crimes are reported by police forces in different jurisdictions.

Ottawa police Insp. Carl Cartright works with the criminal investigations directorate and the guns and gangs unit. He cites OPS reporting improvements plus Ottawa’s unique geographical size and rural nature as reasons for its high gun crime rate.

“If somebody is out there hunting on somebody else’s land and discharges a firearm on private property, that’s considered into that data,” Cartwright said. “You’re not going to have those incidents on Yonge Street.”

Still, Cartright said, there was more gun violence in Ottawa than he and others would like there to be.

“Can those stats … be indicative of now more firearms entering Canada and being available cheaper? Yes. Is it indicative of the social dilemma of young, mostly men, using firearms to settle the most minor disputes? Yes.

“That is what we’re seeing on the street.”

It’s a trend that prompted Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Rawlson King to throw his hat into politics and propose a call for a handgun ban shortly after taking municipal office. “If you sit around a table at a community association and somebody is telling you, who lives probably 700 metres away from you, that there was a shooting near to where their children are picked up by the school bus, then it drives you to action.”