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It’s a function of an increased drug trade due to fentanyl, mostly smuggled in from China, being protected by guns snuck in from the United States.

“As members of the street gangs are protecting their environment for the distribution piece of that drug activity, this is where it comes, this is where there is the big game-changer,” Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders said in a year-end news conference on Dec. 19.

The chief says that there is no one act that can or will solve the problem in his city but that there needs to be a multifaceted approach. Still he acknowledged that the problem is driven by gangs selling narcotics while using illegal guns.

“I believe 82%, give or take, of the crime guns in the city are coming from the United States,” Saunders said.

So, if the reasons driving this are drugs from China and guns from the United States, both of which are illegal, why is the Trudeau government trying to solve the problem by banning rifles used in hunting and target shooting?

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Mostly because it is easier than dealing with the problem of stopping guns at the border.

“There are new sophisticated ways that guns come into the city,” Saunders said when asked about methods of gun smuggling such as attaching guns to the bottom of cars. He wouldn’t elaborate but tales of cross-border shoppers being used by organized crime to unwittingly smuggle guns across the border abound.

A car is targeted at a cross-border shopping centre, guns and a tracking device are attached to the car and after the shopper returns home, the guns are retrieved.