TORONTO

A University of Toronto philosophy student-turned-gun runner now has eight years to contemplate the error of his ways.

Justin Green sold handguns that were used in a Yorkville club shooting, a payback shooting at a downtown barber shop and an armoured car robbery at Fairview Mall as well as four other less-serious crimes, a judge found Thursday.

Green had legally purchased a 23-gun arsenal in a five-month span between May and September 2012, spending $16,500 while only earning some $2,000 a month at part-time jobs.

Those firearms are worth $57,500 on the street, court heard.

Justice Edward Morgan did not believe Green’s story that he paid for his guns by defrauding welfare for $13,015 and winning pots at the casinos.

“The casino story was more like a house of cards, and it folded under cross-examination” by Crown attorney Erin Pancer, Morgan found.

“That casino story seemed tailor made to fit his need for an untraceable financial explanation,” Morgan said.

Pancer said Green’s ability to quickly acquire an arsenal without detection is alarming.

“There were no flags raised at Chief Firearms Office after Green purchased 23 weapons in five months,” said Pancer, a prosecutor with Guns and Gangs unit.

“He was discovered through the efforts of Toronto’s firearms enforcement unit after they found his gun at a crime scene,” said Pancer. “Green’s the worst type of offender. He’s a trusted citizen who betrayed that trust by trafficking firearms and jeopardizing the lives of Torontonians.”

Morgan found Green, 24, a first offender, guilty of seven counts of trafficking and 16 counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking.

Morgan said Green squandered his immense potential to engage in the dangerous world of gun trafficking.

“He impressed me as an intelligent and studious young man. This makes his investment of time, energy and money in ... firearms trafficking all the more unfortunate,” said Morgan earlier this month. “It is a sad way for him to waste his considerable talents.”

Gun trafficking is more than simply an illegal way to make cash, Morgan said.

“It places (Green) as a crucial link in a chain of cause and effect leading to violent gun crime,” he said.

Police seized seven weapons at crime scenes. None of the remaining 16 have been recovered.

The prosecution asserts those missing 16 firearms are already “into the stream of potentially violent crime,” Morgan said.

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Here’s a list of the crime scenes where Justin Green’s firearms were located: