Several handguns, including one which was loaded, was seized during a series of raids conducted by police services in Ontario and Quebec on November 9th 2023 (Supplied Photo / Ontario Provincial Police)
Numbers are out from Stats Canada regarding violent crime and firearms in Canada for 2022.
Overall just under three percent of police reported violent crimes in the country involved a firearm, equating to about 14,000 incidents and an overall increase of 8.9 percent from 2021.
This is attributed to an increase in those kinds of crimes in Ontario, which saw the largest increase in the entire country at 24.4 percent between 2021 and 2022, or 32.1 incidents per 100,000 people, with the national average sitting at 36.7 incidents per 100,000.
In total 4,791 incidents were reported in the province, with a majority in urban southern Ontario regions.
Northern Ontario saw only 205 incidents in urban areas and 88 incidents in rural areas, which account for two and 1.6 percent respectively.
Additionally Stats Canada found the rate of firearm-related violent crime has generally been on the rise since 2013, with an increase of half for those using a handgun as opposed to rifles and shotguns at just under half and fully automatic or sawed-off firearms at 35 percent.
The largest increase was seen in what analysts call “firearm-like weapon or unknown type of firearm at 76 percent, those are defined in general terms as flare guns or pellet guns.
The full report can be found here.
