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Canada Has a Firearms Internet Investigations Support Unit. What About U.S.?

Robert Farago - comments No comments

RCMP (courtesy copblock.org)

An eagle-eyed reader found this little gem at rcmp-grc.gc.ca: “The Firearms Internet Investigations Support (FIIS) Unit provides a range of Internet support services, both in the firearm applicant screening process and directly to front-line police officers. The CFP FIIS gathers information from a variety of open sources and, when potentially criminal activities involving firearms are detected, the information is forwarded to the police of jurisdiction for further investigation. In 2012, the CFP FIIS unit screened 2,793 firearms licence applicants and forwarded 55 follow-up reports, regarding high-risk applicants, to CFOs. In addition, the FIIS unit generated a number of files for police investigation and identified potential school firearm threats within Canada and within the United States.” Wait. Within the U.S.? What are the odds that the ATF, DHS, CA DOJ and/or some other American LEO has a similar unit surfing the net for firearms-related material? Better than the odds of ending this post with a preposition (up with which I will not put).

 

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Robert Farago

Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.

0 thoughts on “Canada Has a Firearms Internet Investigations Support Unit. What About U.S.?”

  1. Yep, the RCMP would rather spend billions monitoring one of the statistically most law abiding segments of our society than spend it on dealing with the actual gang problems in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

    Reply
    • You have no expectation of privacy on the internet. If you don’t want to be monitored don’t post on blogs, don’t have a Facebook or other social media page and don’t use Twitter. They might record your phone calls but don’t worry you are not of interest to anybody nor will you ever be.

      Reply
  2. When I was in high school, I found a spent .38 brass on the track. I brought it to the school cop or whatever we had. He just said alright, we’ll look into it. Turned out to just be a blank used in the starting gun. But no lockdown, freakout, etc. And this was in NE Illinois, and I had zero experience with guns. Some people are just overreacting morons.

    Reply
  3. I always wince when, “He ignored the officer’s commands” is used as a partial (or whole) justification for a police shooting.

    It’s painful to see how few people understand their own rights.

    Reply
    • Don’t be obtuse. No one said ignoring an officer’s commands in and of itself is a justification to be shot. Ignoring an officer’s commands to sit down on the sidewalk during a detention is worlds apart from ignoring an officer’s commands while advancing on him with a knife in hand.

      Reply

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