Firearms expert applauds stiff sentence for Winnipeg ghost gun trafficker

A lifelong firearms expert is applauding the 12-year sentence passed down by a Manitoba judge to a man who pleaded guilty to trafficking partially 3D-printed “ghost guns.”

David Brown, a registered firearms instructor, says there’s no legitimate reason for the untraceable firearms.

“It’s about time that courts recognize the seriousness of what these people are doing,” said Brown.

“The so-called ghost guns have one purpose and one purpose only and that purpose is to be sold to criminals.”

Last week Blake Ellison-Crate pleaded guilty to 13 firearms offences, including manufacturing and transferring restricted firearms and possession of 3-D-printed firearm frames.

His 12-year sentence is believed to be the longest in Canada for weapon offences tied to a 3D printer.

At his arrest in July 2022, Insp. Elton Hall, who leads the WPS organized crime section, said these types of ghost guns are a growing issue in Winnipeg.

“When you look at our statistics, it looks like right now, there’s a flood of 3D-guns entering into the city to make up for the gun shortage we have in the city right now,” Hall said at the time.

One of the guns Ellison-Crate helped craft – assembling them with out-of-province parts, obtained under a fake identity – was used in the shooting of two boys at the Red River Exhibition last summer.

“They cause a lot of danger, a lot of damage out on the streets and a huge amount of risk to both police officers and to citizens,” said Brown, a world-renowned firearms expert who works closely with law enforcement.

Guns lack safeguard of serial number

Brown explains while parts of the gun – like the barrel and slide – need to be metal, the frame of a pistol, the handle and bottom half of the gun are made with high-impact polymer – a super strong plastic – that can be replicated using a 3D-printer.

But these weapons lack the critical safeguard of a serial number.

“That’s the hazard, is the fact that it’s untraceable,” said Brown.

He says while black market guns have always been around, technology has made them even more accessible, adding no legitimate firearms enthusiast would be seeking these weapons out.

“This is not something that any legitimate collector is not going to want anything that even looks something like,” he said. “They’re not the most attractive thing in the world, because they’re made quick and they’re made kind of sloppy.”

And while guns have been manufactured in garages and basements for years, it required machining and fabrication skills. Brown says the arrival of the technology-fuelled ghost guns was unexpected in the industry and firearms world.

“I’ve been a firearms instructor for 30 years, so long before the advent of home computers, let alone 3D printers. This is something that I think is new to all of us.”