The semi-automatic rifle used in the Dawson College shootings can be bought at a hunting and fishing mega-store in Dartmouth, despite a coroner’s report more than a decade ago recommending the firearm be banned.
The non-restricted Beretta Cx4 Storm, which can be purchased by any Canadian with a gun licence, was recently advertised in a Bass Pro Shops flyer distributed across Halifax Regional Municipality.
The rifle was used by Kimveer Gill to kill Anastasia De Sousa and wound 16 people at Dawson College in Montreal on Sept. 13, 2006.
Gill used a 10-cartridge magazine. Under Canadian law, the maximum capacity of magazines designed for semi-automatic rifles is five cartridges.
“In a strange twist of logic, the 10-cartridge magazine sold for the Beretta pistol is also perfectly suited to the Cx4 Storm rifle and can be used for the latter in all legality,” Quebec coroner Jacques Ramsay wrote in his 2008 report.
“The 10-bullet magazine should either be allowed or banned outright,” wrote Ramsay.
“A five-bullet magazine would have theoretically resulted in fewer victims.”
But Andrea Gordon, a Halifax-area resident, said the semi-automatic rifle shouldn’t be accessible to the public in the first place.
Less than a year ago, Gordon said, she was in an abusive relationship and found a semi-automatic rifle in the basement. The firearm belonged to her now-former partner, who was a hunter.
“I just wasn’t comfortable knowing there was a killing machine like that in my house,” Gordon said.
Shortly after, she ended the relationship and moved out of the house.
“I had resources and stuff like that, but there’s a lot of people in this world that don’t,” she said.
“I find it terrifying that somebody else could be in that situation and that their partner could drive on down and buy (something) that could potentially hurt them and a whole bunch of other people for no good reason.”
Gordon said she understands hunters having access to certain firearms but not semi-automatic rifles.
“When you can shoot 20 times at once, there’s no value in that for people,” she said.
“Taking that chance of that happening one time in one school, or one time in one church, I just don’t think anybody’s civil rights are worth it.”
The Beretta Cx4 is used by “several police agencies across the U.S.,” states Beretta’s website.
“Whether you use it for home defence, varminting, competition or training, the Cx4 will deliver what it promises.”
Tony Bernardo, executive director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, says the Beretta Cx4 Storm is “a very weak firearm.”
“The fact that a firearm is built to military specifications doesn’t make it deadlier. It makes it proper,” Bernardo said.
“The Cx4 is chambered for the 9mm handgun cartridge, and contrary to what Hollywood would love you to believe, handguns are not very powerful.”
A 9mm puts out about 350 foot-pounds of energy, while an average deer rifle puts out about 2,200 foot-pounds, he said.
The Beretta Cx4 has a different, “racy” look from a common hunting gun because it was designed by Ferrari, Bernardo said.
"It would be the kind of firearm you would use to maybe shoot a rabbit, clearing groundhogs out of your farm, that sort of stuff," Bernardo said.
“The bottom line here is it’s honestly not much different from your average farm kid’s .22,” he said.
Bass Pro Shops did not respond to a request for comment.
