Traffic stop in Waterloo ends with seizure of 200+ guns

Police response to seizure of over 200 firearms Hundreds of guns were rounded up in Guelph over the weekend as part of a weapons investigation. Krista Sharpe has the details.

Waterloo Regional Police have seized over 200 firearms as part of a weapons investigation that began in Waterloo.

Police said Direct Action Response Team (DART) officers stopped a vehicle for a traffic violation Friday night around 7:20 p.m. in the area of Weber Street North and Bridgeport Road East.

"The DART officers were on proactive patrol as part of Safe Semester, a yearly project to promote the safety and wellbeing of university and college students in the region," police told CTV News in an email.

According to police, during the traffic stop officers noticed firearms and ammunition inside the vehicle.

"Officers approached the vehicle and as they approached, they observed several rounds of ammunition scattered throughout the vehicle as well as the barrel of a firearm was pointing in the direction of the officers that was located in the front seat of the vehicle," said Const. Brad Hickey of Waterloo Regional Police.

The driver, a 39-year-old man from Guelph, was arrested and charged with careless use of a firearms and transport firearm or restricted weapon. 17 firearms were seized from the vehicle.

"Are they for sale? Is he a firearms trafficker? Or is he just a gun owner that wants to move them to another location and safely store them? I mean, there's all kinds of options there," said CTV News Public Safety Analyst, Chris Lewis.

As part of the ongoing investigation, police completed a search warrant at a home on Victoria Road North in Guelph Saturday.

“Investigators seized 156 improperly stored firearms and an additional 60 firearms under public safety provisions of the Criminal Code. A large quantity of ammunition, magazines, and firearm parts were also seized,” police said in a media release Sunday.

Additional firearms storage and handling charges are pending, police said.

"It would appear by the charges that have been laid to some of them that perhaps the restricted weapons were never properly registered, so there's a couple of different violations that may have occured here," said Lewis. "But anyone that would own 200 guns, I mean that kind of scares me in itself. It just doesn't make sense to the average gun owner."

"The investigation is ongoing and we're encouraging anyone, any members of the public who have any information to please contact police or Crime Stoppers," added Hickey.

- With reporting by Krista Sharpe