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15 Criminology, Crim. Just. L & Soc'y 57 (2014)
Guns for Hire: North America's Intra-Continental Gun Trafficking Networks

handle is hein.journals/wescrim15 and id is 205 raw text is: VOLUME 15, ISSUE 3, PAGES 57 74 (2014) Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society E-ISSN 2332-886X Available online at https:/scholasticahq.comlcriminology-criminal-justice-law-society/ Guns for Hire: North America's Intra-continental Gun Trafficking Christian Leuprechta and Andrew Aulthouseb a Royal Military College of Canada b Queens University ABSTRACT AND ARTICLE INFORMATION Networks Since Canada adjoins the largest weapons market in the world, it is unsurprising that guns used to commit criminal acts in Canada largely originate in the United States. But how are such weapons transported across the border: by individual entrepreneurs, by small networks, or by sophisticated cartels? This article analyzes six cases that resulted in prosecutions of 40 Canadian and American citizens implicated in Canada-U.S. gun trafficking networks between 2007 and 2010. This study is a plausibility probe that applies social network analysis-investigating networks that come into existence by the creation of pairwise links among their members-to analyze global structures, identify brokers and their roles, and discover patterns in the way guns are being procured in the United States, transported across the border, and distributed in Canada. In the process, this study generates hypotheses about network structure and works towards modeling these networks functionally: Since guns are available legally in the United States, we expect to find a proliferation of relatively simple networks. In contrast, drugs, which are not as readily available, might require more sophisticated networks to be trafficked across the border. Results revealed that the trafficking network structures seem to be driven by function. When the objective of the network is mere rent-seeking, transborder trafficking networks for guns tend to be simple. By contrast, when the objective is to manage violence as a constituent element of a larger criminal organization and its activities, networks tend to be more sophisticated, although the gun trafficking networks remain simpler. Article History: Keywords: Received 26 April 2014 Received in revised form 9 Sept 2014 Accepted 17 Sept 2014 plausibility probe, social network analysis, gun trafficking © 2014 Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society and The Western Society of Criminology Hosting by Scholastica. All rights reserved. In November of 2008, a family in Guelph had their car and house shot at by a neighbor while he was high on cocaine. A month later, a 26-year-old Ottawa man was shot dead answering his door. The following month, three people were held at gunpoint during a robbery in Vaughan (Powell, 2009). These violent crimes share a common denominator: each was committed with a gun traced back to Ugur Yildiz, a Chicago man who ferried over 200 firearms into Canada (Thompson, 2009). Two-thirds of all guns used in Canadian crimes originate in the United States (Cook, Cukier, & Krause, 2009). Indictments for gun trafficking and the number of guns seized per investigation has trended upward (RCMP, 2007). In Corresponding author: Christian Leuprecht, Royal Military College of Canada, 13 General Crerar Crescent, Kingston, Ontario, K7K 7B4, Canada. Email: christian.leuprecht@queensu.ca

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