Dozens of restricted guns purchased by a Courtenay man are still missing, even though he was convicted of several firearms charges almost six months ago.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robin Baird said it is disturbing how many firearms, purchased by Bryce Cameron McDonald between 2009 and 2013, have disappeared without a trace.
“Upwards of 30 restricted weapons from Mr. McDonald’s arsenal seem to have vanished,” Baird said in his ruling in April, in which he convicted McDonald of 12 charges. The ruling was released this week.
B.C.’s anti-gang squad — the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit — raided McDonald’s Courtenay house, as well as a storage locker he rented, in December 2013.
Officers found just 19 firearms, both restricted and unrestricted, even though records showed McDonald had purchased 49 restricted guns since getting his licence in the fall of 2009.
Police began investigating McDonald after homicide investigators were tipped off to the location of a bag of guns near 76nd Avenue in Surrey on Sept. 17, 2013.
“The RCMP located this bag and one of the three firearms inside it was traced back to Mr. McDonald. He had purchased it, the police discovered, sometime in 2011,” Baird noted in his ruling.
McDonald had never reported the gun lost or stolen, even though it’s mandatory to do so, Baird noted.
“Unsurprisingly, the police began to wonder what sort of gun owner Mr. McDonald might be and started making inquiries about him.”
When McDonald testified in his own defence at his trial, he told Baird that all the missing firearms were, in fact, in his home when the police searched it.
He said police either took the guns without documenting them or that his house was robbed while he was in custody after the police left the door unlocked.
“I am afraid that I must reject these implications,” Baird said. “First of all, neither of Mr. McDonald’s theories was put to the various police officers who testified about the search. Secondly, I cannot think of a single reason why the police might have seized the firearms in question and not accounted for them or recommended additional charges.”
Baird also pointed to a comment that McDonald made in a videotaped interview after he was first arrested.
When asked about the missing guns, McDonald said “I know” and appeared to agree it was disturbing the guns were gone.
“I find as a fact that the police did not find the vast majority of firearms registered to Mr. McDonald because they were no longer in his possession. Mr. McDonald alone knows what really happened to them,” Baird said. “Mr. McDonald’s evidence on this subject is an after-the-fact fabrication.”
Baird said it was “strange, and probably sinister” that McDonald claimed to purchase so many firearms “to experience the challenge and exhilaration of learning to handle and fire different makes and models,” when so many of the guns are now missing.
“I have already said that Mr. McDonald’s explanation for their absence is nonsense, and frankly, I shudder to think where these firearms are likely to have gone,” Baird said.
Baird convicted McDonald in April on 12 charges – including careless storage of a firearm, possession of a loaded restricted firearm and storing a firearm contrary to regulations – all related to a loaded Boberg handgun found in a dresser drawer at his house.
He was also convicted of seven counts of storing other firearms in locations that weren’t authorized by his licence, as well as a single count each of possessing brass knuckles and possessing cocaine.
McDonald is scheduled to be back in court Nov. 7 for sentencing.
Staff Sgt. Lindsey Houghton of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Agency said police were happy to take the 19 seized firearms off the street during the investigation.
He wouldn’t comment on the missing 30 restricted firearms.
At the time of McDonald’s arrest, police said he had affiliations to at least one organized crime group. In Facebook postings, some of his friends say they are members of the Hells Angels and are seen wearing colours of the biker gang.
