Why were seized firearms returned to home of Tumbler Ridge mass shooter? Canada's 'Red Flag' law, explained
In a Facebook update in August 2024, the mother of the Tumbler Ridge suspected shooter posted a photo of rifles in a gun cabinet . “Think it’s time to take them out for some target practice,” the caption reads.
If the photo is authentic, it has left Dr. Alan Drummond, a long-time advocate for tighter gun control, asking: “How can this home have even one gun, let alone five or six?”
Police revealed this week that firearms had, in the past, been seized from, and then later returned to, the home of Jesse Van Rootselaar, believed responsible for a horrific shooting spree that left eight dead, including five schoolchildren ages 12 to 13.
Police have not disclosed what those weapons were, or who owned them. However, many are asking why guns were returned to the home of someone with a history of mental illness — someone whom police had apprehended multiple times in the past under a provincial Mental Health Act, meaning they were a potential threat to themselves or others.
Two firearms, a long gun and a modified handgun, were recovered by officers who responded to Tuesday’s shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, one of the deadliest mass school shootings in Canada’s history.
It’s believed the shooter’s mother, Jennifer Strang, 39, and an 11-year-old stepbrother, were first killed at their home before the shooter launched a second attack at the school. Van Rootselaar died at the scene from a self-inflicted injury, police said.
Police were called to the family home on multiple occasions in the past several years over mental health concerns related to the suspected shooter.
Firearms were seized during one of those visits. No charges were laid and the “lawful owner” successfully petitioned to have them returned, police said.
Police said Van Rootselaar’s firearm licence had expired in 2024 and that no guns were registered under that name.
Van Rootselaar, who was born a biological male but began to transition to female six years ago, was assessed under the Mental Health Act more than once, police said.
Under Canada’s “Red Flag” law, if someone is believed a safety risk to themselves or others, anyone can apply to a provincial or territorial court for an emergency prohibition order seeking that firearms be temporarily removed. A judge holds a hearing and, if convinced an emergency order is needed, firearms and weapons are either seized or turned in and the person’s licence revoked for up to 30 days, according to Public Safety Canada.
A judge can grant a longer-term prohibition order for up to five years. If not, once the emergency order expires or is cancelled, the firearms are to be returned “as soon as possible.”
University of Ottawa criminologist and professor emeritus Irvin Waller said that Red Flag law applies not just to the owner of the guns, and whether that person is likely to use them to kill themselves or others, “but whether somebody in that household is going to.”
Among the many questions that need answering, Waller said, is “to what extent did the mental health services and the police know that this shooter was likely to commit suicide or to attack other people.”
“And, secondly, the question around guns: How did the shooter get the long gun? The hand gun? Who modified the hand gun, and was the long gun legally in the residence?”
Police said Wednesday that they were working to identify who owned the guns, how they were procured and whether or not they were lawfully owned.
Waller said a public inquiry will be needed into the Tumbler Ridge tragedy on the order of the Mass Casualty Commission into the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia, when Gabriel Wortman, masquerading as a police officer, killed 22 people.
“It seems strange in hindsight that the weapons were returned to the owner,” Waller said.
Drummond said the Red Flag law needs to be amended to allow a health care provider, like a doctor, nurse or psychologist, to report a person at risk of gun ownership to the correct authorities to have the guns removed from the home “until their mental health crisis is resolved and, in some cases, never be allowed to own a gun.”
Save for a direct threat to harm themselves or others, doctors can’t report a patient to the chief firearms officer, because it would be a breach of patient confidentiality, said Drummond, a retired emergency physicians.
“If someone comes into your office and says, ‘I’m going to shoot up a school,’ (the doctor will respond), ‘Well, I’m calling the police.’
“But if they’ve got guns and they have psychotic thought processes, or they don’t seem quite right or they have depression, we really can’t breach confidentiality. The only circumstance you can is when there has been a direct threat.”
While the debate over gun violence “never seems to end,” with one side blaming mental illness and the other easy access to firearms, Drummond said it “can’t be all the guns, it can’t be the mental health.
“There’s an intersection between the two and somehow clearly we are failing in that regard,” said Drummond.
“Maybe we should spend a little less time talking about the gun, and maybe a little bit more about the person who owns the gun.”
Sherry Benson-Podolchuk, a retired RCMP officer, said a modified handgun is a handgun that’s been altered to fire like a semi-automatic weapon.
If the mother had the guns locked up, “if she had her (licence), if the ammunition is some place else, the police can only go by what is presented to them,” Benson-Podolchuk said.
“If at any time the mother would have said, ‘I don’t feel safe with (Van Rootselaar) having access to the weapons,’ they would have taken them.
“They did seize them at some point for some reason. And then she got them back. That’s the key, why she got them back. How did they get them back, and under what conditions? Like, ‘Go for therapy, change the locks. Nobody has the key (to the gun cabinet) but you, ma’am.'”
National Post
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