By David Zucchino
February 3, 2014
Photo courtesy latimes.com
Louis DiNatale didn’t intend to enter Canada when he and his wife wound up on a bridge from New York state to Ontario province one day in September, misdirected by an unreliable GPS. What began as an American couple’s getaway to Vermont quickly turned into a lesson on the stark difference between the U.S. and Canada when it comes to gun laws.
DiNatale, whose request to turn around and cross back into the U.S. was denied, then made another mistake. When a border official asked whether he had any weapons, he said no.
Louis DiNatale
(Photo courtesy o.canada.com)
Then the questions started about guns. A border agent asked whether he owned any.
“Yes,” DiNatale said.
“Why?” an agent asked.
“I told him I was retired military, I had respect for weapons, and I had a concealed carry license to do so,” DiNatale said in a statement.
“He asked me when was the last time I had a weapon on me. I told him, ‘Earlier that week.’ He asked me again, ‘Why?’ I told him it was my right as an American citizen to do so.”
But he was driving his wife’s car, and had forgotten he had stowed his Bersa .380 handgun in the center console days earlier.
A search turned up the gun and DiNatale found himself handcuffed and under interrogation by Canadian border officers for allegedly trying to smuggle a loaded handgun into the country — and lying about it. He spent four days in a Canadian jail before he could post bail.
DiNatale’s predicament is a cautionary tale for American gun owners: Canada takes gun control more seriously than the U.S. Over the last three years, nearly 1,400 firearms were confiscated at Canadian entry points, most of them personal guns belonging to U.S. citizens.