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OTTAWA – There are new demands for Canada to ban the SKS rifle after the FBI revealed the perpetrator of the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting talked about using the semi-automatic firearm in the attack.
Photos of Jesse Van Rootselaar holding a long gun and a text exchange about the weapon with an alleged American co-conspirator are found in a 41-page criminal complaint filed in a U.S. district court in Seattle.
James Bryant, 30, was charged with conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country. U.S. officials allege Bryant advised Van Rootselaar as she planned the mass killing. She killed eight people before taking her own life in the February attack.
The court documents detailing the FBI investigation claim Van Rootselaar stole guns and ammunition from her family’s gun safe six months prior to the mass shooting. In a text exchange, Van Rootselaar allegedly complained her SKS gun alignment is off.
“The police knocked my SKS sight off zero a lil bit when they roughly confiscated it, so the gun is hitting high and to the left,” she was quoted as saying to Bryant in December 2025. Investigators allege she also talked about a “switch” for her rifle, which likely referred to a machine-gun conversion device
The FBI allege that on the morning of the shooting, Van Rootselaar sent photos of herself to Bryant showing that “she was dressed for the attack.” The photo shows Van Rootselaar, wearing a black skirt with star-printed stockings, holding what appeared to be a rifle.
Type of guns still not disclosed
Days after the rampage, the RCMP said they were focused on three firearms. A long gun and a modified rifle were recovered at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, and a shotgun was located at Van Rootselaar’s home. Investigators were trying to determine the origin of two of three guns.
According to the Mounties. the shotgun at the family home, and the main firearm used at the school had not been previously seized.
To this day, Canadian authorities have not disclosed the type of guns that were used in the killing spree.
Heidi Rathjen, the co-founder of the gun control advocacy group PolySeSouvient, said the FBI’s findings are part of the mounting reasons to ban the weapon in Canada.
“We see what this weapon is capable of. It is the model that is most used in mass shootings in Canada and in the shooting of police officers,” said Rathjen in an interview with CTV News.
Data gathered by PolySeSouvient shows that since 2014, eight officers and 15 civilians have been killed by perpetrators using the SKS.
The numbers do not include the eight victims of Tumbler Ridge, six of whom were children.
Rathjen, who is also a survivor of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre, has spent years lobbying for restrictions to be imposed on the SKS.
“Any rational Canadian could see that this is not a weapon that should be in the hands of ordinary civilians,” Rathjen said.
Ottawa will look at panel’s review: PM Carney
Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked Thursday if his government would ban the SKS. He said he would defer to the expertise of law enforcement.
“With respect to gun control and the classification of weapons, what this government is doing is setting up an arm’s-length objective assessment of those classifications,” Carney said during a media availability in Sherbrooke, Que.
“We need the advice of the professionals, the RCMP.”
The prime minister’s answer echoed that of Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, who was asked a similar question one day earlier.
“The RCMP has not finished its work yet and I want to wait until that work is complete before I can comment further,” said Anandasangaree during a media scrum on Parliament Hill.
But the minister did emphasize that the information that came out of the FBI disclosure was “worrisome,” particularly the allegations related to how Van Rootselaar conspired with Bryant on the social media site Discord.
‘Why were guns returned?’
Rathjen said she is frustrated by what she views as stall tactics and angry that details of how a Canadian tragedy unfolded are being revealed by American authorities.
She said the public need to know what guns were used, how they were modified and why police confiscated guns from Van Rootselaar’s home, only to return them later.
“We don’t accept that it’s justified to withhold that kind of information from the public.”
In an email to CTV News, RCMP Staff Sgt. Kris Clark said privacy rights differ between Canada and the U.S., and that the disclosure of additional information is now being considered by the courts.
Several media organizations, including CTV News, have argued for the lifting of the publication ban. A judge has yet to rule on the matter.
