TORONTO, Ontario, Canada - May 17, 2010 - The recent confiscation of a formerly legal firearm has raised questions about how the Royal Canadian Mounted Police inspects imported firearms and has forced a change of national firearms policy.

From now on, the RCMP will be physically checking every assault-style rifle that enters the country.

Before the change, verifiers were used to check to make sure the guns are what the exporter said they would be. Verifiers could be anyone with knowledge of firearms and were given a one-day course from the RCMP.

Businesses that sell weapons were able to nominate their own verifiers. But the discovery of a gun the RCMP says should never have made it into Canada has highlighted potential problems with the verifier program.

There is concern that the first loyalty of business verifiers is to the business and that this could hurt the accuracy of the verifications.

"We've identified an issue with [the program]," said Marty Cheliak, the director general of the Canadian Firearms Program. "There's a perception of a conflict of interest that may be prevalent. In this case, we're looking into that for sure."