Zoomer said:
Doesn't Canada have higher gun ownership? Don't most western countries have gun laws and gun ownership?
How many of these countries have similar events. We have had a couple in living memory, one of which led to a large overhaul of our laws (Dunblane).
Yet the US, this seems a fairly frequent occurrence. So what is different between the US and other countries? Is it the law about buying weapons (despite higher ownership in other countries). Is it checks before you can buy?
Or is there something else? Why do Americans "Go postal"?
Pretty sure Canada has stricter gun laws than the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Canada
For instance
To purchase a handgun or other restricted firearm, a person must have a possession and acquisition licence (PAL) for restricted firearms.
Canada's federal laws severely restrict the ability of civilians to transport restricted or prohibited (grandfathered) firearms in public. Section 17 of the Firearms Act makes it an offence to possess prohibited or restricted firearms other than at a dwelling-house or authorized location, but there are two exceptions to this prohibition found in sections 19 and 20 of the act. Section 19 allows for persons to be issued an authorization to transport, or ATT, authorizing the transport of a firearm outside the home for certain purposes, such as for its transfer to a new owner, going to and from a range, a training course, repair shop or gun show, or when the owner wishes to change the address where the firearm is stored. Such firearms must be transported unloaded, equipped with a trigger lock and stored in secure, locked containers. In rarer cases, section 20 of the act allows individuals to receive an authorization to carry, or ATC, granting permission to carry loaded restricted firearms or (section 12(6)) prohibited handguns on their persons for certain reasons specified in the act. These reasons are as follows: if the person is a licensed trapper and carries the firearm while trapping, if the person is in a remote wilderness area and needs the firearm for protection against wildlife, if the person's work involves guarding or handling money or other items of substantial value, or if the person's life is in danger and police protection is inadequate to protect him or her. It should be noted that the authorities almost never issue an ATC for the last reason, that is to say, because a person's life is threatened and police protection is inadequate. The vast majority of ATC's issued are to employees of armoured car companies to allow carry of a company owned firearm only while working.
Magazine capacity:
Common AR-15 30 round magazines that have been pinned to 5 rounds.
Some magazines are prohibited regardless of the class of firearm to which the magazines are attached. As a general rule, under the Criminal Code of Canada, the maximum magazine capacity is:
5 cartridges for most magazines designed for rifles that shoot centre-fire ammunition in a semi-automatic fashion
3 rounds for shotguns, tubular magazines that hold more are legal, but MUST be plugged to limit capacity to 3 rounds while hunting.
10 cartridges for most handgun magazines
There is a very very long and specific list of which guns fall into the categories of prohibited, restricted, and non-restricted, but for the purpose of this discussion I'll just point out that it's illegal to fire
any handgun or other restricted weapon (including semi-auto ar-15 rifles etc) anywhere other than a shooting range, ie not hunting, certainly not to walk around with. Prohibited weapons need an even more restrictive license, this includes handguns with barrels shorter than 4 .1 inches, to purchase or own and cannot even be transported outside the owner's house without a specially issued permit to transport them to a gun show, repair shop, firing range, and so forth (like you apply for the permit for one specific action, then the permit is expired).
Now, to me that sounds fairly significantly different than US gun laws.
As for the right to bear arms, just ignoring the fact that this was an ambiguous statement that may have implied citizens should be part of a militia - and despite supreme court ruling on the matter, the statement remains ambiguous, I've often seen used, and yet to see a good answer to one question.
Obviously, there should be some restriction on what sort of 'arms', arms means. Does it mean hydrogen bombs? How about chemical weapons? Oh right, those weren't invented then so they obviously didn't mean those. Well neither were jacketed ammunition types, handguns that took less time than 30 seconds for a very quick musketeer to reload, or rotary cannons that can shoot 9000+ rounds per minute. So therefore, while you have a right to bear arms, questioning where the line must be drawn is HARDLY an argument against constitutional law, much as the pro-gun lobby would like to pretend it is.
You know, as a male I understand this: guns are kinda cool, I get that, while I was in Vietnam on vacation I took the opportunity to fire an M60 and an ak-47 at a firing range and it was fun. I just don't get that they're worth the cost in innocent life, they're weapons of war and in extreme cases of law enforcement. They're just not something you need sitting around the home.
Growing up we had racks of guns above my bed at my grandma and grandpa's house. Two double barreled 12 guages, a 10 guage semi auto browning, a .303 rifle and a scoped aussie army rifle my uncle had brought back from the vietnam war. Grandpa never, EVER, let us anywhere near where he hid the ammunition, which was too high for children to reach anyway. My grandpa, dad, and his brothers used to hunt - that's why they had the guns. They lived in the country and it wasn't uncommon. Curious as boys are about such things I begged, and was allowed to shoot the guns, out in the bush at a tree, with my dad present. But for years before that I had drilled into me to NEVER, EVER EVER point a gun at another person EVEN IF IT'S UNLOADED (the point being even if you THINK it's unloaded). Stuff that kids should be taught if they ever are around guns.
My point is this: even with all that, the only reason I or any of my immediate family are alive today is because our family and extended family are generally well-adjusted, loving people. It would have only taken one adult to go grab a handful of ammunition, a gun off the wall and end us all. I trust my family to be responsible, but I don't trust others to be responsible, so I'd rather there were no guns at all. :twocents-02cents:
