FJAG
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The Great Gun Control Debate- 2.0
- Thread starter Jarnhamar
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OldSolduer
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Haggis
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Not as many as you'd think. Most Canadians don't give much thought to gun control (or defence or law and order in general, for that matter) until either their government or MSM tells them they should.
But acts like this can sway the undecided towards the anti side.
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For reference to the discussion, the homicide rates , per capita , of major North American cities ,
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Governments break the law all the time, in fact most people break the law on a regular basis. There are so many laws, regulations, polices that no one could hope to know them all and can break them unwittingly or because the law is seen to be stupid.
OldSolduer
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Sounds like Toronto Police are well prepared for Caribbean Carnival this weekend.
Hopefully everyone enjoys the festivities and stay safe.
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Appears his "Crime" was not following the PAL verification process for transferring firearms, which makes you a trafficker.
Halifax Tar
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Seem reasonable. Bully are tough until they start getting hit back.
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Just read that and found it interesting myself. It's almost as if police have known this since around Columbine, but in Canada we keep getting told legal firearms owners, like the gentleman in the story, are the true problem.
I'm not saying I'd daily CCW, but given the option, I'd take the training and make sure I could when I wanted to.
Maxman1
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Halifax Tar
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I used to be pretty solidly against CCW.
But as I watch the continued impotence of our law enforcement organizations and government, my pendulum has swung to where I no longer trust them to respond properly or on time when it comes to my personal safety or my family's safety. I think it's high time that Canadians were given the legislative and legal cover to be able to carry concealed weapons.
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Considering the amount of drug addled criminals walking around in public these days it isn’t a bad idea.
The amount of random stabbings in completely public areas by random people to random people has caused me to always consider where I am going and how prepared I am, especially if I am with my family.
It isn’t just criminal on criminal violence, or stabbings for a reason, it is random where the victim did nothing to provoke or cause the attack.
Remember in Canada you need to wear seatbelts in case of a car accident, have smoke alarms in case of a fire, but god forbid you planned on how to protect yourself or your family from a aggressor.
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I would add a bit to that.
...Canadians <who have completed and passed a national standard firearms handling, marksmanship and legalities related training course>...were given the...
Maxman1
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We do have that in the system, Authorization To Carry. It's almost never issued.
Authorization to carry
Halifax Tar
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Absolutely agreed.
We do have that in the system, Authorization To Carry. It's almost never issued.
Authorization to carry
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I am aware, and I am aware its almost impossible to get.
Haggis
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I have seen/heard estimates of 651 to 1 in circulation right now for protection of life by an individual (Authorizations to Carry Restricted Firearms and Certain Handguns Regulations) Section 2, but there are hundreds issued under Section 3 for lawful occupation and wilderness carry. My club in co-operation with the local trappers hold an ATC for wilderness carry course each year.We do have that in the system, Authorization To Carry. It's almost never issued.
Authorization to carry
The GoC refuses to say how many Section 2 ATCs are out there citing privacy and safety concerns.
Halifax Tar
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Interesting article from MacLeans
Gun licence applications are on the rise in the Greater Toronto Area. Between 2016 and 2025, the number of applicants for possession and acquisition licences, or PALs—the permits that allow Canadians to buy firearms—have increased by nearly 50 per cent. In some parts of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, like the eastern suburb of Peel, they’ve more than doubled. And southern Ontario isn’t the only place where this is happening. The number of PAL licence holders across Canada is quickly nearing 2.5 million, the highest count on record.
For a lot of Canadians, this doesn’t square with our self-image. Our gun culture—or supposed lack thereof—has always been a major way we differentiate ourselves from the U.S. We tell ourselves that, unlike our trigger-happy southern neighbours, firearms in Canada aren’t a cornerstone of our lives or our Constitution. To a certain extent, this is true.
In the past few decades, as American gun culture became more strident, Canada has enacted a series of ever-stricter gun-control laws. In 1995, Parliament passed a landmark bill introducing universal licensing for all firearms and a registry to track them. After the 2020 rampage shooting in Nova Scotia, the Trudeau government outlawed more than 1,500 models and variants of firearms. That list was expanded in 2024, and again by the Carney government in March of this year. In 2022, Canada also put a freeze on handgun sales. Compared to America’s open-carry laws, which allow grocery shoppers to carry handguns as they buy their broccoli, Canada is obviously tame by comparison.
But it would be wrong to say that this country has no gun culture. I know because I’m part of it. I shot a rifle for the first time as a Boy Scout when I was 12 years old. Now I shoot recreationally at a range near my home in Ontario. I’m part of the seven per cent of Canadian adults who own guns. It’s a number far lower than America’s 32 per cent, but it’s certainly not nothing.
People are buying guns now for different reasons than they did a few decades ago. In the ’70s, only 20 per cent of Americans said they owned a gun for self-defence, with the vast majority using their firearms for hunting. Nowadays, self-defence is the main motivation for more than 75 per cent of gun owners. A similar trend followed in Canada: in 2023, 30 per cent of gun-owning Canadians said self-defence was their primary reason for owning a gun, up from only six per cent in the late 1990s.
https://macleans.ca/society/we-escaped-trumps-homophobic-america-for-queer-friendly-canada/
Gun ownership is also changing demographically: the days when gun owners were almost exclusively older white men like myself are gone, and the gender, age and racial makeup of the gun-owning public is looking a lot more like that of Canada’s general population. Since the 1980s, women have been the fastest-growing demographic of gun owners, now representing 13 per cent of them.
The rise of gun ownership is a natural consequence of a world that seems a lot scarier than it used to. I recently spoke with a man who said he’d been considering getting his firearms licence for some time, but Trump’s threats to make Canada the 51st state finally pushed him over the edge. The link between threatening events and gun ownership is clear. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, gun purchases in both the U.S. and Canada rose significantly. In Canada, our safe storage regulations mean most guns are kept in locked boxes or safes, making their self-defence capabilities pretty meagre. But for many people, simply owning a gun offers a feeling of security.
Gun ownership is also on the rise among newcomers. Many move to Canada from countries where guns are more strictly regulated and want to take advantage of the freedom to own a firearm. On the flip side, some newcomers come from places where guns are the norm. In Pakistan, for example, there’s a strong hunting culture, and firearm ownership is common. Turkey has a massive small arms industry, and guns have a deep symbolic value. It’s why the Turkish president gifted Mark Carney a revolver at the NATO summit in July.
The growth in licensing and ownership is partly due to the rising popularity of tactical sports, like 3-Gun or IPSC, which simulate combat, and which have spread largely via social media. Entirely new demographics are being exposed to the idea of gun ownership, disrupting the traditional model, which relied on family members passing down skills and firearms. At my rural gun range, the mix of members and guests reflects these changing demographics.
We’ll never have a gun culture like the U.S. Our licensing laws, training requirements and other restrictions prevent it from taking hold, even if there was an appetite for it. We have no second amendment enshrining the right to bear arms or castle law to protect gun-wielding homeowners. Nor do we have a historic cowboy culture to look back on. By and large, Canadian gun owners are also proud of our safety culture. They know that when people get killed by guns, gun control ramps up. So safety measures aren’t viewed as an imposition, but rather common-sense rules that make the use of guns safer for all of us.
But what we are getting closer to is a culture where, like in the U.S., guns are a flavour of normal. In rural areas, this has always been true, but more and more city-dwellers are now interested in guns. The idea of owning them has always been framed in Canada as something deviant—a bad behaviour reserved for those with malicious intent. This is changing. And as the world gets more dangerous, or at least feels like it, Canada’s conventional wisdom on guns will keep shifting toward greater acceptance.
Canadians Are Buying More Guns
Like it or not, many people feel safer with a firearm at homeGun licence applications are on the rise in the Greater Toronto Area. Between 2016 and 2025, the number of applicants for possession and acquisition licences, or PALs—the permits that allow Canadians to buy firearms—have increased by nearly 50 per cent. In some parts of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, like the eastern suburb of Peel, they’ve more than doubled. And southern Ontario isn’t the only place where this is happening. The number of PAL licence holders across Canada is quickly nearing 2.5 million, the highest count on record.
For a lot of Canadians, this doesn’t square with our self-image. Our gun culture—or supposed lack thereof—has always been a major way we differentiate ourselves from the U.S. We tell ourselves that, unlike our trigger-happy southern neighbours, firearms in Canada aren’t a cornerstone of our lives or our Constitution. To a certain extent, this is true.
In the past few decades, as American gun culture became more strident, Canada has enacted a series of ever-stricter gun-control laws. In 1995, Parliament passed a landmark bill introducing universal licensing for all firearms and a registry to track them. After the 2020 rampage shooting in Nova Scotia, the Trudeau government outlawed more than 1,500 models and variants of firearms. That list was expanded in 2024, and again by the Carney government in March of this year. In 2022, Canada also put a freeze on handgun sales. Compared to America’s open-carry laws, which allow grocery shoppers to carry handguns as they buy their broccoli, Canada is obviously tame by comparison.
But it would be wrong to say that this country has no gun culture. I know because I’m part of it. I shot a rifle for the first time as a Boy Scout when I was 12 years old. Now I shoot recreationally at a range near my home in Ontario. I’m part of the seven per cent of Canadian adults who own guns. It’s a number far lower than America’s 32 per cent, but it’s certainly not nothing.
People are buying guns now for different reasons than they did a few decades ago. In the ’70s, only 20 per cent of Americans said they owned a gun for self-defence, with the vast majority using their firearms for hunting. Nowadays, self-defence is the main motivation for more than 75 per cent of gun owners. A similar trend followed in Canada: in 2023, 30 per cent of gun-owning Canadians said self-defence was their primary reason for owning a gun, up from only six per cent in the late 1990s.
https://macleans.ca/society/we-escaped-trumps-homophobic-america-for-queer-friendly-canada/
Gun ownership is also changing demographically: the days when gun owners were almost exclusively older white men like myself are gone, and the gender, age and racial makeup of the gun-owning public is looking a lot more like that of Canada’s general population. Since the 1980s, women have been the fastest-growing demographic of gun owners, now representing 13 per cent of them.
The rise of gun ownership is a natural consequence of a world that seems a lot scarier than it used to. I recently spoke with a man who said he’d been considering getting his firearms licence for some time, but Trump’s threats to make Canada the 51st state finally pushed him over the edge. The link between threatening events and gun ownership is clear. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, gun purchases in both the U.S. and Canada rose significantly. In Canada, our safe storage regulations mean most guns are kept in locked boxes or safes, making their self-defence capabilities pretty meagre. But for many people, simply owning a gun offers a feeling of security.
Gun ownership is also on the rise among newcomers. Many move to Canada from countries where guns are more strictly regulated and want to take advantage of the freedom to own a firearm. On the flip side, some newcomers come from places where guns are the norm. In Pakistan, for example, there’s a strong hunting culture, and firearm ownership is common. Turkey has a massive small arms industry, and guns have a deep symbolic value. It’s why the Turkish president gifted Mark Carney a revolver at the NATO summit in July.
The growth in licensing and ownership is partly due to the rising popularity of tactical sports, like 3-Gun or IPSC, which simulate combat, and which have spread largely via social media. Entirely new demographics are being exposed to the idea of gun ownership, disrupting the traditional model, which relied on family members passing down skills and firearms. At my rural gun range, the mix of members and guests reflects these changing demographics.
We’ll never have a gun culture like the U.S. Our licensing laws, training requirements and other restrictions prevent it from taking hold, even if there was an appetite for it. We have no second amendment enshrining the right to bear arms or castle law to protect gun-wielding homeowners. Nor do we have a historic cowboy culture to look back on. By and large, Canadian gun owners are also proud of our safety culture. They know that when people get killed by guns, gun control ramps up. So safety measures aren’t viewed as an imposition, but rather common-sense rules that make the use of guns safer for all of us.
But what we are getting closer to is a culture where, like in the U.S., guns are a flavour of normal. In rural areas, this has always been true, but more and more city-dwellers are now interested in guns. The idea of owning them has always been framed in Canada as something deviant—a bad behaviour reserved for those with malicious intent. This is changing. And as the world gets more dangerous, or at least feels like it, Canada’s conventional wisdom on guns will keep shifting toward greater acceptance.
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