Uglysasquatch wrote:
gbaji wrote:
So pointing to the increased rate of shootings in the US and concluding that if we just passed tighter gun control laws, it would solve this problem, is likely barking up the wrong tree.
We have rifles and shot guns. We don't all own assault rifles and/or hand guns.
Yup. Here's the funny thing though. Rifles and long guns are in the non-restricted category in Canada. Making them actually
easier to obtain and use than in many parts of the US (where our nutty gun control folks tend to treat all firearms as "scary" and must be restricted as much as possible). Handguns and "really scary looking rifles" (which are *not* assault rifles since they are semi-automatic), fall into the restricted category, which makes them pretty equivalent in terms of ease to obtain as the same weapons are in most parts of the US (which again, ironically includes weapons not so restricted in Canada). Prohibited weapons are fully automatic weapons and weapons with very short barrels (of all base types), designed for ease of concealment. Which, again, isn't any more restrictive than in the US.
Carrying weapons around is a bit more restrictive than in the US, I'll admit. A base permit allows you to keep a weapon in your home, and only transport it for sale/purchase, to a shooting range, to a new home when you move, or if you're out in the wilderness hunting or something. Which is pretty much the same as it is in the US (with variations as to how they must be secured during transport, of course). Carry permits are more restrictive in Canada in general, and I'm not aware if Canada has a concealed carry at all. But again, none of these really affect gun crime. People who obtain carry permits (of any kind) don't commit even a tiny portion of gun crime. The obvious fact is that a criminal planning on using a firearm to commit a crime isn't going to worry about obtaining some kind of permit to own, much less carry, said firearm. Similarly, most mass shooting events in the US are committed by someone who merely owns a firearm, or takes it from someone else who does (Sandyhook shooter "borrowed" his mom's firearms, for example). There's no need to obtain a carry permit to commit a mass shooting. Merely having physical access to weapons is sufficient. Most mass shooters In the US (all that I can think of off the top of my head, although it's possible there are exceptions), had no criminal record which would have prohibited them from legally obtaining the firearms they used in their shootings, planned their attacks well in advance, so waiting periods were not an issue. So Canadian law would not have done anything at all to prevent them from committing the same attacks there, if they so desired.
It's hard to see how Canada's gun laws could possibly have any greater impact on their rates of mass shooting events than US gun laws do. Thus, the differences in resulting rates kinda have to be the result of some other factors. Again, we can talk about the various sociological aspects of this issue, but we should all conclude that it's not really about gun control. That's the simplistic feel good answer that our political Left leaps to, almost certainly because it's the one "solution" they can propose that they know most people, and especially most people on the Right, will oppose. This allows them to create a fight on the issue where they can paint themselves in the role of wanting to save victims from such senseless violence, and their opponents as terrible people who care more about their guns than they do about the lives of the victims. Insert footage of crying parents here.
And while that might win them some political points among the gullible and foolish (which sadly, makes up an alarmingly high percentage of our population), their "solution" doesn't actually do anything to address the problem itself. But it's a common pattern that our political Left does not actually pursue solutions to problems, but merely capitalizes on those problems for their own political gain. And gun control is no different.