Just reading about a car sales place in the US are giving out free handguns with every car purchased. This got me thinking..........(my head hurts!!!!)

Are guns readily available in Canada? I would hate to think that there are gun totting crack heads roaming the street waiting to strike for their next deal with the assistance of mr Smith and mr Wesson.

i know that every country has there own far share of illegal weapons but can you just walk down the high street show your identification and hey presto you have got yourself a M50 for your grannys' 75th birthday.

Have a good sunday

Good morning Mikey..........have a look at this link......

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/...s.html?ref=rss

and this
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...Canada&s_name=

I have a license for hand guns and semi-automatic long guns. It's about as difficult to get such a license as it is to get a library card. With such a license one can go to Wal-Mart and buy an unlimited number of shotguns, rifles and hand guns with small magazines. It's next to impossible to get a license for a fully automatic weapon but this regulation, indeed any form of gun control, is quite new and anyone who had such a weapon in the seventies can retain it (the heir of such a person can also retain the weapon). The rate of legal gun ownership in Canada is at least as high as in most states and higher, obviously, than in regulated locations such as NYC.

Practically speaking heavy weaponry such as the M50 is not much of a factor in street crime, the country is awash with illegally held hand guns and it is these that are used. An open border with a country without gun control doesn't help but Canadians also buy, and lose, an amazing number of guns. Gun crime here is common in the way that knife crime is in the UK. One of my daughters works in a hospital where they always have multiple patients with gun shot wounds, "how come the police never shoot anyone once?" she wonders.

Of course, the pattern here, as in the US, is that nearly all gun crime occurs in narrowly defined geographical areas; poor ethnic city neighbourhoods such as North York and Scarborough. Out here, in the far exurbs, we hear gun shots most every day but it's porcupines, raccoons and groundhogs that get blasted.

Just like anywhere it depends where you live. I don't have a gun licence. I did hold one in the UK when I owned a 9mm Browning (I was a member of a shooting team, which is now illegal).

I live in relatively safe New Brunswick, were we have about 3 murders a year. I haven't tried to own a handgun here and haven't felt the need to. Our news and police get excited about being able to report road accidents!

People do hunt, so you occassionally see a few rifles and shotguns in the back windows of pickup trucks along with dead deer or moose in the back of the pickup.

Here endeth my limited experience in firearm exposure in NB.

One of the many things I find a bit odd about the gun laws is that it's legal to drive around with a firearm on a truck or ATV gun rack. If you leave the vehicle the weapon should be concealed but chucking a coat over it counts, potential theft doesn't seem to have been an issue in framing the laws.

I believe Canada has as many, if not more, guns per capita than the US. However gun crime in Canada isn't as high as it is in the US. Must be a cultural thing.

I'm not saying that is not true but I find it hard to believe even in Alberta.

I seem to remember that "fact" being mentioned in one of the Michael Moore movies.

Remember that is per capita and there are a few hundred million more people in the US to divide the number of guns by.

Yes, that's why it's per capita. Per capita means by number of heads, or usually interpreted as per person. Statistics are usually quoted per capita as it means it's averaged and you can compare disparate quantities or people, or countries.

Edit: Actually no they don't, it's way off. At least according to Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_o..._gun_ownership

However it doesn't make the distinction between privately held guns, and military/police weapons. But still seems like the US would have more.

Looking at the US and Canada as a whole is particularly unhelpful in the case of gun crime, rural states such as Vermont and Idaho have very little gun crime while some Toronto suburbs such as Malvern Heights and Rexdale have a great deal. If we compare like with like, Seatle vs. Vancouver for example, we find that any difference in the rate can be as easily attributed to different reporting methods and different definitions of crimes as to any difference in behaviour. Note that I'm not saying Canada is a place where innocent bystanders are likely to get shot (so long as they aviod Yonge St and eating dessert) rather that the US isn't as wild as the British tend to think. Neither country is South Africa or Greater Israel.

Bowling for Columbine.

Prior to seeing that movie I used to lock the doors, I haven't since.

Just remembered a bizarre fact from the gun course. I believe it to be true that there are more legally held machine guns in Canada than in the US; this is because legal ownership in Canada is grandfathered while there's no such provision in the US. Not than one often sees a machine gun deployed in an urban centre in either country.

Is it the actual machine gun or the "right" to own one that's passed down? Presume it would be the right, otherwise the guns themselves would be getting a bit long in the tooth now!