Non-Americans: Do you think your country should have more permissive gun laws?

[DC Al Fine]

I'm broadly supportive of Canada's current gun laws, but there are some tweaks I'd make, due to how we go about making gun laws.

E.g. The worst mass shooting in Canadian history ended about 15 minutes from my house. The perpetrator obtained all of his guns illegally. Most of them were smuggled in from the USA and were illegal to own in Canada period. Similarly a significant portion of our gun crime is done with weapons smuggled from the USA

The obvious policy fix from this (and frankly any serious attempt to deal with gun violence in this country ought to do this) was to deal with our border with America, but that would be difficult, expensive, and likely politically unpopular.

Since governments are unwilling to deal with the border, and they (particularly progressive governments) want to be seen as 'doing something' anytime there is a mass shooting or similar incident, we get tweaks to firearms laws and municipal handgun bans that placate a mostly urban and central Canadian majority that is indifferent at best, and often outright hostile to the concerns of the Prairies, the North, and Atlantic Canada.*

E.g. Canada has pretty good legislation categorizing firearms as non-restricted, restricted  and prohibited based on their calibre, action, barrel length etc. However a Prime Minister can issue an Order in Council to put a firearm on the prohibited list. After the Nova Scotia shooting, Trudeau put many firearms on the prohibited list in an arbitrary manner, resulting in weapon A being illegal to own, while weapon B with similar characteristics being legal**.

I would bring our gun bans back in line with our non-arbitrary legislation. Similarly I would override municipal by-laws banning our already highly controlled handguns.

*Lest you think this is purely partisan, Liberal voting Atlantic Canada has a significantly higher gun ownership rate than Tory stronghold Alberta, with Newfoundland having more than twice as many firearms licenses per capita than Alberta.

**If you guessed that weapon A has a scary black stock and weapon B has a wood stock, you're right.

[DC Al Fine]

*raises hand*

[DC Al Fine]

Finland used to have relatively permissive gun laws, but they were tightened after two school shootings in 2007 and 2008. Now you can get a gun only if you can prove that you are an active practicioner of target shooting or hunting.

I would like it to be legal to get a gun for self-defence, at least at your home against intruders. The laws on self-defence are ridiculous at the moment.

There was a case a while ago when an intruder tried to get into a man's apartment with a chainsaw. He managed to make a big whole into the door, and when he was reaching through the hole to open the door, the apartment's owner shot him in the shoulder with a shotgun, wounding him. The court did not consider this to be legitimate self-defence, and sentenced him to 30 months in prison and to pay over 10,000 € in damages to the chainsaw wielder. In the court's opinion, shooting in self-defence would have been permissible only once the intruder with the chainsaw had gotten through the door into the apartment, and even then one should have shot him only in the legs. The intruder received a lesser sentence.

The law is an ass