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

[Never Made it to Graceland]

As far as I know, basically nobody outside of the USA thinks our gun policy works, for good reason. Curious to see if anyone out there disagrees.

[Alcibiades]

Absolutely not.

[parochial boy]

Eh man, gotta preserve the ages old custom of 65 year old men gathering in a field, eating sausages, drinking beer from plastic cups and occasionally wondering over to watch their 11 year old granddaughter take pop shots at a hay bale.

[mileslunn]

Absolutely not, in fact I support even stricter gun laws in Canada even though ours are already quite strict.  I support a complete ban on all semi-automatics with a mandatory buyback.  All grandfathered full autos (they were banned in 1977, but owners could keep them) should be bought back or deactivated.  Handguns should be either outright banned or kept locked in a secure 24 hour CCTV monitored locker at range not taken home.  Likewise I support bringing back the long gun registry.

That being said in Canada there is a loud minority who want looser gun laws.  You can check out https://nfa.ca/ and https://firearmrights.ca/ but their views are very much in the minority in Canada.  But they are quite loud and aggressive so there is a tendency for Conservatives in Canada to loosen gun laws when in power while Liberals tend to tighten but not to extent I would like due to fear of backlash from small but vocal gun lobby.  Our Conservatives aren't as radical on guns as GOP, but they aren't as pro gun control as British Tories or L/NP in Australia.  They oppose assault weapons ban whereas conservatives in UK, Australia, and New Zealand was for it.

[Former President tack50]

Lol no

I can't think of any reason for us to have more permissive gun laws, and we have some of the strictest in the EU I believe, where if you want a gun, you have to prove you have a good reason for it.

Barring special circumstances like being a policeman or soldier; only way you can get a gun here is if you are either a hunter or an sports shooter; and in both cases you can only buy guns and ammo for the activity you are going to do and you must prove you are a real hunter/sportsman (generally by showing that you belong to a club and are registered in the "National Hunting Federation" or whatever)

[S019]

It's so reassuring to see sanity in this thread compared to the insane NRA pawns that are rampant in America

[EastAnglianLefty]

The tightening of UK gun laws after Dunblane wasn't particularly effective, but the restrictions aren't especially onerous (ownership of guns only permitted for sporting purposes; handguns - which we have no great tradition of using - banned; police checks required for a gun licence; all weapons must be kept in a locked gun cabinet when not in use) and there's no reason to relax them (I speak as somebody who had a shotgun licence in my younger days, though I haven't fired a weapon for about a decade now). The big problem with gun crime at the moment is decommissioned firearms being recommissioned by dodgy gunsmiths for criminal gangs.

[Samof94]

It's so reassuring to see sanity in this thread compared to the insane NRA pawns that are rampant in America

Exactly. This makes me feel safe too.

[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.

[CumbrianLefty]

People actually voted "yes" to this?

[Hatman 🍁]

People actually voted "yes" to this?

Americans trying to skew the results, surely.

[DC Al Fine]

*raises hand*

[Statilius the Epicurean]

God no.

[Bootes Void]

Not in the slightest

[mileslunn]

People actually voted "yes" to this?

Americans trying to skew the results, surely.

We have people in Canada who albeit a small minority in the general population, want US style gun laws.  Try on twitter commenting anything on gun laws and get trolled by gun lobby in huge numbers so perhaps some of those types.  In Canada, government's own survey which was an opt in, not a random one, had 80% against assault weapons ban even though all scientific polls show around 80% for it as gun lobby flooded government survey. 

[CumbrianLefty]

People actually voted "yes" to this?

Americans trying to skew the results, surely.

We have people in Canada who albeit a small minority in the general population, want US style gun laws

There are small numbers like that in every country, my own included.

Most people, though, regard them as distinctly odd if not outright nutters.

[Hatman 🍁]

People actually voted "yes" to this?

Americans trying to skew the results, surely.

We have people in Canada who albeit a small minority in the general population, want US style gun laws.  Try on twitter commenting anything on gun laws and get trolled by gun lobby in huge numbers so perhaps some of those types.  In Canada, government's own survey which was an opt in, not a random one, had 80% against assault weapons ban even though all scientific polls show around 80% for it as gun lobby flooded government survey. 

Oh I know. It gets scary when we release poll numbers about fire arm legislation. Almost as scary are the anti-vaxxers who do not like our pull numbers either.

[Helsinkian]

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.

[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

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I do not particularly care but I voted 'yes' because in case I ever decide to start wasting my money on collecting ancient guns instead of playing cards or writing instruments I'd like fewer restrictions on that.

[Continential]

Even if there are a few Americans voting yes, I am surprised that there are a few non-Americans voted Yes instead of it being a 1/2:30 ratio or something.

[Samof94]

I do not particularly care but I voted 'yes' because in case I ever decide to start wasting my money on collecting ancient guns instead of playing cards or writing instruments I'd like fewer restrictions on that.

True. I’d also rather see guns used on deer for meat than on humans.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Even if there are a few Americans voting yes, I am surprised that there are a few non-Americans voted Yes instead of it being a 1/2:30 ratio or something.

Well, the question is very broad - it just asks if we think our respective countries' gun laws should be more permissive. If it asked whether we think we should adopt the USA's gun laws the amount of Yes would be much lower, perhaps even zero.

[CumbrianLefty]

If it asked whether we think we should adopt the USA's gun laws the amount of Yes would be much lower, perhaps even zero.

Believe it or not, there *are* Europeans who believe this.

Not many though.

[beesley]

Absolutely not.