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SPONSORthey’re not the whole prob-
lem. As the Canadian-born
writer David Frum noted in
the Atlantic this week,
America’s mass shooters
include “immigrants and
natives; whites and non-
whites; Muslims and Chris-
tians; right-wingers, left-
wingers and the nonpoliti-
cal.... Despite their diversity,
all these killers had one
thing in common: their
uniquely American access
to firearms.”
So it might be useful to
look at how another coun-
try, similar in culture, diver-
sity and terrain, handles
this dilemma.
Canada’s gun regula-
tions aren’t draconian.
Canadian federal law re-
quires anyone who wants to
own a gun to get a license,
which means passing a
background check and
taking safety training — a
process about as onerous as
getting a driver’s license.
The application form is
four pages long, and asks
whether you have ever been
convicted of a crime of vi-
olence, been the object of a
protective order, or suffered
from mental illness, depres-
sion or “emotional prob-
lems.”
It also asks whether you
have recently experienced a
divorce, separation, roman-
tic breakup, job loss or
bankruptcy. There’s a 28-
day waiting period; the fee is
$60 Canadian (about $
U.S.).
The basic license covers
rifles and shotguns, which
are hunting weapons. Cana-
dians can own handguns
and semiautomatic weap-
ons too, but those require an
additional license and train-
ing, and the guns must be
registered.
Any sane, law-abiding
Canadian can own guns if he
or she is willing to answer“I could never
live in the
States again,”
a Canadian
friend who
once lived in
San Fran-
cisco told me
this week.
“Your cities
are just too violent.”I’m in
northern Ontario, bear
country, where most hunt-
ers, farmers and loggers
own guns. When they look at
the United States, they
think there’s something
wrong with us.
President Trump says
we have so many mass
shootings because of mental
illness, video games and the
internet. But Canada has
mental illness, the internet
and violent video games too
— the same video games, in
the same language — and its
rate of gun violence is far
lower.
What’s the difference?
Like every other developed
country, Canada has strict-
er gun regulation and fewer
guns per person than we do.
The United States is the
world’s undisputed champi-
on in firearm ownership,
with more guns than peo-
ple: 121 civilian firearms per
100 inhabitants. Canada has
about 35 per 100.
That might be one rea-
son the United States has
about seven times as many
gun homicides (on a per
capita basis) as Canada.
The search for causes of
mass shootings isn’t so hard
— unless you’re determined
to obscure the fact that the
United States, alone among
advanced countries, allows
unhinged people to obtain
guns with ease.
White supremacists are
part of the problem, butthose arguably intrusive
questions.
The Royal Canadian
Mounted Police, which
administers the process —
yes, the Mounties — report
that only about two of every
thousand applications is
rejected. My brother-in-law,
a hunter who lives in a To-
ronto suburb, has owned
long guns all his adult life.
So did my father-in-law
before him.
Most Canadians don’t
see these regulations as
undue infringements on
their personal freedom.
Instead, they’re debating
whether they need more.
They worry that their gun-
crime rate is growing, partly
because Canadian criminals
can smuggle firearms in
from the United States.
Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau, campaigning for
reelection this year, has
proposed a ban on assault
weapons, and a recent poll
found 72% of Canadians in
favor. (Trudeau also consid-
ered a handgun ban; that
was less popular, so he
backed off.) The opposition
Conservative Party, with
many gun owners in its
ranks, opposes the propos-
al, but it hasn’t called for a
rollback of existing laws.
Of course, there’s one big
difference between the
United States and Canada:
We have a 2nd Amendment,
and they don’t.
“Canadians, unlike
Americans, do not have a
constitutional right to bear
arms,” Canada’s Supreme
Court ruled in 1993. “Indeed,
most Canadians prefer the
peace of mind and sense of
security derived from the
knowledge that the pos-
session of automatic weap-
ons is prohibited.”
Despite the constitu-
tional distinction, Canada’s
gun control debates soundmuch like ours. Canadian
conservatives say gun own-
ership is a right even if it’s
not in the constitution. The
arguments are over which
weapons to restrict, and
how. But the tone is more
civil; that’s still Canada’s
biggest cultural difference
from our fraying civilization.
Like us, they’ve had
mass shootings, but far
fewer, even on a per capita
basis — roughly one a year.
There have been none in
Canada this year so far.
We’ve had at least 255, or
more than one a day, ac-
cording to the nonprofit
Gun Violence Archive. It
defines a mass shooting as
any incident in which at
least four people were
wounded or killed, exclud-
ing the shooter.
And that’s the point:
With laws that make it
harder to buy semiauto-
matic weapons but still
allow widespread gun own-
ership, Canada has made
itself much safer than the
United States.
What’s unique about the
U.S. isn’t mental illness,
video games or the internet;
those exist worldwide. Our
problem is too many guns
and too little regulation —
plus the fact that Trump
and his party refuse to ac-
knowledge that factor,
much less fix it.
From here in rural On-
tario, 500 miles north of
Washington, Canada shows
that the choice doesn’t need
to be between mass shoot-
ings and gun confiscation.
There is a sensible path
between those extremes
that protects both gun
ownership and public safety.
It’s our fault that we have
chosen not to take it.Doyle McManus’ column
appears on Wednesday and
Sunday.LETTER FROM WASHINGTON
PRIME MINISTERJustin Trudeau proposed a ban on assault weapons, and a poll found 72% of Canadians
in favor. The Conservative Party opposes the proposal, but hasn’t called for a rollback of existing laws.Darryl DyckCanadian PressCanada can handle its guns
DOYLE McMANUS
gordon bay, canadaIn Ontario bear country, people think there’s something wrong with us
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India announced a historic constitutional change that revokes the limited autonomy held for decades by
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