n January 29 of this year, a single gunman
( opened fire at a mosque in Quebec City,

killing six people and injuring 19 others.
The shooting was carried out by a 26-year-old
student who was vocal in his support of alt-right,
white nationalist views, as well as his approval of
President Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric.
It was the worst mass shooting in Canada since
2006, when eight people were killed in a gang-
related incident in Shedden, Ontario.

GOL ne

LZ

The Wikipedia list of massacres in Canada
(defined as the “indiscriminate and brutal
slaughter” of more than one living thing) dates
back to 1689, and includes killings not carried
out with firearms, such as murders committed
by arson, crossbows, and stabbings. It’s notably
short, with the highest death count on the list
reaching 72 (the Lachine massacre in Quebec on
August 5, 1689). Very rarely do the casualties
reach the double digits.

Compare this with the American list, and
the differences are stark. For one thing, single-
shooter events have their own subset articles—
the list of mass shootings is truncated to only
show the top 20 deadliest shootings (the top five
of which have occurred in the past ten years).
For another, on the main list of massacres,
the two deadliest instances are said to have
had 300 victims, if not more. The kill count
is higher, and the incidents more frequent.

There are explanations for this outside of
differing approaches to gun laws. America has a
significantly larger population than Canada, so
it stands to reason that the amount of violence
would increase in relation to that number.
America has also suffered bloody Civil War,
fueling violence between warring factions and
an ongoing legacy of violence against people of
colour in the country. The two biggest massacres
on the list, in fact, were racially-charged killings:
The first, a Democrat protest against the
inclusion of Black people in the political party
which resulted in the horrific slaughter of 200-
300 African Americans in 1868, the second a
mob killing of members of a Black community
in Oklahoma by white militants that yielded as
high as 300 fatalities and 800 people injured.

Even so, it is undeniable that America has

CANADA AND THE

a gun problem, though this is hardly the fault
of the majority of American citizens. ACNN

poll from June 2016 revealed that 55 per cent

of Americans want tighter gun restrictions.
However, the country is in a bind that can be
boiled down to two critical factors: The NRA

is a powerful political lobbying force with the
advantage of a single platform to focus on and a
frightening amount of capital at their disposal,
and the infamous Second Amendment of the US
Constitution has written gun ownership into the
countrys DNA. The US is, perhaps surprisingly,
one of only three countries in the world to protect
the right to bear arms under their national
constitution; the other two are Mexico and
Guatemala.

  

Canada does not have gun ownership listed
as a constitutional right. Statistics cited by the
Canadian Department of Justice suggest that
22 per cent of Canadian households contain
firearms, and that 95 per cent of these were long
guns, with only 12 per cent stating that they
owned a handgun. This isn’t drastically less
than American statistics—only about a third of
American households contain guns, according to
the Pew Research Center. However, the number
of guns per capita are significantly higher—
some American gun owners have a tendency to
stockpile weapons, with 3 per cent of American
gun owners holding 50 per cent of the total
number of firearms owned by American citizens.

 

The average Canadian citizen does not have
the full range of firearms available to them that
an American citizen might have. Civilians in
Canada are forbidden from possessing automatic
weapons, sound suppressors, handguns with
barrels that are 105 mm and under, and most
semi-automatic firearms. Devices designed to
enhance a semi-automatic weapon so it acts as
a fully automated weapon (such as the infamous
“bump stocks” used in the Las Vegas shooting
last month) are prohibited as well. Gun owners
in Canada must be fully licensed, and for
many years all gun owners were required to be
registered with the RCMP. This regulation was
weakened under the Harper government in 2012,
and Parliament moved to destroy the records of
the long gun registry, sparking a national debate
regarding Canada’s relationship with firearms.