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Canada is the U.S.'s neighbour and is probably closer, culturally, than any other nation. Gun ownership is also high in Canada. In terms of guns per capita, t

by beloch 4y ago

Canada is the U.S.'s neighbour and is probably closer, culturally, than any other nation. Gun ownership is also high in Canada. In terms of guns per capita, the U.S. is #1 by a long shot, but Canada is #7 [1]. In Canada, guns owned per capita is one third of what it is in the U.S.. Canada also has mass shootings. The annual deaths from mass shootings per capita in Canada is 0.032, which is about one third that of the U.S. (0.089) [2]. As a Canadian, it's actually shocking to see that Canada's rate of mass shootings correspond well to the U.S.'s if you simply control for population and the number of guns owned by that population. I'd have expected us to be doing better. Where gun ownership laws vary wildly in different U.S. states, Canada's laws are under federal control and are, hence, consistent. Where some U.S. states have virtually no requirements of testing or training to own guns, Canada requires gun owners to have mental health checks and complete firearm safety training courses. Gun owners undergo regular background checks and will have their guns confiscated in short order if they ever commit a criminal offence. Where many U.S. states permit concealed carry of handguns, handguns are virtually illegal to carry in Canada. Transporting them from your home to the range is legal, but they must be unloaded, locked, and permits are required for the transport. With all of these additional precautions, Canada really should be doing better. The harsh reality may be that the number of guns per capita floating around really is an important factor. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g... [2]https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shootings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shoo...

steinjones 4y ago
Correlation is not causation. How many times do people need to hear it?
- danielmarkbruce 4y ago
  If X & Y are correlated, it absolutely can be because X causes Y. And if X & Y are correlated, it's more likely X causes Y than if they were not correlated. Parroting "correlation isn't causation" every time someone trots out an argument which isn't water tight is dumb.
- grapeskin 4y ago
  When a correlation is observed all around the world, shouting “correlation is not causation” becomes a clearly weak dismissal. Open flames and house fires are very strongly correlated.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  Correct! Correlation is not causation. But it is a pretty serious hint worth checking to see if a causal link is there. Outright dismissal of a lead in resolving a problem is NOT helping anyone.
- l33t2328 4y ago
  So how should we investigate what _is_ a potential for causation
  - matwood 4y ago
    And only recently has the US government started allowing funds again study the answer to that question: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03882-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03882-w
jorblumesea 4y ago
I think it's pretty well established that high rates of gun ownership and proliferation of firearms produce mass shootings. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise has their head stuck in the sand.
- settrans 4y ago
  This isn't obviously the case (if you consider gun homicide, which is arguably more important since strictly more people are killed than just in mass shootings): https://hwfo.substack.com/p/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-between https://hwfo.substack.com/p/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-... > Gun Murder Rate is not correlated with firearm ownership rate in the United States, on a state by state basis. Firearm Homicide Rate is not correlated with guns per capita globally. It’s not correlated with guns per capita among peaceful countries, nor among violent countries, nor among European countries.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    Naively, you’d expect an inverse correlation between gun ownership and gun murder rate, as (I assume) gun murders are more common in cities where gun ownership is lower (more regulations, faster police response and fewer legitimate use cases).
  - jorblumesea 4y ago
    I don't consider general gun homicide was being the same as mass shootings. So no that's not relevant to what we're talking about.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
refurb 4y ago
Indeed. Canada had a mass shooting in 2020 where 23 people were killed. The person had been in contact with the police on many occasions, but still had legal and illegal guns on hand. And this is with Canada's much more strict gun control laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks There are regular shootings in public in Vancouver and Toronto due to gang activity. Hell, some random innocent person was killed in Calgary when shooting started during a traffic incident.
honkdaddy 4y ago
Mass shootings are very different from mass _school_ shootings though. Outside of the obvious Polytechnique, for which Canadian engineering schools still mourn for every year, I don't think Canada's experienced anything close to what this article's referring to.
- slothtrop 4y ago
  Correct. Gangland shootings of multiple individuals count as a mass shooting, and that constitutes most of them. If you control for those, Canada and the U.S. are very different. People don't flinch at the homicide rate, they care about innocent bystanders, especially children, being killed en masse.
elementalest 4y ago
Interesting. When compared to places like Australia, where guns are highly regulated and barely anyone owns a gun, such that there have been no mass shootings for 35 years, the solution really is obvious.
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  > the solution really is obvious. Well, from a programmers perspective - it's all about what you are optimizing for. We can end all car related deaths as well by outlawing all automotive vehicles. We can eliminate or curb most sexual diseases by regimenting who one can have sex with. We can end homelessness, by quartering local vagrants in the homes of the citizenry. Solutions are easy. Side effects are less so. If we are optimizing against the #1 all time cause of non natural death in the world - Democide - an armed populace does wonders.
  - slagfart 4y ago
    What would the side effects of lower gun ownership be?
    - zmgsabst 4y ago
      You see an increase in crimes against people when the equalizing force of guns is removed: assaults, muggings, home invasions, rapes, etc. Guns can (and do) allow smaller men, women, and the elderly to defend themselves with lethal force — against stronger aggressors. You displace guns primarily harming suicidal people and criminals into harms to innocent victims, via unchecked violence — potentially without reducing suicides. You also see an increase in totalitarian behavior, eg, the Australian lockdowns compared to the US lockdowns. And the argument for removing rifles ignores that they’re rarely used in crimes — more people are killed by hammers or fists than rifles. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
      - seoaeu 4y ago
jgon 4y ago
This has a lot of good context, but one thing it misses is the cultural impact of being a country next to the US. The deadliest shooting in Canadian history occurred in Nova Scotia in 2020. The guns he used were not legal for him to possess, and crucially all but one of the guns he used in his rampage was acquired from America ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks#Acquisition_of_firearms_and_ammunition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks#Acqui... ) Here is another from the conservative newspaper The National Post (aka I am not sourcing from a place likely to be incredibly biased against guns) reporting on the police chief of Toronto stating that a large majority of the guns used in violent crime in the city are illegally imported from US: https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/guns-used-in-crimes-are-coming-from-u-s-not-legal-gun-owners-police-chiefs https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/guns-used-in-crimes-a... We have other people in this thread using the example of Australia and asking what the difference is and I would state that a large portion of it is simply that Australia is surrounded by an ocean and Canada is right next to the US. As long as we have that anchor dragging us down its always going to be difficult to make major progress on gun crime.
chmod600 4y ago
"Where many U.S. states permit concealed carry of handguns, handguns are virtually illegal to carry in Canada. Transporting them from your home to the range is legal, but they must be unloaded, locked, and permits are required for the transport." I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. The other policies you mention may be more relevant, but it goes to show how easy it is to conflate various kinds of harm and what laws might prevent it. I think gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little. But it's hard to get past the "more guns laws the better" mentality that is so wodespread.
- charles_kaw 4y ago
  >I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. On virtue of how many shootings have begun "without warning", the cultural context in canada versus the us is quite different. The expectation of actions when you see a firearm is very different in these two countries! - in the US, someone with an openly carried firearm may be transporting it or any number of innocent use cases - in Canada, someone with an openly carried firearm is already committing a crime. And, that crime is generally of no personal benefit to them^, which is a huge warning sign. They are likely not considering the law in their actions. If I saw a person with a gun in the US, I would quickly walk away. If I saw a person with a gun in Canada, I would run. >gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little Gun owners consistently misrepresent and come up with inconsistent interpretations of any gun control. The bar is never high enough, the logic never sound enough. The "broad infringements" proposed are never, and will never be, good enough. I find your statement to be a bit disingenuous in that regard. ^ while protest is a valid case imo, protesting by (for example) carrying a gun onto a school campus, grocery store, or movie theater is quite different than in a park with other protestors. Context matters, even here!
  - kodah 4y ago
    > Gun owners consistently misrepresent and come up with inconsistent interpretations of any gun control. Maybe sometimes, but there's also gun laws like in California that affect large populations of gun owners. I don't think they're making their dissatisfaction and confusion with the gun laws up. Owning a gun in the US isn't very simple; different states have wildly different laws you have to observe, and those are in effect at airports as well. I don't think it's wise to say, "they just don't understand" to the people who actually have to live with the laws. As a gun owner, I do think there's reasonable forms of gun control. I don't mind having my background checked or paying a tax stamp. I don't mind psychological evaluations or closing gun show loopholes. Restricting guns, ammo, attachments, magazine sizes etc are not effective forms of gun control imo.
la6472 4y ago
Right now it is hard to look at our kids faces and not feel the impact of this tragedy. I don’t know about everyone but for most people their kids lives are way more important than their right to bear military grade guns. If there is no perfect solution we have to live with a less than perfect solution. If the solution is to legally make it harder for people to access such guns then so be it.
- cypress66 4y ago
  As tragic as these events may be, the probability of your kids dying to a school shooting is still incredibly low, and a few orders of magnitude less than car accidents. Doing some quick math, it seems like it's around 100 to 1000 times more likely that some kid dies to some accident than a mass shooting. But people don't seem to worry 1000 times more about these accidents than school shootings. And it would actually be much easier to reduce the accident number than the shooting number.
  - MrMoenty 4y ago
    Perhaps this is approximately true if you focus exclusively on mass shootings at schools. But shootings overall are one of the leading causes of deaths for children in the US. See for instance the CDC's visualizations on causes of death per age group [1]. In 2020, 476 children aged 10-14 died in traffic accidents involving motor vehicles. 218 children aged 10-14 were killed in homicides by firearms. Those two numbers are very much in the same order of magnitude. This is also the case in prior, non-Covid years. [1] https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/lcd/home https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/lcd/home
    - throwntoday 4y ago
      Any stats on legal vs illegal guns killing children? Curious as to whether criminals being unable to purchase firearms legally has done anything to stop them from getting ahold of firearms and committing shootings.
  - dncornholio 4y ago
    > the probability of your kids dying to a school shooting is still incredibly low It's only about 50000% higher than in any other place of the world. Is this what you say to you children? That they don't get to get unlucky???????? School should be one of the safest places of the world. People are discussing what COVID will do to the future of their kids. I wonder what living in fear will do instead, which has a much much much bigger impact than 2 years of missed school.
Teever 4y ago
I'm skeptical of the data from your second link given that there is no actual data for Canada, do you have a different source that says the same thing?
HomeGear 4y ago
Now run the numbers on gun deaths. Chicago has 30+ a weekend at times.
- _moof 4y ago
  Why'd you pick Chicago? Nine other cities in the U.S. have higher homicide rates.
  - spicymaki 4y ago
    Chicago crime is a racially charged dog whistle for white nationalists.
kkfx 4y ago
Finland have similar number of weapons, Swiss is not that distant, the issue are not weapons but society: any ruling class in pseudo-democracies (i.e. our formal but not substantial democracies) need something to pasture people avoiding revolts, the USA have built a false-free and competing ideology that's essentially push people to blame themself for their suffering and that's easily push fragile people toward nihilism, Swiss is not that different, only it's able to test people (mandatory conscription between 18 and 28 years of age, one paid month per year) and to offer not so bad overall living conditions. Other dictatorships choose different ways to pasture people. The actual crusade against weapons, and I say that as an European left-wing Citizen is just because unrest was predicted due to neoliberal ruling [1] and they dislike the idea of an armed population that a day might shoot against them. In Italy fascists have done the same erasing military conscription NOT because it produce bad results (it do, but that's another story) but because they choose to even remove such hyper-basic training to form generations who shoot every days in videogames and in reality they'll probably follow what they have seen in movies, like run to the root trying "to escape", lock themselves in bathrooms, protect themselves with sofa or fridge door etc and I'm pretty sure most movies have done such absurd choices exactly to mentally push people toward such absurd behaviors. Consider a thing: if you are satisfied you do not want war nor violence. If you are not your dissatisfaction might be weaponized to push you do things you do not want (including hard work, war etc) for the sake of the élite of the moment, if you are pushed toward illegality is even better: they can let you go and if needed trap you with legit reasons. That's how our societies are ruled and our subjects, not Citizens, allow that. Weapons are common in USA just because they support the infinite-war economic model of USA rulers, but people need to be kept in a sorry state to obey, that's is. [1] for USA just see https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Global%20Trends_Mapping%20the%20Global%20Future%202020%20Project.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Global%20Trends_Mapping%... along it's publication date (not 2020 but 2004 FOR 2020)
watwut 4y ago
> gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little Actually, there were polls based on which gun owners support gun regulation a lot more then one would say. There is subgroup of gun owners represented by NRA who dont - but they dont represent average gun owner. The support for gun regulation is quite high in general public.
- throwntoday 4y ago
  I think any restrictions on gun ownership are unconstitutional. Primarily because I don't think the founding fathers minced words about the purpose of the second amendment, but mostly I don't trust the government at all. I have never met a gun owner who does trust the government, or supports regulation and I've spent a lot of time around them. So I'll have to disagree with your supposition.
panta 4y ago
> The annual deaths from mass shootings per capita in Canada is 0.032, which is about one third that of the U.S. (0.089) [2]. Nitpick to avoid confusion: these numbers are per million (not per capita).
neartheplain 4y ago
>Canada is the U.S.'s neighbour and is probably closer, culturally, than any other nation. Your point about cultural similarity holds true mainly for descendants of European immigrants. The shared culture here isn't just Marvel movies but values passed down among families from the Old Country like a Christian moral framework, Anglo-American law, the Protestant work ethic, Puritan attidues towards sex, etc. If you break America's homicides down by ethnic category, non-Hispanic whites have a murder rate per 100k of around 2.6 per annum [0]. Canada's murder rate hovers around 1.7. These numbers are roughly comparable, despite the many differences in firearm availability. America's overall homicide rate is something like 5.7 per 100k per annum. This number is propped up by one ethnic group in particular, Afro-Americans, with a murder rate of over 20 per 100k per annum. This is not just a function of poverty. The white poverty rate is half that of Afro-Americans, yet the murder rate differs by a factor of 10. The Asian-American poverty rate is similarly half that of Afro-Americans, yet the murder rate differs by a factor of closer to 100 (10x less than that of white Americans). Telling hundreds of millions of law-abiding Americans to disarm themselves because of social, cultural, and economic problems largely confined to a small & largely separate social group is a losing proposition. But asking why that group commits so many murders, even as the first step in bring that number down, is a political third rail too so here we are. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6631a9.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6631a9.htm [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CAN/canada/murder-homicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CAN/canada/murder-homi...
- throwntoday 4y ago
  Thank you for honestly stating the issue. Often times I see people get defensive or reactionary and jump to calling racism when simply stating these facts. How on Earth do you expect to solve an issue if you can't even admit it.
  - neartheplain 4y ago
    Thanks for the positive comment. I sometimes wonder what it feels like to be the parent of a child murdered in these communities, like the moms I see on Twitter occasionally doing anti-violence marches and rallies, and be told that your son or daughter's death is a "white supremacist talking point." Lots of people in America, including black people, feel uncomfortable around poorer black communities because of the high rate of gun violence. Telling those people they're just uncomfortable because of "internalized white supremacy" or "white nationalist talking points" doesn't convince most and won't make them feel safe. This discomfort is the root of so-called white flight, social distance-keeping, school self-segregation, and other problems. If we fix the problem of gun violence in these communities, tackling other race-related issues gets easier. The first step is talking about it openly and honestly.
michaelmrose 4y ago
You assume that 1/3 the per capita shootings for 1/3 of the guns means a difference in policy has no effect. I think you are seeing an irrelevant correlation. Mass shooters are carried out by individuals who seek out a gun to commit a crime. Difficulty to get a gun especially if you are a person of problematic character or history seems relevant. Sheer number of guns not so much. If it were merely as difficult for your problem child to get a gun as in the US and other factors were equal one would expect as many mass shootings per capita not some factor based on relative number of guns available to the total population. That is to say that if evil bob can go by a rifle and go downtown to whack the neighborhood it is as irrelevant as it is possible to be if 2 or 20 of his neighbors are gun owners unless they are literally shooting back at him right now. Essentially you are looking at a partial success story through a lens of faulty analysis and concluding that nothing is working.
stanislavb 4y ago
In Australia it’s illegal to carry a pocket knife in public unless you are a chef or need it for doing your job…
- thorin 4y ago
  Same in the UK. You have to give a good excuse. Cue 1000s on bushcraft forums justifying their massive knife collection...
scotty79 4y ago
It's as if presence of sufficiently many guns (or maybe rather ammo) in society enables mass shootings.
slothtrop 4y ago
Handguns proliferate in the cities, trafficked from the U.S., quite easily in Canada. This is where the mass shooting rate comes from. Your results will be starkly different if you search for school shooting rates, and not mass shooting rates. Gangland homicide of several individuals is still considered a mass shooting. It spooks the city-dwellers somewhat, but nationally no one cares. They care about school shootings, or more broadly, mass shootings of innocent bystanders. Canada fares way, way better than the U.S. in this fashion.
908B64B197 4y ago
Sadly, the links you posted as a source for the annual deaths from mass shootings per capita make it clear the two numbers don't even measure the same things: > For example, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) defines a mass shooting as a single attack that happens in a public place and in which three or more people are killed with a firearm. However, most other stat trackers require at least four fatalities. Similarly, some databases include events in which at least four people were wounded, but not necessarily killed. Others do not. Some databases include occurrences in which the shooter killed only family members (but still in a public place, such as a restaurant). Others do not. Some databases include organized terrorist attacks, armed robberies gone wrong, and gang-related shootings. Other databases discard some or all of these incidents. In fact, in a 2019 study that compared four different databases, the number of mass shooting events recorded in the U.S. for the year 2017 ranged from a low of 11 to a high of 346. Clearly, a significant error margin exists, particularly when creating country-to-country comparisons. > Transporting them from your home to the range is legal, but they must be unloaded, locked, and permits are required for the transport. Why not make transporting a firearm illegal if it's done with the intent of committing a crime? There's a well defined notion of intent in criminal law. Why are guns magically exempt from this and the assumption is immediately made that the owner is malicious? > The harsh reality may be that the number of guns per capita floating around really is an important factor. To me it points toward the opposite conclusion. People will just commit mass murders differently. Now, these won't get labelled as mass shooting so the stats will look better. [0] [1] [2] [3] [4]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafia_family_murders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafia_family_murders [1] https://nypost.com/2020/11/03/quebec-police-release-new-details-in-deadly-halloween-attacks/ https://nypost.com/2020/11/03/quebec-police-release-new-deta... [2] https://www.the-sun.com/news/2445508/toronto-van-attack-incel-killer-guilty/ https://www.the-sun.com/news/2445508/toronto-van-attack-ince... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London,_Ontario_truck_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London,_Ontario_truck_attack [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Calgary_stabbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Calgary_stabbing

by beloch 4y ago

steinjones 4y ago

Correlation is not causation. How many times do people need to hear it?

danielmarkbruce 4y ago
If X & Y are correlated, it absolutely can be because X causes Y. And if X & Y are correlated, it's more likely X causes Y than if they were not correlated. Parroting "correlation isn't causation" every time someone trots out an argument which isn't water tight is dumb.
grapeskin 4y ago
When a correlation is observed all around the world, shouting “correlation is not causation” becomes a clearly weak dismissal. Open flames and house fires are very strongly correlated.
_carbyau_ 4y ago
Correct! Correlation is not causation. But it is a pretty serious hint worth checking to see if a causal link is there. Outright dismissal of a lead in resolving a problem is NOT helping anyone.
l33t2328 4y ago
So how should we investigate what _is_ a potential for causation
- matwood 4y ago
  And only recently has the US government started allowing funds again study the answer to that question: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03882-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03882-w

jorblumesea 4y ago

I think it's pretty well established that high rates of gun ownership and proliferation of firearms produce mass shootings. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise has their head stuck in the sand.

settrans 4y ago
This isn't obviously the case (if you consider gun homicide, which is arguably more important since strictly more people are killed than just in mass shootings): https://hwfo.substack.com/p/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-between https://hwfo.substack.com/p/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-... > Gun Murder Rate is not correlated with firearm ownership rate in the United States, on a state by state basis. Firearm Homicide Rate is not correlated with guns per capita globally. It’s not correlated with guns per capita among peaceful countries, nor among violent countries, nor among European countries.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  Naively, you’d expect an inverse correlation between gun ownership and gun murder rate, as (I assume) gun murders are more common in cities where gun ownership is lower (more regulations, faster police response and fewer legitimate use cases).
- jorblumesea 4y ago
  I don't consider general gun homicide was being the same as mass shootings. So no that's not relevant to what we're talking about.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

refurb 4y ago

Indeed. Canada had a mass shooting in 2020 where 23 people were killed. The person had been in contact with the police on many occasions, but still had legal and illegal guns on hand. And this is with Canada's much more strict gun control laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks There are regular shootings in public in Vancouver and Toronto due to gang activity. Hell, some random innocent person was killed in Calgary when shooting started during a traffic incident.

honkdaddy 4y ago

Mass shootings are very different from mass _school_ shootings though. Outside of the obvious Polytechnique, for which Canadian engineering schools still mourn for every year, I don't think Canada's experienced anything close to what this article's referring to.

slothtrop 4y ago
Correct. Gangland shootings of multiple individuals count as a mass shooting, and that constitutes most of them. If you control for those, Canada and the U.S. are very different. People don't flinch at the homicide rate, they care about innocent bystanders, especially children, being killed en masse.

elementalest 4y ago

Interesting. When compared to places like Australia, where guns are highly regulated and barely anyone owns a gun, such that there have been no mass shootings for 35 years, the solution really is obvious.

calvinmorrison 4y ago
> the solution really is obvious. Well, from a programmers perspective - it's all about what you are optimizing for. We can end all car related deaths as well by outlawing all automotive vehicles. We can eliminate or curb most sexual diseases by regimenting who one can have sex with. We can end homelessness, by quartering local vagrants in the homes of the citizenry. Solutions are easy. Side effects are less so. If we are optimizing against the #1 all time cause of non natural death in the world - Democide - an armed populace does wonders.
- slagfart 4y ago
  What would the side effects of lower gun ownership be?
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    You see an increase in crimes against people when the equalizing force of guns is removed: assaults, muggings, home invasions, rapes, etc. Guns can (and do) allow smaller men, women, and the elderly to defend themselves with lethal force — against stronger aggressors. You displace guns primarily harming suicidal people and criminals into harms to innocent victims, via unchecked violence — potentially without reducing suicides. You also see an increase in totalitarian behavior, eg, the Australian lockdowns compared to the US lockdowns. And the argument for removing rifles ignores that they’re rarely used in crimes — more people are killed by hammers or fists than rifles. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
    - seoaeu 4y ago

jgon 4y ago

This has a lot of good context, but one thing it misses is the cultural impact of being a country next to the US. The deadliest shooting in Canadian history occurred in Nova Scotia in 2020. The guns he used were not legal for him to possess, and crucially all but one of the guns he used in his rampage was acquired from America ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks#Acquisition_of_firearms_and_ammunition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks#Acqui... ) Here is another from the conservative newspaper The National Post (aka I am not sourcing from a place likely to be incredibly biased against guns) reporting on the police chief of Toronto stating that a large majority of the guns used in violent crime in the city are illegally imported from US: https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/guns-used-in-crimes-are-coming-from-u-s-not-legal-gun-owners-police-chiefs https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/guns-used-in-crimes-a... We have other people in this thread using the example of Australia and asking what the difference is and I would state that a large portion of it is simply that Australia is surrounded by an ocean and Canada is right next to the US. As long as we have that anchor dragging us down its always going to be difficult to make major progress on gun crime.

chmod600 4y ago

"Where many U.S. states permit concealed carry of handguns, handguns are virtually illegal to carry in Canada. Transporting them from your home to the range is legal, but they must be unloaded, locked, and permits are required for the transport." I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. The other policies you mention may be more relevant, but it goes to show how easy it is to conflate various kinds of harm and what laws might prevent it. I think gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little. But it's hard to get past the "more guns laws the better" mentality that is so wodespread.

charles_kaw 4y ago
>I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. On virtue of how many shootings have begun "without warning", the cultural context in canada versus the us is quite different. The expectation of actions when you see a firearm is very different in these two countries! - in the US, someone with an openly carried firearm may be transporting it or any number of innocent use cases - in Canada, someone with an openly carried firearm is already committing a crime. And, that crime is generally of no personal benefit to them^, which is a huge warning sign. They are likely not considering the law in their actions. If I saw a person with a gun in the US, I would quickly walk away. If I saw a person with a gun in Canada, I would run. >gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little Gun owners consistently misrepresent and come up with inconsistent interpretations of any gun control. The bar is never high enough, the logic never sound enough. The "broad infringements" proposed are never, and will never be, good enough. I find your statement to be a bit disingenuous in that regard. ^ while protest is a valid case imo, protesting by (for example) carrying a gun onto a school campus, grocery store, or movie theater is quite different than in a park with other protestors. Context matters, even here!
- kodah 4y ago
  > Gun owners consistently misrepresent and come up with inconsistent interpretations of any gun control. Maybe sometimes, but there's also gun laws like in California that affect large populations of gun owners. I don't think they're making their dissatisfaction and confusion with the gun laws up. Owning a gun in the US isn't very simple; different states have wildly different laws you have to observe, and those are in effect at airports as well. I don't think it's wise to say, "they just don't understand" to the people who actually have to live with the laws. As a gun owner, I do think there's reasonable forms of gun control. I don't mind having my background checked or paying a tax stamp. I don't mind psychological evaluations or closing gun show loopholes. Restricting guns, ammo, attachments, magazine sizes etc are not effective forms of gun control imo.

la6472 4y ago

Right now it is hard to look at our kids faces and not feel the impact of this tragedy. I don’t know about everyone but for most people their kids lives are way more important than their right to bear military grade guns. If there is no perfect solution we have to live with a less than perfect solution. If the solution is to legally make it harder for people to access such guns then so be it.

cypress66 4y ago
As tragic as these events may be, the probability of your kids dying to a school shooting is still incredibly low, and a few orders of magnitude less than car accidents. Doing some quick math, it seems like it's around 100 to 1000 times more likely that some kid dies to some accident than a mass shooting. But people don't seem to worry 1000 times more about these accidents than school shootings. And it would actually be much easier to reduce the accident number than the shooting number.
- MrMoenty 4y ago
  Perhaps this is approximately true if you focus exclusively on mass shootings at schools. But shootings overall are one of the leading causes of deaths for children in the US. See for instance the CDC's visualizations on causes of death per age group [1]. In 2020, 476 children aged 10-14 died in traffic accidents involving motor vehicles. 218 children aged 10-14 were killed in homicides by firearms. Those two numbers are very much in the same order of magnitude. This is also the case in prior, non-Covid years. [1] https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/lcd/home https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/lcd/home
  - throwntoday 4y ago
    Any stats on legal vs illegal guns killing children? Curious as to whether criminals being unable to purchase firearms legally has done anything to stop them from getting ahold of firearms and committing shootings.
- dncornholio 4y ago
  > the probability of your kids dying to a school shooting is still incredibly low It's only about 50000% higher than in any other place of the world. Is this what you say to you children? That they don't get to get unlucky???????? School should be one of the safest places of the world. People are discussing what COVID will do to the future of their kids. I wonder what living in fear will do instead, which has a much much much bigger impact than 2 years of missed school.

Teever 4y ago

I'm skeptical of the data from your second link given that there is no actual data for Canada, do you have a different source that says the same thing?

HomeGear 4y ago

Now run the numbers on gun deaths. Chicago has 30+ a weekend at times.

_moof 4y ago
Why'd you pick Chicago? Nine other cities in the U.S. have higher homicide rates.
- spicymaki 4y ago
  Chicago crime is a racially charged dog whistle for white nationalists.

kkfx 4y ago

Finland have similar number of weapons, Swiss is not that distant, the issue are not weapons but society: any ruling class in pseudo-democracies (i.e. our formal but not substantial democracies) need something to pasture people avoiding revolts, the USA have built a false-free and competing ideology that's essentially push people to blame themself for their suffering and that's easily push fragile people toward nihilism, Swiss is not that different, only it's able to test people (mandatory conscription between 18 and 28 years of age, one paid month per year) and to offer not so bad overall living conditions. Other dictatorships choose different ways to pasture people. The actual crusade against weapons, and I say that as an European left-wing Citizen is just because unrest was predicted due to neoliberal ruling [1] and they dislike the idea of an armed population that a day might shoot against them. In Italy fascists have done the same erasing military conscription NOT because it produce bad results (it do, but that's another story) but because they choose to even remove such hyper-basic training to form generations who shoot every days in videogames and in reality they'll probably follow what they have seen in movies, like run to the root trying "to escape", lock themselves in bathrooms, protect themselves with sofa or fridge door etc and I'm pretty sure most movies have done such absurd choices exactly to mentally push people toward such absurd behaviors. Consider a thing: if you are satisfied you do not want war nor violence. If you are not your dissatisfaction might be weaponized to push you do things you do not want (including hard work, war etc) for the sake of the élite of the moment, if you are pushed toward illegality is even better: they can let you go and if needed trap you with legit reasons. That's how our societies are ruled and our subjects, not Citizens, allow that. Weapons are common in USA just because they support the infinite-war economic model of USA rulers, but people need to be kept in a sorry state to obey, that's is. [1] for USA just see https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Global%20Trends_Mapping%20the%20Global%20Future%202020%20Project.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Global%20Trends_Mapping%... along it's publication date (not 2020 but 2004 FOR 2020)

watwut 4y ago

> gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little Actually, there were polls based on which gun owners support gun regulation a lot more then one would say. There is subgroup of gun owners represented by NRA who dont - but they dont represent average gun owner. The support for gun regulation is quite high in general public.

throwntoday 4y ago
I think any restrictions on gun ownership are unconstitutional. Primarily because I don't think the founding fathers minced words about the purpose of the second amendment, but mostly I don't trust the government at all. I have never met a gun owner who does trust the government, or supports regulation and I've spent a lot of time around them. So I'll have to disagree with your supposition.

panta 4y ago

> The annual deaths from mass shootings per capita in Canada is 0.032, which is about one third that of the U.S. (0.089) [2]. Nitpick to avoid confusion: these numbers are per million (not per capita).

neartheplain 4y ago

>Canada is the U.S.'s neighbour and is probably closer, culturally, than any other nation. Your point about cultural similarity holds true mainly for descendants of European immigrants. The shared culture here isn't just Marvel movies but values passed down among families from the Old Country like a Christian moral framework, Anglo-American law, the Protestant work ethic, Puritan attidues towards sex, etc. If you break America's homicides down by ethnic category, non-Hispanic whites have a murder rate per 100k of around 2.6 per annum [0]. Canada's murder rate hovers around 1.7. These numbers are roughly comparable, despite the many differences in firearm availability. America's overall homicide rate is something like 5.7 per 100k per annum. This number is propped up by one ethnic group in particular, Afro-Americans, with a murder rate of over 20 per 100k per annum. This is not just a function of poverty. The white poverty rate is half that of Afro-Americans, yet the murder rate differs by a factor of 10. The Asian-American poverty rate is similarly half that of Afro-Americans, yet the murder rate differs by a factor of closer to 100 (10x less than that of white Americans). Telling hundreds of millions of law-abiding Americans to disarm themselves because of social, cultural, and economic problems largely confined to a small & largely separate social group is a losing proposition. But asking why that group commits so many murders, even as the first step in bring that number down, is a political third rail too so here we are. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6631a9.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6631a9.htm [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CAN/canada/murder-homicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CAN/canada/murder-homi...

throwntoday 4y ago
Thank you for honestly stating the issue. Often times I see people get defensive or reactionary and jump to calling racism when simply stating these facts. How on Earth do you expect to solve an issue if you can't even admit it.
- neartheplain 4y ago
  Thanks for the positive comment. I sometimes wonder what it feels like to be the parent of a child murdered in these communities, like the moms I see on Twitter occasionally doing anti-violence marches and rallies, and be told that your son or daughter's death is a "white supremacist talking point." Lots of people in America, including black people, feel uncomfortable around poorer black communities because of the high rate of gun violence. Telling those people they're just uncomfortable because of "internalized white supremacy" or "white nationalist talking points" doesn't convince most and won't make them feel safe. This discomfort is the root of so-called white flight, social distance-keeping, school self-segregation, and other problems. If we fix the problem of gun violence in these communities, tackling other race-related issues gets easier. The first step is talking about it openly and honestly.

michaelmrose 4y ago

You assume that 1/3 the per capita shootings for 1/3 of the guns means a difference in policy has no effect. I think you are seeing an irrelevant correlation. Mass shooters are carried out by individuals who seek out a gun to commit a crime. Difficulty to get a gun especially if you are a person of problematic character or history seems relevant. Sheer number of guns not so much. If it were merely as difficult for your problem child to get a gun as in the US and other factors were equal one would expect as many mass shootings per capita not some factor based on relative number of guns available to the total population. That is to say that if evil bob can go by a rifle and go downtown to whack the neighborhood it is as irrelevant as it is possible to be if 2 or 20 of his neighbors are gun owners unless they are literally shooting back at him right now. Essentially you are looking at a partial success story through a lens of faulty analysis and concluding that nothing is working.

stanislavb 4y ago

In Australia it’s illegal to carry a pocket knife in public unless you are a chef or need it for doing your job…

thorin 4y ago
Same in the UK. You have to give a good excuse. Cue 1000s on bushcraft forums justifying their massive knife collection...

scotty79 4y ago

It's as if presence of sufficiently many guns (or maybe rather ammo) in society enables mass shootings.

slothtrop 4y ago

Handguns proliferate in the cities, trafficked from the U.S., quite easily in Canada. This is where the mass shooting rate comes from. Your results will be starkly different if you search for school shooting rates, and not mass shooting rates. Gangland homicide of several individuals is still considered a mass shooting. It spooks the city-dwellers somewhat, but nationally no one cares. They care about school shootings, or more broadly, mass shootings of innocent bystanders. Canada fares way, way better than the U.S. in this fashion.

908B64B197 4y ago

Sadly, the links you posted as a source for the annual deaths from mass shootings per capita make it clear the two numbers don't even measure the same things: > For example, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) defines a mass shooting as a single attack that happens in a public place and in which three or more people are killed with a firearm. However, most other stat trackers require at least four fatalities. Similarly, some databases include events in which at least four people were wounded, but not necessarily killed. Others do not. Some databases include occurrences in which the shooter killed only family members (but still in a public place, such as a restaurant). Others do not. Some databases include organized terrorist attacks, armed robberies gone wrong, and gang-related shootings. Other databases discard some or all of these incidents. In fact, in a 2019 study that compared four different databases, the number of mass shooting events recorded in the U.S. for the year 2017 ranged from a low of 11 to a high of 346. Clearly, a significant error margin exists, particularly when creating country-to-country comparisons. > Transporting them from your home to the range is legal, but they must be unloaded, locked, and permits are required for the transport. Why not make transporting a firearm illegal if it's done with the intent of committing a crime? There's a well defined notion of intent in criminal law. Why are guns magically exempt from this and the assumption is immediately made that the owner is malicious? > The harsh reality may be that the number of guns per capita floating around really is an important factor. To me it points toward the opposite conclusion. People will just commit mass murders differently. Now, these won't get labelled as mass shooting so the stats will look better. [0] [1] [2] [3] [4]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafia_family_murders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafia_family_murders [1] https://nypost.com/2020/11/03/quebec-police-release-new-details-in-deadly-halloween-attacks/ https://nypost.com/2020/11/03/quebec-police-release-new-deta... [2] https://www.the-sun.com/news/2445508/toronto-van-attack-incel-killer-guilty/ https://www.the-sun.com/news/2445508/toronto-van-attack-ince... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London,_Ontario_truck_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London,_Ontario_truck_attack [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Calgary_stabbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Calgary_stabbing