Hard for us Americans to throw stones at Canadian laws. Canadian homicide rates (incidents per 100,000 population) are far lower and crime rates generally are lower than are ours.
So, I deal with Canadians and their criminality A LOT with my job… Canada is not any safer due to those laws. They aren't any safer due to a lot of reasons… to include their "open borders."
There are crimes that make aliens (just got the approval that we can start using that word again… even though it is actually in US law) inadmissible to the US. I'm broad stroking it, but stuff that is morally wrong (theft, fraud, murder, anything involving sex) or drugs are the main things we see.
I've seen pretty much everything in the past couple of years; still creeps with child porn on both sides of the border. I had a guy who was a watered down version of Bernie Madoff that I sent back (not the same scale, but destroyed plenty of people's lives in fraud schemes). I personally don't look at statistics on either side, being they can be skewed in whichever way someone wants… but I can clearly see that Canada isn't the shining beacon that some make it out to be. Big thing with the US, I'm not losing my property in the way that Canadians have.
I started working my job a little before that NS shooting happened, which Trudeau used to push his gun control. Handgun ownership was cut… people still have them, but they cannot be transferred. If someone has to give them up for whatever reason, let's say due to a messy divorce, the government will not give the party back their handguns.
Are handguns no longer floating around Canada? Nope… and we do see some still cross thru from time to time (approved ATF paperwork… good as long as other stipulations are met). I don't see the guy anymore who had a $8,000 race gun, and competes when he goes down to FL, but there is a guy with a German jeep that also brings in a Walther PP and MG34 for shows (I'm unsure if the MG is deactivated or a semi-auto clone… one of the two).
I had a Canadian LEO argue that he was covered under Constitutional Carry when he goes down to train at SIG… told him he may be allowed to attend the training, but there is nothing in the US Constitution that allows a foreign armed agent to carry/have any LE power in my country; if he wants to be an off-duty LEO… stay in Canada. Small world that it is, I've seen that specific person directly noted in the NS shooting investigation.
Prior to the ban going into effect, some people bought a bunch of guns… similar to the CO magazine ban where Magpul flooded the market. I know of one alien that I interacted with who had a bunch of firearms that were purchased just prior to, and we stopped him from coming in and buying a bunch of gun parts. My investigation into it showed me a little angle of Canadian gun culture… to include the questionable edges of gun culture over that that are similar to the questionable edges over here. To a point, I sympathize for them being in that boat… until it gets to where they are knowingly breaking our laws. Canada laws… I leave that for the Canadians to worry about.
I've dealt with some pretty dangerous people from that side of the border. The area I am neighboring… I'd say pull the Carolinas and then SW chunk of the US… mix the criminal element together… and that is what I see for their criminal element. There are outlaw motorcycle gangs, drugs and guns. I refused one guy who had pending charges in Canada for firearms trafficking… among a few other things. Again, the investigation showed some **** firearm violations (cutting down break action .410s into pistols) up to some serious stuff (decently made suppressors). I've seen the business dealings of the same individual and organized crime that Canada got help with due to our refusal and notifying them we had some dangerous people on the way back.
I am on good terms with a few of my Canadian counterparts. I also do the active shooter policy for my work in the area. With my time here, I can put a check mark up for both countries when I was alerted of a potential school incident. The US side, was prior to my current role, but we responded. The Canadian side, I took as much of a description that was given… and had our officers on the lookout for someone potentially trying to make a run out of the country. Both incidents turned out to not be to that level… just a student that made some questionable comments and school officials made a few calls to make sure nothing went down the wrong path. But the threat over there isn't any less than it is in the US.
I've talked about the NS shooting… we had the Lewiston shooting a little over a year ago. Issues in both countries allowed deaths on both sides of the border. Would Canadian laws have stopped Lewiston? Nope. Would the stupid 72-hour waiting period that is currently instituted in ME stopped Lewiston? Definitely not… and would have hampered people from getting a firearm during the time it took LE to find the shooter's body, which was not found for about 48 hours.
The one thing I am happy about being on this side of the border is if I'm responding to an incident, at least I potentially could have good people with guns making a difference when I'm still getting out of my truck. Canada… that sort of is frowned upon, even if talking about LEOs.
