Read: 5 min
Canadians often pride themselves on being different from Americans — including in our approach to gun ownership.
But Noah Schwartz, a professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, B.C., says there is an “almost lazy reliance on American understandings of gun policy to explain what’s going on in Canada.”
In his new book Targeted (University of Toronto Press), Schwartz explains the history of Canada’s gun regime and why Ottawa’s more recent gun laws have frustrated gun owners.
Schwartz spoke with Canadian Affairs reporter Meagan Gillmore about the experience of getting a gun licence as part of his research, why approaches to gun policy are often flawed and how guns relate to Canadian identity.
MG: What are the key differences between American and Canadian gun culture?
NS: Generally speaking, in the United States, since the 1970s and ‘80s, gun laws have become looser. You have the rise of concealed carry in many U.S. states, where more people are carrying concealed firearms than at any other time in the nation’s history.
In Canada, we went in a different direction. In the 1970s, Canada started tightening gun laws, first bringing in a licensing system, and then in the 1990s really tightening that licensing system.
For more than 30 years, Canada has had a really robust gun licensing system that covers all of the bases that the academic literature suggest work: safe storage laws to make sure that kids aren’t getting access to guns and that firearms theft is deterred, licensing to make sure that there’s enough screening done that we can be confident that if someone in Canada owns a gun, they are probably someone who should be allowed to do so.
Good journalism can’t be outsourced—or supplanted by AI. It requires identifying novel story ideas, building relationships and asking tough questions. Help fund our journalism by becoming a paid supporter today.
American gun culture is centered around self defence, and constitutional arguments about rights. In Canada, it’s different. The gun owners that I spoke to saw guns as tools, and not necessarily tools of violence, but tools of leisure, tools to engage in sports shooting, tools to go hunting and put food on the table for their families.
MG: You mentioned the difficulty of getting a gun licence, and you went through that process as part of your research for this book. How did going through that process change your thoughts on Canada’s gun laws?
NS: I very much grew up on the urban side of the urban-rural divide on gun ownership in Canada. I grew up in Ottawa, in the suburbs. I wasn’t even allowed to play with Nerf guns as a kid. I never really had thought about it much until I started my research on it.
I think everybody is in favour of things that regulate people who aren’t them. And when suddenly you become the regulated, it changes your view on things. I wanted to go through that process. You get to see how rigorous the process is. If you want a gun licence in Canada, you have to go through this class, you have to pass with 80 per cent.
MG: You had gone through a relationship breakdown, and they had to call your former partner to check in and make sure it’s OK that [you] want a gun.
Thank you for being a paid subscriber. Our work would not be possible without your support.
Subscribe to Editor’s Picks. Receive our free Saturday newsletter featuring our best stories from the week.
NS: Part of the licensing system is assessing people’s mental health. You have to report to the RCMP if you’ve experienced any mental health issues, if you’ve been treated for them, loss of a job and breakdown of a significant relationship. It’s a safeguard to make sure that people aren’t getting firearms for the purpose of getting revenge on their ex. If you’ve had the breakdown of a significant relationship in the past two years, you either have to reach out yourself and get them to sign on the paper, or provide their contact information so that the RCMP can call them and interview them to assess whether you should have a gun or not, which is obviously really invasive.
But when you talk to gun owners, most are supportive of this legislation.
When they see something like this ban on assault style weapons that the government brought in [following the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting], they say, ‘I’ve gone through this really strict screening to be able to own this firearm. You’ve decided that I’m trustworthy. So why are you suddenly saying that this property that I’ve owned safely for decades after going through this rigorous screening process is now too dangerous for me to own?’
MG: There is this reoccurring theme of [gun] legislation brought in in response to a public tragedy. Is that the best approach?
NS: I don’t think it’s the best approach.
Think about mass shootings. Your statistical likelihood for [being in a mass shooting] is infinitesimal. Tragedies like this open up what we call agenda windows, opportunities for people who have been looking to push these policies. I understand why it happens, but it’s definitely a suboptimal way to do policy.
I think the 2020 [cabinet order banning 1,500 models of assault-style firearm] and the Nova Scotia shooting really demonstrates that.
If the [federal] government had taken the time to wait and let the details emerge after the Nova Scotia shooting, they would have found that the laws that they brought in afterwards would have had absolutely no impact on what happened there, because the shooter was unlicensed, and they smuggled their firearms from the United States.
Really the solution there was making sure that police respond to reports of people who are dangerous. I understand the temptation to pass policy in the aftermath of a shocking tragedy, but I think that waiting and allowing that incident to be studied, and then obviously basing policy on the best evidence in the literature [is a better option].
MG: What are some of the topics related to gun policy in Canada that you think we should be talking about more?
NS: I frame this around supply and demand. The conversation in Canada is obsessed with the supply of illegal firearms. We don’t have control over that. We share the world’s largest undefended border with a country that has more guns than people and has trended towards increasingly concealable guns. Guns are getting more plentiful in the U.S. and easier to smuggle, and as we tighten gun control laws in Canada, we create more incentives for smugglers.
What we need to do is focus on demand. Why are people picking up illegal firearms and committing crimes? Legal firearms owners account for a very small percentage of gun crime in Canada. The problem is folks that are picking up illegal guns and using them to commit crimes, often in connection with criminal gangs or with the drug trade.
This is where we have to talk about the social conditions that lead to crime. Crime ultimately stems from unmet needs. Criminal gangs do a good job at recruiting young people and providing them with easy money and status.
MG: What does Canada lose if we lose sport shooters?
NS: We’re facing a crisis of civic engagement and of connection. Fewer people are involved in organized leisure activities than in the past. It’s a lot easier now to stay home and be entertained than it was in the past.
We know that having people engaged in organized activities exposes them to people that they wouldn’t ordinarily meet in their everyday life, and this increases political cohesion. When we lose those opportunities for social connections, we see more isolation, more depression, more violence.
MG: One of the themes in your book is citizenship. What do you think the gun debate tells us about Canada?
NS: Citizenship is really tied to belonging: who belongs and who doesn’t, and how we imagine who belongs. This is where the book really connects to ideas of rural and Western alienation.
What it means to be Canadian has really been shaped around an urban view. Even though Canadian [identity] is tied to nature, it’s about experiences of nature that people from cities will have, like someone going out to their cottage. The woods isn’t somewhere you live, but it’s somewhere you visit. I think that’s why that image of what it means to be Canadian is so hostile to gun ownership.
Our definition of Canadianness has also been really built around what we’re not, and that’s American. Guns are coded as American. We need to broaden what we think about as what it means to be Canadian.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Support fearless, independent media
Canadian Affairs exists to publish fearless and independent reporting on Canada’s toughest social issues. Our work would not be possible without the support of our readers. Please support us today by becoming a paid subscriber.
✓ Unlimited article access
✓ Crosswords on Canadian holidays
✓ Cancel any time
✓ Unlimited article access
✓ Crosswords on Canadian holidays
✓ All Subscriber benefits
✓ The ability to gift a 20% discount on Canadian Affairs subscriptions to your contacts
Related Posts