Every year in Canada, its estimated that one person will die per day at the hands of a firearm. Whether the incident was an accident or intentional is another story, but the fact is that guns are very much a part of life in Canada.
While numbers may not be as high to our neighbours in the south in terms of death and injuries, a sizable amount of Canadians have the privilege to own a gun. In 2014 alone the RCMP stated that over 2 million Canadians possession licenses, with 3/4 of those licenses having the ability to purchase any non-restricted firearm. The RCMP also estimated an additional 700,000 licenses had been issues for restricted firearms.
Ryan Lucas is a one of the over 1.5 million Canadians who can buy and possess a firearm and want people to know the difference between Canadian and American gun owners. “[Canadian gun owners] are more mild about it” say Lucas. “In the US it’s like ‘hey look at my guns‘, but (in Canada) is like ‘ya I have a gun, so what‘”.
Lucas later told XFM news that almost a day after the interview, someone had accused him of being a killer because he was a firearm owner.
Stats Canada has reported that over 5 years, police have only seized 78 registered guns that were used to commit a crime