Originally posted by gokenin Gun ownership rate is about 27% of households with great regional variations, rural much higher than urban, west higher than east in America
During the period 1972 to 2006, the percentage of American households that reported
having any guns in the home has dropped nearly 20 percentage points: from a high of
54 percent in 1977 to 34.5 percent in 2006
http://www.vpc.org/studies/gunownership.pdf
thats only 7.5% difference but then again there are no Canadians with guns are there?
That comparison is quite meaningless as it compares apples and oranges.
In Canada over 98% of all weapons legally owned by it's citizens are hunting long guns. Handguns are extremely hard to acquire and legally own and permits to carry though they exist are nearly impossible to get (as of 2009 there were 4 permits to carry issued to citizens in my province). Assault/military weapons are banned.
As you may guess, the vast majority of those rifles and shotguns are owned by hunters and rural folks. The gun ownership mentality is different from the US here. Nobody buys or owns a gun to "defend themselves" (gun laws mandate that the gun be locked away and ammo stored separately, so they are not much use as a defensive weapon), we mostly own guns to go hunting, varmint control and a handful to go target shooting. I personally own 5 rifles and they each have a trigger lock AND are locked away in a gun safe at my country house. No use for them in town.
Originally posted by gokenin makes me want to know what the other 70% of people use to kill one another up there in Canada
In this country, a homicide with a firearm has a mandatory sentence so murderers think twice before using a gun. Also because of our strict gun laws, though there are a lot of long guns in the country, they are usually locked up safely and not easily available.
Another thing that skews the statistics is that many gun deaths in the US which are ruled "accidental" or "justifiable" (self defense) are considered homicides here and prosecuted.
All this to say that - without throwing stones at the US - the whole firearm ownership and use culture is very different outside the US, and as I mentioned in my first post, had that guy shot car jackers - even with a legally owned weapon - here in Canada, he'd be in jail and the "self defense" defense which may be fine in the US would not fly here.
Pat