A couple of points I wanted to make. In a post in another thread in which a gun owner suggests a number of “common-sense proposals” for stronger gun control in the US, I guesstimated that those proposals might (optimistically) reduce gun violence by about 35%, which is remarkably close to the New York Times estimate. I also pointed out that achieving such a reduction would still leave mass shootings happening at more than one mass shooting every single day (it’s currently at about 1.54 per day so far this year). It would also leave gun homicide deaths at well above 10,000 per year, and total US gun deaths at nearly three times that number. So is that good enough? It still leaves the US totally off the charts compared to other advanced countries.
The other point I should clarify is that gun regulation in Canada is already far, far more strict than most proposals that have ever been made for the US. As I pointed out in that same post,
Most such countries, for instance, have extremely strict requirements on the possession of any handgun and many types of long guns, such that very few people are allowed to possess them; these countries also have very strict laws on the transportation of any gun. Any kind of open or concealed carry of the type widely practiced in the US in most circumstances would immediately get you arrested.
So as @Northern_Piper has noted, most of the gun control measures that the NYT times mentions (and more) are already in place in Canada and have been for years. The proposed new legislation is to strengthen them even further.
I’m on the fence about #1, increasing the minimum age for gun purchase to 21. On one hand, one could argue that the conditions of a Possession and Acquisition Licence are already sufficient to exclude potentially irresponsible gun owners. OTOH, we were all kids once and we all know that youths are disproportionately prone to being irresponsible and reckless. One has only to look at automobile insurance rates for those under 25 to see that. When I was young, most car rental companies wouldn’t even rent to anyone under 25 (not sure if that’s the case today).
So there’s an argument to be made that similar criteria should apply to gun ownership. I suppose the big difference from the US is that the PAL requirement weeds out many of the higher risks, of any age.