# Gun culture in US - Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 7, 2009, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236 "2009-04-07T07:06:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/81 "2009-04-08T17:13:52Z")
[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner] In two-thirds of the U.S., the attitude towards guns is basically just like in Canada. The proportion of gun owners is the same and people tend not to make a big deal of owning guns. It’s only the remaining one-third of the U.S. that there’s a considerably larger proportion of people owning guns and making a big deal about it. [/QUOTE] With respect, I think that just looking at the proportions of gun ownership in the two countries is simply not sufficient to determine that there is no difference in gun culture between the United States and Canada. Let’s start with constitutional provisions. In the United States, guns are so important in the political and popular culture, that the right to own guns is constitutionally entrenched. The Supreme Court of the United States has used that constitutional provision to strike down both gun registration and trigger locks, in [Heller](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller). Striking down the trigger locks provision is particularly significant, since it is premised on the idea that citizens have a constitutional right to own firearms for self-defence of their homes. By contrast, in Canada, firearms are not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld extensive gun control, both registration of all firearms, and the requirement to hold a federal firearms permit: [Reference re Firearms Act](http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2000/2000scc31/2000scc31.html). And then there’s the difference in federal laws regulating firearms. In Canada, to own a firearm, whether a long-arm or a handgun, you need to have a firearms permit, and you need to register it. All sales and transfers of firearms must be reported to the federal government. And the laws are more strict with respect to handguns, which are classified as restricted weapons. To own a handgun, you need to get an additional permit. And even with a handgun permit, there are only three places you can lawfully possess the handgun: in your home, and at the firing range, plus in transit between the two. You cannot take the handgun anywhere else. And even in your own home, you have to store the firearms in secure locations, such as a gun-safe, or with a trigger-lock. You can’t keep a loaded handgun or shotgun in your bedroom, or by the front door, for self-defence purposes. That certainly sounds to me to be quite different from the legal position in the US, at least as I understand it from posters on this board, and the attitude that guns are necessary for self-defence of one’s home. Nor are there any concealed carry laws in Canada. Concealed carry is a federal offence. Nor can you carry a loaded long-gun or hand-gun in your vehicle. All told, looking at the difference in constitutional and statutory provisions between the two countries, I would argue that the laws do demonstrate a substantial difference in attitudes towards guns, or “gun culture.” [QUOTE=Wendall Wagner] I’m tired of this deliberate distortion of American culture to make it more different from other countries than it actually is. [/QUOTE] Just as a point of curiosity - what other countries view guns so important to the political culture as to entrench gun ownership in their constitutions? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/82 "2009-04-08T17:21:02Z")
Just wanted to add - I forgot to mention that there are exceptions for handguns if required for one’s occupation (e.g. - guard of a Brink’s truck), and there is a provision for a hand-gun when needed for self-defence, but those are rarely granted - last stat I saw on that point was that there were at most a couple of hundred self-defence permits in the entire country. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/83 "2009-04-08T17:40:13Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Approximately two-thirds of the U.S. is very much like Canada in gun ownership. Something like 30% of the households have guns, some for hunting and some for self-protection. This is, I believe, the crux of the argument: in the US, the uses of guns include self-defense; in Canada, the uses of guns do not include self-defense. This is the difference in culture. All the Canadian shooters and gun owners I’ve known (and I’ve done a lot of shooting) are unanimous in their feeling that guns are for sporting purposes: for target shooting or for hunting, for example. Guns are not for protecting one’s home or person against others. That’s what police are for. (Whether you agree or disagree, this is the general feeling among the Canadian gun owners and shooters I’ve met.) And yet we read, time and time again in the news and even on this very board, of Americans who have defended themselves in their homes with firearms (IIRC, catsix once claimed to have done so); or who admit to keeping firearms for home- or self-defense. This is something a Canadian gun owner would never think of doing. Now, of course, there are those in Canada who own unlicensed/unregistered firearms, and who will use them–we have plenty of hoods, gangbangers, and other unsavory characters who make the headlines often enough for drive-by shootings and other gun violence. But based on experience, I feel that the Canadian gun owner who is law-abiding and in possession of legal firearms would never think of protecting him- or herself or property with a firearm. It may be part of the American culture, but it is definitely not a part of ours. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/84 "2009-04-08T17:45:03Z")
Are you saying that a Canadian with a gun would not defend his or her home with it if invaded?? They would just stand by and let the chips fall where they might and hope the police happen to come by, never even considering using the gun they have handy? Seriously? I lived in Ottawa for a couple of years…and I dinna think that all Canadians feel about this the same as you do. Or maybe these Canadians were simply corrupted by America and Americans… -XT ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/85 "2009-04-08T17:50:04Z")
I suspect it is clumsily worded, perhaps he meant to say that the average Canadian isn’t as haunted by fears of home invasion as Americans seem to be. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/86 "2009-04-08T17:57:03Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] I suspect it is clumsily worded, perhaps he meant to say that the average Canadian isn’t as haunted by fears of home invasion as Americans seem to be. [/QUOTE] Well, that would certainly be accurate. -XT ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/87 "2009-04-08T18:03:33Z")
By the way, you don’t have a gun? How about a large, flat-screen TV? Any loose piles of cash, by any chance? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/88 "2009-04-08T18:06:46Z")
Nope, no gun…yes, large screen TV (though better bring a couple friends to cart it out). Sorry, no large piles of cash laying about… I do have some fuzzy bunny slippers however…and I’m not afraid to use em! So…trespass at your own peril… -XT ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/89 "2009-04-08T18:09:03Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Are you saying that a Canadian with a gun would not defend his or her home with it if invaded?? That’s exactly what I’m saying. In my experience, the thought simply does not occur to Canadian gun owners to defend their home with guns. They do think to reach for the phone and call police, however. There is a point to the fear of home invasion being less; but I have never known a Canadian legal gun owner to use a firearm in home defense or even to consider the idea. The gun owners of my acquaintance tend to feel it is better to lose some goods (which are usually insured and usually what any B&E guy is after) than to be up on criminal charges for misuse of a firearm. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/90 "2009-04-08T19:34:49Z")
Man, you guys got polite robbers. > **[Early Morning Shootout in Queens Robbery Car Chase](https://gothamist.com/news/early-morning-shootout-in-queens-robbery-car-chase)** > > A suspect was injured in an overnight shootout with police during a Ours do home invasions (eg, b&e whilst persons are in their homes) and then engage in multicounty shootouts with the cops. [http://wcbstv.com/investigates/home.invasion.queens.2.687178.html](http://wcbstv.com/investigates/home.invasion.queens.2.687178.html) It’s the economy, I know, but Canada doesn’t have any of this? ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/91 "2009-04-08T19:52:43Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > Man, you guys got polite robbers. > [Early Morning Shootout in Queens Robbery Car Chase - Gothamist](http://gothamist.com/2009/04/04/early_morning_shootout_in_queens_ro.php) > Ours do home invasions (eg, b&e whilst persons are in their homes) and then engage in multicounty shootouts with the cops. > [http://wcbstv.com/investigates/home.invasion.queens.2.687178.html](http://wcbstv.com/investigates/home.invasion.queens.2.687178.html) > It’s the economy, I know, but Canada doesn’t have any of this? Heh. I’m sure Monty Python has done a sketch on overly polite muggers with a stiff upper lip. (John Cleese, Eric Idle) “Excuse me… I’m terribly sorry old chap… but may I trouble you for your wallet?” “Oh dear me. No trouble at all, my good man. Errm… would it be all right if I might remove my driver’s permit first? Those things are such a trial to replace. God save the Beauracracy and all…” “Ohhh, I’m afraid not. I’m _must_ apologise, but those will fetch a pretty penny down in the right quarters. I have a family to support, to be honest. If you would be so kind…” “Ohhh certainly. No problem. Here you go. Never hurts to ask, I always say.” (I know we’re talking about Canada.) ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/92 "2009-04-08T20:23:30Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Large parts of Canada (Ontario and parts of the Maritimes) were initially settled by people who rejected the Revolution, while Quebec suffered an invasion from the Americans. > > I think that contributed to a mirror image view of guns in the two countries: in the US, guns were an important step in achieving freedom and self-government; for those who fled or were invaded, guns in the hands of the rebels were a major threat to property and good government. Nevertheless, many Canadians are proud of their country’s participation in several wars (the War of 1812, World War I, World War II), and the Patriotes are still a relatively important symbol today (and usually [represented holding a rifle](http://www.cmhg-phmc.gc.ca/cmh/book_images/high/v2_c5_s09_ss02_01.jpg)). So the idea of firearms as a way to defend oneself against oppression is not unknown in Canada. But Canadians seem to have this idea of their country being “peaceful” and an advocate for peace in the world. This idea is relatively recent, but could it be part of the reason why Canada has less of a gun culture than the US? ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/93 "2009-04-09T03:27:57Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > That’s exactly what I’m saying. In my experience, the thought simply does not occur to Canadian gun owners to defend their home with guns. They do think to reach for the phone and call police, however. Are Americans really afraid of home invasions? I just don’t think about this eventuality at all. (I do live in an apartment, so I have neighbours close by.) Home invasions aren’t unheard of here, but they’re pretty uncommon. ---
**Author:** ![Nunavut\_Boy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@Nunavut\_Boy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunavut_Boy)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/94 "2009-04-09T03:59:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Are Americans really afraid of home invasions? I just don’t think about this eventuality at all. (I do live in an apartment, so I have neighbours close by.) Home invasions aren’t unheard of here, but they’re pretty uncommon. Yeah, ignoring the fact that any firearm I might own in Canada cannot be legally used in self defense, to me preparing for a home invasion seems like preparing for asteroid strikes. (Not just in Nunavut, I’ve lived all over this country). ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/95 "2009-04-09T08:34:43Z")
> [@Nunavut\_Boy](#): > > Yeah, ignoring the fact that any firearm I might own in Canada cannot be legally used in self defense, to me preparing for a home invasion seems like preparing for asteroid strikes. (Not just in Nunavut, I’ve lived all over this country). So how are Canadians suppose to defend themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Duhkecco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8491ac/32.png) [@Duhkecco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duhkecco)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/96 "2009-04-09T11:47:03Z")
How do most Americans defend themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/97 "2009-04-09T12:06:44Z")
I think I speak for everyone here in the U.S. when I say - Metal Penis. \*30 Rock joke - don’t get mad at me. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Duhkecco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8491ac/32.png) [@Duhkecco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duhkecco)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/98 "2009-04-09T12:27:52Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > When I was in high school, I was bullied a total of one time. A big hardass farm boy twice my size who I was on the freshman wrestling team with was razzing me for something or other, and I said, “hey, I’m going to kick your ass - meet me in the mat room, now.” We snuck down to the mat room and the fight was on. > … > What’s the lesson here? Billy kicked my ass that day in the mat room. He put me in a choke hold, and I tapped out. By all rights, he won the fight. But the fact that I had fought him at all was enough. Even though I lost, I was respected anyway, and nobody messed with me again. > > A civilian insurrection going up against a bigger, stronger bully of a government doesn’t need to WIPE OUT their enemy in order to win. All they need to do is make it not worth the enemy’s while to keep fighting anymore. It may cost lives, and it may take time, but it’s a proven tactic. Are you saying that your fight in high school is an example of why citizens should have guns? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/99 "2009-04-09T12:43:15Z")
So, it’s got nothing to do with the USA gaining everything it has by the use of force, and not wanting to let go of their favourite bargaining tool? Phew, that’s a relief. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236/100 "2009-04-09T12:58:25Z")
Clearly you believe private ownership of arms in the US to be a facet of US international relations. Please explain in detail why you believe this to be the case. Don’t skimp on the documented examples that support your assertion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-culture-in-us-why/492236.md?page=6)