Police: Body found at US park is that of gunman

[iverglas]

103. go right ahead

I'm not sure how it's relevant, but I'll just correct you:

You have handguns, long guns, and restricted long guns. We have handguns, long guns, and class 4 weapons (fully automatic, short-barrelled long guns, etc).

Nope.

Your "class 4 weapons" would be the counterparts of our "prohibited" firearms, which exist only as grandfathered items in the possession of people who had authorization at the time that legislation came into force, with no new authorizations being available. (Also prohibited are large-capacity magazines, with no grandfathering, I believe.)

Our other categories are
- "restricted" (certain handguns - others, e.g. very short-barrelled and very long-barrelled, are "prohibited"; and certain semi-automatic long guns - others, e.g. the mini-14, are not restricted)
- not restricted (ordinaryish long guns).


I suspect those that would misuse 'restricted long guns' would simply switch to the unrestricted type
(I'm afraid your beer keg analogy escapes me.)

Indeed, of the homicides committed by long gun, some undoubtedly were committed by people who would have preferred to have access to handguns. Many, however, were family homicides committed with a household firearm, which is ordinarily a non-restricted long gun.

The main point, however, is that since a licence is required in order to acquire any firearm -- "non-restricted" does not mean "no licence required", it means the basic licence is required -- it's not as if your average gas bar robber can just walk into a gun store and pick up a long gun.

"Those that would misuse" any firearm, i.e. who seek to acquire it for the purpose of criminal use, are left to their own devices: theft, illegal transfer, smuggling, and secondary sales from those sources. (Assuming, as I do, that not many of them would succeed in obtaining a licence, or even want to draw attention to themselves by applying for one.)

Which brings us back to the mechanisms for reducing the risk of such acquisitions:
- mandatory licensing
- mandatory registration
- mandatory safe/secure storage
and campaigns to raise the awareness of domestic legal firearms owners of the consequences of non-compliance with those measures.

There still just ain't a whole lot we can do about the traffickers from south of the border, since their many sources and the wholly inadequate controls over those sources are just not within our reach ...