General

Handguns in Canada!

On April 22, 2010 by

How freaking awesome is this: After I finished a forensics workshop in liberal Canada, where civilians aren’t allowed to own or even possess handguns, the most awesome regional cops let me come in and shoot at their police range. We tore through about 200+ rounds wearing bullet proof vests (which are required while shooting) and wasted several cardboard dummies like this one. This is one for the history books for sure. I was initially surprised to find that I shot tighter groups than some of the cops, and most of the cadets – but then realized that even the police aren’t allowed to carry their firearms off duty; how much practice can the average Canuck blue get in? Turns out that, due to the heavily restrictive laws on handguns, most only get to shoot once or twice a year when they qualify… very different from our American culture where many cops have been shooting since they were kids. It was amusing to see how excited they were about a new model of handgun being introduced to the force, which they hadn’t gotten to shoot yet… two of which I’ve owned for the past four years. I guess when you’re not allowed to own anything, you can’t just walk into a gun shop to check something out; everything seems new to you.




We were walking down the halls of the police department with my little cardboard cutout getting some strange looks from the cadets, who are required to carry plastic blue guns instead of real ones. A couple of young, blonde female 18-year old cadets looked my way, saw the target, and were noticeably impressed. They then looked at me, and… notsomuch.

In short, this has to be the best trip to Canuckistan I’ve had to date. It was a beautiful drive through western NY, where there are still cows and farms (who knew!). In spite of the fact that NY is almost as liberal as all Canada, you wouldn’t have guessed it driving through the countryside. I guess it’s all of those city liberal babies that really screwed everyone else in the state. Canada consisted of some great scenery around Niagra Falls followed by some fantastic steaks at Ruth’s Chris in Ontario, lots of handguns, and even more hacking. All this crammed into three great days. What more could you possibly ask for? Thanks for a great trip guys!