The founding fathers of America wrote a brand new Constitution and Bill of Rights for their new country. In 1867, when the country was created, it was agreed that Canada would continue to be governed by the B.N.A. It had been written around the same time as the American Constitution by the British Parliament.
The primary purpose of the B.N.A. was to guarantee the rights of French speaking Quebec (then called Lower Canada), and to ensure there would be no repeat of the unpleasant business south of the 49th parallel. It placed far more emphasis on good government and keeping the peace than individual rights and freedoms. As Canada and the United States have matured, this distinction can be seen in their different approaches to everything from health care and social programming to gun control.
Canadian governments have traditionally taken a direct approach to ensure the well being of their population at large; the common good before individual need. The American philosophy has been almost the complete opposite: nurture individual rights, sometimes at the expense of the common good, thus allowing everyone an equal opportunity to succeed.
While there is a minority within each country that express dissatisfaction with their respective approaches to governance, the majority are content. Even when governments change, the most anybody does is tinker within the established framework. Any attempt to deviate from the norm is met with fierce public opposition.
It is only since the repatriation of the constitution in the early eighties and the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as its companion document, that Canadians have begun to rethink their philosophy. It will be interesting to see what kind of long term effects this has on the societal values that provide the basis for policy.
Gun control has always been a “law and order” issue in Canada. There is no emotional or historical bond between the Canadian people and weapons. They have no meaning beyond their function.
In America, guns are more than just objects. They have come to symbolize the struggle for freedom and the rights of the individual. The archetype of the lone cowboy standing up for justice against a band of outlaws is a powerful image, and one dear to the hearts of a great many Americans.
Article comments
1 - Victor Lana
Your article is intelligent and informative. I think there are different issues on both sides of the border, and the concepts of "law" and "tradition" play a major role in how one sees the situation.
The truth is we can and should appreciate someone else's opinion. In this subject or, for that matter, any other. The problem these days is that intelligent discourse has gone the way of the dinosaur.
When people start respecting other people's opinions on gun control, abortion, gay rights, terrorism, etc., the world will be a more civilized place. Right now it seems those who rant rule. I'd like to see those who can discuss and listen get back into the ballgame.
2 - Bill
The Canadian approach to gun control, is only a dysfunctional bunch of mostly indecipherable intertwined laws, regulations, and orders in council, aimed at only the hunters, target shooters, and collectors of firearms. Canada does not need gun control, Canada needs 'criminal control'. As fast as the cops catch the gun toting criminal morons, the courts and/or parole boards set them free, in many cases faster than the cop can complete his now increasing volumes of paperwork. Gun control in Canada is a total farce. It does nothing to take guns away from, or make them unavailable to criminals. As a matter of fact, if you are barred from owning firearms in Canada, you are completely REMOVED from the firearms database, and no one gives a rats ass where you live, or if you even have guns, you are simply not in the system anymore, because the government only tracks the law abiding gun owner.
The conservative party want's to convert the registry of law abiding gun owners into a registry of people who are not allowed to own firearms, and do what the Liberals fail to do, is MAKE SURE people who are barred by the courts from owning firearms, don't own firearms. If you use a gun in a crime, you do another 10 years ONTOP of any other crime you committed while using the gun. This makes much more sense than harassing the usual soft target of duck hunters and sportsmen/women. The 2 Billion dollars wasted on this bit of Liberal social engineering is enough. Unfortunately for the liberals, it's getting harder and harder to hear their dogma over the gunfire in our major cities.
3 - deano
Someone once wrote (and for the life of me I can't recall who) that you can sum up a nation's character often with a single word, that the geography, climate and landscape shape a people and a culture accordingly. The gist of it was that if you dropped the Mongels into France, within a few hundred years you would have a nation of bon vivants, chewing their snails and sipping their wine - despite the original cultural differences.
Obviously it is a bit of an overstatement but when you think about it, it can often work - provided you find the right word to describe the nation. By way of example, the word for the UK was "island".
The word for the US was "frontier" - which naturally enough is a fairly apt description of the US's approach and attitude towards the availability of guns and their fit within a society of individuals.
The word cited for Canada was "survival". Given the overall fierce climate, difficult geography and inherent challenges in the environment, the focus became based on the concept of the common good solution - the need for a strong civil (and controlled to an extent) society in order to function and survive. This is the ethos from which Canada is distilled...
Remember when the West was settled in Canada, one of the first things that happened was the dispatch of the North-West Mounted Police to close down the whisky traders and establish law and order across the frontier - the exact opposite of the US which saw the settlers pioneering with the law gradually following.
4 - Boyd
"and establish law and order across the frontier - the exact opposite of the US which saw the settlers pioneering with the law gradually following."
Not really, the settlers in the west were generally preceeded by the cavalry, most of the old west towns started life as military forts (or alongside them). The "land rush" pictures made great newspapers, but it was the military (and military law enforcement) that generally led the charge.
5 - WTF
He who has the gold (guns) makes the rules....
It's that easy.
I am not giving them up. On principle.
Sorry. End of story. If you try and take them, you will pay the ultimate price for you're stupidity... and maybe your replacement will have second thoughts.
But that's the process.
I will live life standing on my feet.
Not bowing on my knees.
PERIOD.