maybe thats because Canada doesnt give out guns to every whaco wanting a gun and actually have a system to weed out potiental criminals and those who are unstable and have no business owning agun. we could surely learn something from how Canada operates..... fortunately Canada doesnt subscribe to "Shall not be infringed for every whack job wanted a gun".....
Results of Canada's New Firearms Act
On Feb. 11, 2000, the Canadian Firearms Centre reported the following objectives of the Firearms Act of 1995 as already being met:
Across Canada, 1,287 firearms licenses have been refused or revoked for public safety reasons since the new law came into effect December 1, 1998. This is over ten times more revocations from potentially dangerous individuals than the total for the past five years.
Thanks to continuous background checks, 653 new applications have been refused for public safety reasons and we have revoked 634 licenses to individuals who were no longer eligible.
Since Dec. 1, 1998, approximately 8 percent (3,439) of all gun sales have resulted in cases where the new background checks required further investigation. Of these, approximately 8 percent (281 cases) of the sales were refused.
The new spousal notification line has received over 2,800 calls. This has proven to be an excellent tool for an applicant’s spouse (or others) to share concerns about public safety. Police now have an online registry of owners and their firearms.
Extensive background checks are conducted on every person (59,132 to date) who acquires a firearm. (Similar to the requirements of the United States' Brady Handgun Control Act, Canadian authorities conduct extensive background checks on every applicant before a license is issued and before a firearm is transferred to a new owner.)