Things are different in Canada from the way they are here, obviously. I would be very interested to know the crime rate statistics/etc. Most of you probably feel safe when you go out somewhere at night. By the same token, I'm sure there are places, especially in the large cities, that should be avoided like the plague.
In every Canadian city, there's at least one area that typically only encompasses a few city blocks that are normally avoided. The distinction is that these areas are geographically small, and most people never have a need to be in those places to begin with.
My comment about Mexico's gun control laws not working, and then scramble's note about the "people killed" statistics and the variables is right and brings up a point: you guys (fortunately) don't have gangs from the North Pole trying to run millions of kgs of drugs through your country to the US!
We do. Gang problems and gang wars are a chronic problem up north. Americans are oblivious to this because American news does not report it.
Asian, Russian, Vietnamese, East Indian gangs and motorcycle "clubs" like the Hells Angels are constantly in the news up here for their misdeeds.
Scramble's other note about the friend in Kentucky brings up a personal point for me. A few weeks ago, I walked out of the bank after getting change for my store, and LITERALLY seconds later, someone walked in, pulled a gun and robbed it. Fortunately no one was hurt (and I wasn't in there!), but I know it sure made me wish I had a weapon on me. If I had been in there & armed, maybe I would have pulled my gun and gotten shot myself...but at least I would have had that option! There's so many crazy people out there these days, and there was nothing to stop that guy from just shooting everyone in the bank if he wanted to.
Alas, the fallacy of gun-carrying--if gun-toting civilians attempt to stop criminals with guns, how do the police separate the good guys from the bad guys?
They can't.
Cops up here say that if you are a bystander and you use a gun to stop a criminal, the cops will likely treat you as a threat as well.
Civilians also open themselves to litigation if they use their firearms in such a manner,if they miss and hit other bystanders or damage property. Police have conventions that protect them in the course of their duties, civilians seldom have anything similar working in their favour.
This is one of the big arguments as to why Canada chooses to remain a largely non-gun carrying nation. The detriments far outweigh any benefits.
But to give you an idea of something on this:
I currently live in what is described as the 9th most dangerous city
in the world, and the most dangerous city in Canada.
Now, this is something of a running joke, because these "statistics" are based upon presumptions made via population.
Last year, my city had two murders.
The two largest cities in Canada (Toronto and Vancouver) had something like 60 and 40 murders respectively.
IIRC, the two murders in my city were stabbings.
The city I live in is the average size for most cities in Canada ( about a 250K pop. avge), and most Cdn cities this size have similar murder rates.
Urban centres with pop. over 1 million--of which there's only about a dozen in Canada, have higher murder rates, but the corresponding comparisons with US centres are far, far less.
The disproportion shows that gun control in Canada contributes to far fewer gun murders per capita.
The difference between Canada and Mexico on gun control is because of the level of corruption in the Mexican system. Graft, bribery, and criminal affiliation in Mexican authorities ( government, police, military is rife, and accountability is minimal.
That's just not the case in Canada.
Having a stricter gun control policy is meaningless when Mexican cops take bribes to basically look the other way while guns are disseminated amongst the criminal population.
It essentially undermines their entire policy.