r/canadaguns • u/Noah_S_Schwartz • May 19 '26

News / Politics / Activism When did Canada ban firearm suppressors/silencers/sound moderators?

Hi all. I am a researcher who does work on Firearms Policy. I am working on a policy paper to advocate for legalizing suppressors (as is the case in New Zealand, the UK, and most of Canada's peer countries in Europe).

I'm trying to figure out exactly when Canada banned firearm suppressors, and it's proving more difficult than I thought.

Most commentary or news sources trace the prohibition to the "early 1900s" but don't reference any laws, acts, or statutes - or even a specific year. I have checked the 1919 and 1927 editions of the criminal code, and can find no reference to a ban. It's not until the 1953 edition that Section 84 lays out a clear prohibition.

I've also searched through newspaper databases from that period (Globe, Citizen & Gazette), and the Parliamentary Hansard.

It's clear I'm missing a piece of the puzzle, but I can't seem to find it. Thus, I turn to the great collective wisdom of Reddit.

Any information or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

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u/Remarkable_Vanilla34 May 19 '26

Because the US did. Well they tried and basically did for a long time. And politicians are idiots who think guns work like they do in movies.

There was a petition a few years back I belibe amd the government just laughed and shut it down.

I don't get it, we are so obsessed with being in line with European countries but firearms we insist on being just being regressive, because its un-American or something.

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u/DryF1re May 19 '26

Canadian identity partially revolves around just being not-American. Bugs the shit out of me.

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u/conanap May 20 '26

I’m convinced the “at least we’re not American” mentality is why Canada has been in a downward spiral.

Healthcare is getting gutted and wait times are sky rocketing? “At least it’s still free, unlike US”.

We get a public shooting? “At least we don’t have daily school shootings, unlike the US. Let’s just ban some more guns lel”.

Education budget gets slashed? “At least we aren’t Americans; we have student loan with low interest and controlled programme costs”.

It’s absolutely infuriating. We use the lowest bar possible and then give ourselves a pat on the back for being above that non-existent bar.

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u/Roger_Ferris May 26 '26

Canadian Liberalism is just contrarian to whatever America is doing that day. Let's not consider that you can own handguns and AR-15's in a lot of European countries, or that private healthcare can co-exist with a public healthcare system just like it does all throughout all of Europe.