r/canadaguns • u/AutoModerator • May 25 '26

Recurring Canadaguns Politics and Debate Thread

Please post all your Gun Politics or Ban-related ideas, questions, initiatives, comments, suggestions, news articles, and recommendations in this thread. This thread recurs every 14 days.

First and foremost, this is a Canadian Gun subreddit, so keep it at least decently related to both of those things.

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Keep this Canadian gun politics related and polite. Off-topic stuff, flame wars, negative generalizations against groups, personal attacks and gate-keeping will be removed. Please flag any comments to bring to the attention of mods otherwise exercise your upvoting and downvoting ability.

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u/Red_Shrinp556 Jun 02 '26

A question that’s been pretty beat to death at this point, but would you want to see a constitutional right to bear arms similar to the United States, along with similar laws? (Permitless carry, no magazine capacity restrictions, suppressors)

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u/99spider Jun 02 '26

Given a magic choice of a US style right to bear arms in this country, I'd take it. I don't think that it is necessarily the best system that could exist, but it is the best we would ever have.

I think the ideal system would be one similar to the Czech Republic, where the shall issue license to purchase and own a handgun is a carry permit. If you can't be trusted to carry a handgun, I don't see why you should be trusted to own one. In that sense it is actually quite similar in philosophy to 2nd amendment style constitutional carry, but with an upfront barrier to entry that ensures competence and excludes those with dangerous criminal history.

The problem is that I don't trust this country to ever implement such a system, and even if it somehow did, I have no faith that it would actually last. Our opposition will never be satisfied. We will always be scapegoated, and our privileges under our laws will always be eroded. Canadian political views on aggregate are, frankly, dystopian.

When the leaders of this country decided to draft the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, they specifically chose to maintain a nuclear option just in case they need to violate your right to life, or your right to a fair trial, or your right against cruel and unusual punishment. What's worse is that people in this country unironically argue that section 33 is a good thing, just in case the Supreme Court gets all uppity and tells the government "no, you cannot legally enact a holocaust". All that tells me is that the average Canadian fantasizes themselves as an oppressor, rather than fearing being oppressed.

So, given the political philosophy that we have the misfortune to live under, if I had a magic choice between adding a real (immune to section 33) right to bear arms to our charter, versus replacing the firearms act with a good faith Czech style licensing system, I'd take the right to bear arms.