r/canadaguns • u/Business_Working_703 • Jun 22 '26

News / Politics / Activism Sks in shooting

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I hope it doesn't lead to an sks ban

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u/Eat_Cantaloupe_ Jun 22 '26

The SKS really isn't any more powerful or capable than any other hunting rifle, it was used because there are just more SKS rifles than any other gun in Canada. Honda civics are used in drunk driving because they're a common car, not because they're preferred by drunk drivers, are they going to ban Honda civics? Of course not. There are more SKS rifles than all of the guns they're trying to buy back combined, and they can't even do that. A full ban like they did with AR15s would be logistically impossible.

20

u/Natural_Comparison21 Jun 22 '26

That’s debatable.

The SKS estimates in Canada are anywhere between 250,000-1,000,000 on the high end. The number of impacted guns from the gun bans are estimated to be as high as 1 million. Most people would say there are between 500,000 and 750,000 sks’s in Canada. Which I will say for one rifle is a lot. I can’t think of a single gun that could rival those numbers apart from maybe the Ruger 10/22? Just because those have been in Canada for so long.

10

u/Dependent_Account603 Jun 23 '26

Lee Enfield rivals it. Also the official estimate for number of guns in Canada is based on the registry, so likely half.

The government knows pretty much how many SKS rifles there are through import records. They don't release this even tho there's been information requests on it. As most SKS rifles got imported after they started keeping tabs on imports. Lee Enfield is anybody's guess as most were imported pre import records.

4

u/goodfleance Jun 23 '26

I've seen credible estimates as high as nearly 2 million SKS, based on import documents and including all the variants. I think that's a bit high but I firmly believe there's over a million in Canada. I owned 4 at one point myself lol

3

u/Natural_Comparison21 Jun 23 '26

True. For all I know my numbers could be completely out to lunch and it could be over a million.