Why is there so much more gun violence in the USA than in Canada?

Question

The USA and Canada have comparable numbers of guns per capita, but the USA has far more gun violence per capita than Canada. How do you explain this phenomenon?

Answer 1

Gun violence is directly related to drug use. Gangs were created not to protect the citizens of an area from citizens of another area but to protect the drug pushers from other drug pushers.

These gang bangers kill each other in disputes over drugs, street corners, money owed and percieved insults. If you want to see a movie based on the real life happenings of drug pushers...go see Alpha Dogs which was just released on Friday, its a true story.

The level of drug use in the US is many times higher than Canada and as a result the amount of money that can be made is much higher and the turf, drugs and money is protected by guns and violence. Unfortunatly, these drug pushers can't shoot straight and don't care who gets killed in the cross fire.

The more I look at this problem the more I think that the legalization of drugs through a goverment contolled and regulated industry is morally and financially a better method of allowing drugs than our failed attempts to stop it and the resulting murders, robberies, muggings and shop lifting that occur because it is the only way for the drug addicts to afford their expensive habbit.

After all, what keeps drugs expensive on the street? The illegality of it, if it were legal it would sell for a 5 or 10 percent of the current pricing. At 5 or 10 percent of the current cost, the same drug users would be buying but they would not need to be robbing and mugging and stealing to support their habbit, at least no where near the level that they do. And, with the profit gone, all the drug money dries up, no more gangs, no more drive by shootings.....does this sound better....not to mention the BILLIONS we currently waste trying to stop drugs at the source. That money along with the taxes from the legitimate sales of drugs could be used to rehabilitate the drug addicts when they finally decided that they were ready to quit.

Answer 2

America has insane levels of poverty, in Canada there is not that much poverty, Canadians receive a very good education, that may also play a role. For some reason American males like owning guns, in Canada , Canadian males just don't own as many weapons per capita. But i believe America's extreme 3rd world poverty in many areas plays the biggest role

Answer 3

First, to the person above that equates drug use with gun violence.

There is no drug in the world that will cause you to pick up a gun and shoot someone. Drug PRICES cause gun violence, and is a direct result of their illegal status and the war on drugs. If heroin was legal, it would cost about 6 bucks a day to support a serious habit. Lots of rich junkies who never commit a crime against another.

2-nd The one guaranteed cause of violence is poverty and Canada has a far smaller poverty rate than the US. Nobody wants to be in a poor neighborhood because it's dangerous.
And it's dangerous because the people are poor.

Answer 4

Please do not blast me for being the messenger-I am only delivering the facts!-Two Cities were recently compared, one in central Texas and on in North Carolina, very similar sizes and incomes/economies. The reason the one in N. C.(Might have been S.C.) was worse in regards to homicides was that they had a much larger population ratio of African Americans.

I personally feel that this is due much more to the inconspicuousness of some minority groups as compared to the Whites. It is just a plain cold hard fact that I behave because I am just a little too damn easy to recognize-Damn it!

Because YEAH, I got the temperament they claim my kind do and I can't attack everything I don't like, like I would like!!!!!

So I rant on Yahoo!

But, back to the question-I believe that Canada, just like the Texas city, has a much smaller ratio of the hard to recognize people!

Answer 5

Thats just the figures that everyone registered their irons.I'm sure that infact there are more guns per capita in Cannuck land.....We can't go around shooting people that would not be very polite.....we'll leave that for the crackhead city kids.

Answer 6

there are thirty two million people in canada and three hundred million in the united states. per capita i doubt that there is any more gun violence in the united states

Answer 7

Because american men think guns give them power, but the reality is its really a false sense of their own masculinity. Waving a gun around and scaring people makes them feel in control and powerful......but when theyre wearing shackles, orange jumpsuits and sitting in jail they realize how powerless and insignificant they really are.

Answer 8

Canada has fewer guns, even had a law requiring all existing guns to be registered, but mainly it has fewer hotheads wanting to fire their guns off. And the average person would never think of owning a gun, which just invites you to get shot by someone else with a gun.

Answer 9

first of all, i question your numbers. but assuming you're being factually correct-
urbanization, maybe?

other than that, you would need to take into consideration the economical (and other) backgrounds of the owners of the guns who inflict violence.
i am glad you take pride about something in canada, because living there is like living in a craphole compared to the states

Answer 10

Maybe because Americans think violence solve anything, like war solves any problem at all, I personally think violence worsen all problems, violence is bad period.