Quote Originally Posted by Hyfi View Post
My permit also needs to be renewed every 5 years. Every gun I purchased had a waiting and background check period of a week. And I did not get the permit under a hypothetical home invasion paranoia, I got it because it is my right and my county approves law abiding citizens to do so. You don't need the permit to have them in your house, in any fashion you wish, the permit is to carry a concealed weapon. I would rather it be in the open and we have groups in my county debating just that now.

Simple Math can show you why you have a lower percentage of issues. And I am betting we have a few more illegals here too than you.
Canada
Population: 34,568,211 (July 2013 est.)
USA
Population: 316,668,567 (July 2013 est.)

And like Mark says, come vacation in Philly or Newark for a week and see if you feel the same way.

By the way, Happy Birthday Mark!
Well Happy Birthday to Mark.

Concealed carry permits are practically impossible to get in Canada; if they were I'd apply for one. However the last thing I'd want, personally, is to be actually seen carrying a gun.

The highest crime rates in Canada are among aboriginals, (native Indians). You're right that we don't have the same volume of illegal immigrants here. On the other hand Canada admits about 3x the number of (legal) immigrants per capita compared to the USA. Overall crime rates are trending slightly downward here as they are in the USA.

I'm not sure why total population size would have much to do with fewer gun deaths. According to the same reference I sited, Honduras has the highest rate of gun homicides, 64.8/100k (!!) and its population is only 8.2M. Looking at city sizes, the population of the greater Toronto area is 5.5M and the homicide rate is 3.3/100k, while the greater Detroit area has a similar pop of 5.2M but a homicide rate of 46/100k.

Despite that I'm a gun owner myself, I'm inclined to believe that, overall statistically, guns don't protect us, they get us killed.