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Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry from the IAWP conference, Canada is a startling place for Americans, or at least, for me. You forget that you’re not in the states, and then something comes along to slap you in the teeth and remind you.

Yesterday, it was a presentation at the conference on detection of armed persons. Most of the presentation contained information that is valuable for cops from anywhere. The presenter, John Peatfield, discussed telltale behaviors that can tip an officer, or anyone else, to detecting someone carrying a concealed firearm. The slap-in-the-teeth part was the Canadian perspective on handguns generally.

Where handgun possession in the United States is commonplace, and even guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution (although interpretation of that clause is a matter of some dispute), it is rare in Canada. Private citizens have to have special licenses to even own handguns, and the licenses may require that they be stored at an approved gun club or range. Security officers who are armed usually leave their guns at their place of employment. Police officers might take their sidearms home with them, but they almost never carry firearms when off duty. The law usually permits them to do so, but the officer needs to have the express permission of his or her commander to carry the gun.

The reason for this practice is pretty straightforward. Assaults against Canadian off-duty officers are rare. Arguably, an off-duty officer is no more likely to be assaulted than is a private citizen. The frequency of line-of-duty Canadian police homicides is far below that of U.S. law enforcement, even after adjusting for numbers of sworn personnel.

This doesn’t mean that there is no threat from criminals with handguns in Canada, just because they’re mostly illegal. Canadian crooks are about as bothered by the illegality of their actions as are American criminals (I suppose that’s why we call them criminals). They steal, smuggle and illegally purchase guns, and carry them in violation of the law—hence, the reason for Mr. Peatfield’s class.

There was a portion of the class where Mr. Peatfield (whom I am not intending to mock here, as he seems to be a knowledgeable, honorable, and well-intentioned fellow) told the assembly that Canadians were going into frontier states, such as Montana, taking courses that qualified them to obtain concealed weapons permits, and then carrying those guns in the States. He said this with the same sort of emotion one might associate with Carrie Nation discussing the opening of a new saloon. Clearly, this practice of allowing non-cops to carry handguns is anathema to our friends to the north.

I’ve heard a number of explanations for the cultural differences between Americans and Canadians in this regard. One is that Canada broke away from England and established its sovereignty considerably after the United States, a kind of gradual process that started in 1867, and depending on whom you talk to, is still incomplete today (after all, they still have the Queen’s portrait on their money, and their prosecutors are referred to as “The Crown”). And, as we know, the British are even more antsy about handguns than are the Canadians. Another explanation centers on the way that the Canadian and American frontiers were settled. The Americans more or less made their own way west, and only created or tolerated law enforcement when things got too crazy, as they invariably did (and still do). The Canadians made their forays with government personnel, and then when things were reasonably pacified, the citizenry followed. I apologize to all those scholars of Canadian history that I am undoubtedly offending here—I am speaking in generalities.

Whatever the reason, the Canadians enjoy a society that is relatively violence-free, as compared to the states. It’s not like the police have nothing to do here, but their emphasis is more directed toward that ideal of community policing that we pretended to embrace in order to get federal funding, when community policing was the fad. And the Canadians are a lot more comfortable with their police, even if they’re regarded by many as a necessary evil.

I don’t want to be hypocritical here. I still have my guns (attention, Canadian cops: I left them all at home. There is no need to do the cavity search at the airport, even though you’re so good at them), and I’m not about to divest myself of them so that I can lead the country in the quest for a non-violent society. But, when I come here, I’m reminded that it is possible to enjoy the comforts of civilization and not have to pack around three pounds of iron in order to survive it.