Hashim Akbar, born in Canada, shot his grandfather’s weapon for the first time as he was a child while visiting Pakistan.
“He was obviously scary. He was a small child, but he was also very exciting. There is also … a lot of adrenaline that passes through someone’s body,” said Akbar, 23, vice president of Simon Fraser Sports Shooting Club (SFSSC) in Burnaby, BC, BC.
When he was a teenager, the university student tested and loved Skeet Shooting and now has his own lever rifle. He requested a weapons license last October, which made him one of the 7,446 Canadians under 30 to do so in 2024. But by the time he received the document, the weapons he wanted were prohibited by the federal government.
Canada has banned more than 2,000 brands and models of firearms since 2020 in response to public concerns and defenders about domestic violence, violent street crime and high profile tragedies, including massive shooting in Nueva Scotia in 2020 and the murders of 149 of 1989 in the Polytechnique École Polytechnique in Montreal.
At the same time, the number of arms licenses applicants, especially young men, has increased in thousands, with a significant increase between an age group that includes adolescents.
According to RCMP data, weapons license applications increased 11 percent for young people between the ages of 10 and 19 between 2023 and 2024, when a total of 9,654 men and 1,778 women were recorded.
That has created a situation in which the newest arms owners in the country are, in many cases, some of the newest voters in Canada, and some seek leaders who indicate that they relax in the arms laws.
This increase in weapons ownership, mainly among young men, also occurs in the midst of fears that American -style weapons culture and toxic definitions of masculinity are filtered on the border, some experts say.
‘If you do something taboo, you generate interest’
RCMP data also show that applications have increased by three percent for people from 20 to 29 years old, and 2.5 percent for people 30 years or older. That resulted in almost 60,000 new arms owners last year, about 7,500 of them under 30 years.
Applicants between the ages of 12 and 17 can obtain the firearms license from a minor once they pass the Canadian firearms security course and the evidence determined by Section 7 of the Firearms Law. Once 18, they must request a possession and acquisition license (PAL).
The only exceptions are children under 12, including indigenous minors, who need to seek livelihood. Minors can also use weapons without a license if they are supervised by a licensed adult, and this is common in situations such as training in cadets or other youth organizations that learn about the use of firearms, the practice of the objective or hunting.
There is a lot of disappointment when young people learn about weapons prohibitions, said Blair Hagen, executive vice president of the National Association of Firearms in Canada.
“Many young Canadians are getting involved in this for several reasons and also recent immigrants who come to Canada, because they want to enjoy the same rights and freedoms we have had for many, many years,” said Hagen, while sending calls from arms owners in his store, Lever Arms Service Ltd., in Richmond, BC, BC, BC, BC, BC.
The shelves of your store are half empty due to weapons prohibitions.
In Calgary, the owner of Gun Range, James Bachynsky, said that the newcomers generally want to experience shooting a gun, as they have seen in the movies. The prohibitions have harmed many arms companies, and many customers “are feeling that the government is becoming increasingly intrusive and increasingly restrictive,” said Bachynsky, from the Calgary shooting center.
“If you do something taboo, it generates interest in it.”
Who are these young guns?
Jayden Gagnon, thirteen, and his father, Kaven Gagnon, from Calgary, signed a security exemption before the young shooter tried a 19x Gock gun in a range of weapons. Dress in safety glasses and ear protection, Jayden was guided by a coach, both behind the safety glass, with one hand on the back while pointing to a distance target and pressed the trigger, creating a series of spine vibration blows.
“You feel that you are more powerful with this. You also feel protected,” said Grade 8 student.
Akbar, from the Simon Fraser University, and David Chen’s studies, both in the last stages of their first science titles, are new arms owners. Chen, 22, chose to spend around $ 700 and buy a SKS, a semi -automatic rifle, one of the few that is not restricted.
He said that he is concerned that the firearm that enjoy disassembly can end up prohibited. “I am more interested in firearms mechanics,” said Chen, president of the SFSSC.
Akbar said weapons restrictions were reasonable until 2020, when prohibitions were established. “I think the government may have crossed the limits a bit,” he said.
He also questions the tax wisdom of the weapons repurchase program, but said that, like most of his friends, he cares mainly about the cost of living problems.
In Ottawa, the student of the University of Carleton Hadi Srour, remembers that he first fired a weapon in Florida while on family vacation. After that experience, he joined the weapons club of his university and is now buying his first weapon, even when each month is forbidden.
“I think Canada is trying to get away from weapons in the current direction we are seeing,” he said.
“Believe [restrictions] It can be a bit excessive, and I feel that this is the general consensus that I get when reading how other people feel online. “
THE VOTE OF WEAPONS
Daniel Fritter, editor of Caliber magazine, a publication of firearms in Kelowna, BC, said he believes that weapons problems will determine how some people vote in the next federal elections.
“I think that the number of people for whom this has become a political problem has increased so dramatically in the last five years,” he said.
He said that the record of 2.4 million owners of registered weapons of Canada underestimates the number of real arms owners, whom he believes are added to four million potential voters.
Canada has seen record requests for arms licenses in recent years, especially young men. Sociologists and arms rank owners say that social networks, films and concerns about personal security are promoting the increase of interest.
Fritter said the exact number of weapons owned by Canadians is not clear. When the laws changed after the Ecole Polytechnique massacre, some Canadians hid family relics and undocumented firearms. The total number of firearms registered in the Canada Long Weapons Registry before it was suspended in 2012 was only half the total number of weapons that appeared in the import records in Canada, he said.
Montreal’s sociologist, Marc Lafrance, said the world is seeing an unprecedented political change among young men.
“For the first time in living memory, young people [aged 18 to 24] They are more conservative and, often, more radically conservative than men over 55, “said Lafrance, an associate professor at the University of Concordia.
He blames the social networks “light”, which according to him feeds young men a constant flow of “right messages about gender”, defining male power with muscles and weapons.
This attracts young and frustrated men for whom “the future feels a bit bleak,” said Lafrance.
“I am not surprised that with that emphasis on the increase in muscles and the increase in physical aptitude as the key to solving all the problems that currently face men, that property property would be part of that landscape.”
Party lines in arms control
The liberal government has prohibited guns for the most part and promised to harden the laws on prohibited assault style weapons and make it mandatory that the owners sell firearms to the government to destroy them or disable them.
On the contrary, conservatives say they will withdraw the controls on rifles and shotguns, as well as the prohibition of the sale, transport and import of guns, said Wendy Cukier, co -founder of the coalition for weapons control, which was created after the Eco Polytechnique massacre.
She said that most Canadian political parties support stronger weapons, calling conservatives an “atypical.”
“The conservatives have made it very clear that they would go back to the arms control legislation. They have been explicit about it,” said Cukier, a professor in the department of entrepreneurship and strategy at the Metropolitan University of Toronto.
While Canada has a long -standing history of firearms, especially in rural and indigenous communities for hunting, Cukier said that “when people begin to talk about the rights of the owner of weapons, I worry a lot about the ideological flow of ideas of the United States”
“There is no right to endure weapons in Canada,” he said.
