legislated by the Canadian government was a "Firearms Acquisition Certificate" for the purchase of any firearm, and strengthened the "registration requirements for handguns and other restricted weapons..." . The purpose of the 1977 leglislation was to reduce the availability of firearms, on the assumption that there is a "positive relationship between availability and use". In Robert J. Mundt's study, when compared with the United States, trends in Canada over the past ten years in various types of violent crime, suicide, and accidental death show no dramatic results, "and few suggestions of perceptible effects of the 1977 Canadian gun control legislation". The only positive effect , Mundt, found in the study was the decrease in the use of firearms in robbery with comparion to trends in the United States . Informed law enforcement officers in Canada, as in the United States, view the "impact of restricting the availability of firearms is more likely to impact on those violent incidents that would not have happened had a weapon been at hand"(152). In an article by Gary A. Mauser of the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, he places special emphasis on the attitudes towards firearms displayed by both Canadians and Americans. According to Mauser, large majorities of the general public in both countries "support gun control legislation while simultaneously believing that they have the right to own firearms" (Mauser 1990:573). Despite the similarities, there are apparent differences between the general publics in the two countries. As Mauser states that "Canadians are more deferent to authority and do not support the use of handguns in self defence to the same extent as Americans". As Mauser points out that "it has been argued that cultural differences account for why Canada has stricter gun control legislation than the United States"(575). Surprisingly enough, nationwide surveys in both Canada and the United States "show remarkable...
