thanks very much for the comments. Here are some of mine.
First off, I have nothing against handguns, and I'd be interested in learning to shoot one if I ever make it to Texas so thanks for the offer. It's just that knowing that most everyone in Canada manages to cope pretty well without them made me wonder what the rationale is down there for law abiding people in a very similar society to carry them around. Personally, I would not want to carry something that dangerous around unless I had a very good reason. I would just see it as a PITA to keep it secure. Each of you has given reasons that I think I can only understand by concluding that the US has a more violent society than Canada where you are more likely to be robbed or attacked. That's not necessarily a put down. It may just be a price you pay for having a freer and therfore more more wide open society. That has benefits too. On my vacation up the coast it is nearly automatic that if you see a newer boat over 50', it's American.
I can say too that the only times I have ever felt like I might want a gun are in the US, and that onetime in Alaska in a completely empty state campground when two extras from Deliverance drove into our spot to block us in I definitely did. Luckily they were too poor to own handguns or automatic rifles so they could only tell us about the ones they used to own.
The comments on the Canadian gun registry are completely justified. Making everyone register their rifles and pay a fair price for the privilege is absolutely idiotic. Rifles are not typically the weapon of choice for criminals. The registry was made that broad partly because of lobbying by police associations who wanted to be able to look up whether someone had a rifle before going into a domestic dispute. Not a good enough reason. Apart from the insane cost of a registry for millions of rifles, as a result thousands of family heirlooms and occasional use weapons have been turned in by Canadians who don't want to pay and are too law abiding to tell the government what they think, while a lot of other people have been galvanized into civil disobedience of the law and distrusting the government by such a stupid law.
I am not so sure I would be opposed to a registry of handguns and automatic weapons. There are always some limits in a free society (e.g., most people would agree that private citizens should not have tanks or poison gas) so I guess it's a question of where you draw the line. Maybe up here we could have the luxury of drawing it tighter because there are not so many handguns already out there in the wrong hands.
Oh and I am quite happy with the Queen thanks very much. The 800 years of hard won constitutional traditions that come with her figurehead status are an excellent bulwark against oppression from government and make it difficult for some idiot to tinker with a system that works. The sad thing is that more and more Canadians think the country's British origins are irrelevant or even "imperialist" so they are ready to trash all that in favour of some new touchy feely republic crap. Personally I prefer 800 years of gradual severely debated and often hard fought (with swords) incremental development over a bunch of idealists writing out an entire system in a few weeks. You guys were lucky to get your republic done the first time, but a lot of countries did not do so well trying to create a system out of whole cloth and paid a price. I think the French are on their fourth or fifth republic.
It's cool, shows a bear carrying a gun.. 
. A Sherman is something the local authorities could handle. Now a Churchill might be a handful.
