Today I got to visit the Canadian facilities of Italy’s Beretta Holding SpA, whose brands include Benelli, Beretta, Sako, Stoeger and Tikka guns, and Burris and Steiner optics. My hosts showed me the offices and target range, but we spent most of the time in the showroom.

Canada’s gun imports surged in the first quarter as companies stocked up to shield themselves from government import rules that take effect June 1 and threaten to hurl the industry into a crisis. The government said it’s planning an update soon.

Here is a 2010 report that recommended the RCMP adopt the AR-15 rifle. The study and its author were in focus this week at a trial to decide if Canada’s federal police are guilty of having failed to provide appropriate equipment and training to officers responding to attackers. The case is relevant to all of us.

I drive south from my hotel in Calgary for about 45 minutes and park in front of a low-rise building surrounded by fields. It’s 9:45 a.m. on the last Monday in January and I’m here to meet Terry Korth, the owner and chief executive officer of one of Canada’s largest distributors of guns and ammunition. I…

(Update 06 May 2018: Updated chart and notes. 20 May 2017: Added new info under Additions.) More than 90,000 Canadians are authorized to carry loaded guns on their person in daily life, mainly for self-defence against human attackers. More than 90 percent are civilian police and law enforcement, or military. If they were all on duty at…

I arrived in Atlanta today for the annual meeting of the U.S. National Rifle Association, which describes itself as “America’s longest-standing civil rights organization.” As far as I’m aware, the group’s more than 5 million members make it the biggest shooter’s rights association in the world. Some 80,000 people are expected at this year’s gathering, more than…

The number of Canadians with gun licences rose to a record in 2016 for the second consecutive year, as men, women and youth sought firearms for fun, sport, hunting and collecting.

The following was written by Steve Barta in December 2015 after a shooting massacre in San Bernardino, California, and tweeted to the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights. The CCFR replied today, just as news was breaking of a shooting attack against police officers in Paris. Timeless relevance?

Today is the 35th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The document’s legal and political significance and symbolism are as important as they are controversial for all Canadians, especially those of us who buy, sell, own, use or work with guns.

Canadians paid $380,600 to the Coalition for Gun Control in 2002 through government funding, according to a report by the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada and published by Hoplite Tactical. Even if it was 15 years ago, it shows how gun owners, shooters and hunters finance those fighting us. This isn’t just ancient history.