A surge in teen gun owners brings concerns about U.S. social media influence in Canada

Canadian-born Hashim Akbar first shot his grandfather’s gun as a child while visiting Pakistan.

“It was obviously scary. I was a small child, but it was also very exciting as well. There’s … a lot of adrenalin that goes through someone’s body,” said Akbar, 23, vice-president of the Simon Fraser Sports Shooting Club (SFSSC) in Burnaby, B.C.

As a teen, the university student tried and loved skeet shooting and now owns his own lever-action rifle. He applied for a gun licence last October, making him one of 7,446 Canadians under 30 to do so in 2024. But by the time he received the document, the guns he wanted were prohibited by the federal government.

Canada has banned more than 2,000 makes and models of firearms since 2020 in response to concerns from the public and advocates over domestic violence, violent street crime and high-profile tragedies, including the mass shooting in Nova Scotia in 2020 and the 1989 murders of 14 women at École Polytechnique in Montreal.

At the same time, the number of gun licence applicants — especially young males — has increased by thousands, with a significant rise among an age group that includes teenagers.

According to RCMP data, gun licence applications spiked 11 per cent for young people between the ages of 10 and 19 between 2023 and 2024, when a total of 9,654 males and 1,778 females were registered.

That’s created a situation where the country’s newest gun owners are in many cases some of Canada’s newest voters — and some are looking for leaders who are signalling they’ll ease up on gun laws.

This increase in gun ownership, mostly among young males, also comes amid fears that U.S.-style gun culture and toxic definitions of masculinity are seeping over the border, some experts say.

RCMP data also shows that applications are up three per cent for those aged 20 to 29, and 2.5 per cent for people 30 and older. That translated into almost 60,000 new gun owners last year — close to 7,500 of them under the age of 30.

Applicants between the ages of 12 and 17 can obtain a minor’s firearms licence once they pass the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and tests determined by Section 7 of the Firearms Act. Once 18, they’re required to apply for a Possession and Acquisition Licence (PAL).

The only exceptions are children under the age of 12, including Indigenous minors, who need to hunt for sustenance. Minors can also use guns with no licence if they are supervised by a licensed adult — and this is common in situations like cadet training or other youth organizations learning about firearms use, target practice or hunting.

There’s a lot of disappointment when young people learn about gun bans, said Blair Hagen, executive vice-president of Canada’s National Firearms Association.

“A lot of young Canadians are getting involved in this for various reasons and also recent immigrants who come to Canada, because they want to enjoy the same rights and freedoms that we have had for many, many years,” Hagen said, as he fielded calls from gun owners at his store, Lever Arms Service Ltd., in Richmond, B.C.

His store shelves are half empty due to gun bans.

In Calgary, gun range owner James Bachynsky said newcomers usually want to experience firing a gun, like they’ve seen in the movies. Bans have hurt a lot of gun businesses, and a lot of customers “are feeling that the government is becoming more and more intrusive and more and more restrictive,” said Bachynsky of the Calgary Shooting Centre.

“If you make something taboo, you generate interest in it.”

Thirteen-year-old Jayden Gagnon and his father, Kaven Gagnon, of Calgary signed a safety waiver before the young shooter tried a Glock 19X pistol at a gun range. Clad in safety goggles and ear protection, Jayden was guided by a trainer — both behind safety glass — with a hand on his back as he took aim at a paper target metres away and squeezed the trigger, creating a series of spine-vibrating bangs.

“You feel like you’re more powerful with this. You feel protected also,” the Grade 8 student said.

Akbar, of Simon Fraser University, and fellow student David Chen — both in the late stages of their first science degrees — are new gun owners. Chen, 22, opted to spend about $700 and buy an SKS, a semi-automatic rifle, one of the few that’s not restricted.

He said he worries that the firearm he enjoys disassembling may end up banned. “I’m more interested in firearms mechanics,” said Chen, president of the SFSSC.

Akbar said gun restrictions were reasonable until 2020, when sweeping bans were put in place. “I believe the government may have maybe crossed the boundaries a little bit,” he said.

He also questions the fiscal wisdom of the gun buyback program, but said like most of his friends, he’s primarily concerned with cost-of-living issues.

In Ottawa, Carleton University student Hadi Srour, 23, recalls first firing a gun in Florida while on a family vacation. After that experience, he joined his university’s gun club and is now shopping for his first gun, even as more are banned each month.

“I think Canada’s trying to move away from guns in the current direction we’re seeing,” he said.

“I do think [restrictions] may be a little bit excessive, and I feel like that’s the general consensus I get from reading how other people feel online.”

Daniel Fritter, publisher of Calibre Magazine, a firearms publication in Kelowna, B.C., said he believes that gun issues will determine how some people vote in the upcoming federal election.

“I think that the amount of people for whom this has become a political issue has increased so dramatically in the last five years,” he said.

He said Canada’s record 2.4 million registered gun owners underestimates the number of actual gun owners, whom he believes number closer to four million potential voters.

More young men in Canada applying for gun licences

Fritter said the exact number of guns owned by Canadians is unclear. When laws changed after the École Polytechnique massacre, some Canadians tucked away family heirlooms and undocumented firearms. The total number of firearms recorded on Canada’s long-gun registry before it was discontinued in 2012 was only about half the total number of guns that showed up on importation records into Canada, he said.

Montreal sociologist Marc Lafrance said the world is seeing an unprecedented political shift among young men.

“For the first time in living memory, young men [aged 18 to 24] are more conservative and often more radically conservative than men over the age of 55,” said Lafrance, an associate professor at Concordia University.

He blames the social media “manosphere,” which he said feeds young men a steady stream of  “right-wing messages about gender,” defining male power with muscles and guns.

This appeals to young, frustrated males for whom “the future feels a little bleak,” Lafrance said.

“I’m not surprised that with that emphasis on increased muscularity and increased physical fitness as being the key to solving all of the problems that currently face men, that gun ownership would be part of that landscape.”

The Liberal government has prohibited handguns for the most part and pledged to toughen laws on banned assault-style weapons and make it mandatory for owners to either sell firearms back to the government for destruction or have them disabled.

In contrast, the Conservatives say they’ll roll back controls on rifles and shotguns, as well as the ban on the sale, transport and importation of handguns, said Wendy Cukier, co-founder of the Coalition for Gun Control, which was created after the École Polytechnique massacre.

She said most Canadian political parties support stronger gun control, calling the Conservatives an “outlier.”

“The Conservatives have made it very clear they would roll back the gun control legislation. They’ve been explicit about that,” said Cukier, a professor in the department of entrepreneurship and strategy at Toronto Metropolitan University.

While Canada has a long-standing history of firearms ownership, especially in rural and Indigenous communities for hunting, Cukier said that “when people start talking about gun owner rights, I get very concerned about the ideological flow of ideas from the U.S.”

“There is no right to bear arms in Canada,” she said.