by marc schultz   It's been a long time since Billy the Kid strutted into a dusty saloon bearing his holstered six shooter, but the days of trigger happy cowboys are only a pseudo-history in modern American society.   Recently gun owning Canadians picketed parliament hill in disagreement with the Liberal government trying to force all gun owning citizens to register their firearms. Gary Mauser from Simon Fraser University sees this as the age old problem of the elite claiming to know what's best for the citizenry, and the populists wanting to make their own choices (1997). However, statistics seem to show that the population at large do want guns registered and even banned all together; The Coalition for Gun Control alleged that 71% of Canadians support a complete ban on civilian hand guns (Buckner,1997).   So, if democracy works then lets band guns, right? Well, its not that cut and dry. In another study done jointly by Concordia university in Montreal and Simon Fraser university in B.C. it indicated that the gun issue is much more spread out. The study showed that a mere 13% of Canadians would remove handguns completely and issues such as protection, hunting and target shooting altered the answers of the remaining 87% (Mauser and Buckner, 1997).   Any gun control issue is a serious issue. However, Canadian firearm problems are often shadowed by the tragic and embarrassing track record of the United States. In a country where approximately 70 million handguns are in circulation (Nisbet,1990), the land of liberty and home of the free can do little to rectify the problem without breaching the constitution. In 1968 Senator Joseph Tydings for the state of Maryland (a longtime advocate for gun control), was well known in Washington for pointing out the obvious with complaints such as :"It is tragic that in all western civilisation the United States is the one country with an insane gun policy" (Nisbet, 1990).   The National Rifle Association (NRA) was formed in 1871 in order to promote the safe and controlled use of firearms; members include the likes of Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Handgun Control Inc. was started by Sarah Brady when her husband was disabled for life after being caught in the crossfire of the attempted assassination of President Ronald Regan (Nisbet, 1990). These two organisations combine to boast a total of 3.8 million members who register there firearms; it's only one blade of grass in a stadium football field knowing there are 70 million handguns in active use across the States.   Even though people of gun culture held their heads down when the world watched J.F. Kennedy, R.F. Kennedy and Rev. Doctor Martin Luther King jr all get killed by means of a firearm, many still see the gun as a treasured source of recreation, a cherished instrument of sport and a valued source of security in a crime-ridden world (Nisbet, 1990). "Firearms constitute a way of life" professed a group of gun culture Americans; perhaps it's time to try a new way of life considering its' been over a hundred years since Billy the Kid was executed by means of a handgun.