Border Guards Only Fired Three Shots Since Getting Guns

And one was to kill a moose. Oh, Canada.

In 2007, Canadian Border Services Agency border guards were given handguns for the first time, at a cost of $214 million. And now, we find out just how useful that program has been: Since their introduction, only three shots have been fired by the guards – two by accident, and one at a moose. The injured moose was shot to be taken out of its misery. Guards took their guns out of their holsters to in threatening situations somewhere between 10 and 25 times, meaning there were between two and five incidents a year that required more than just a stern talking to. Granted, there is a strong deterrence factor when a border guard is carrying a gun, a factor which could have prevented untold more situations from spiralling out of control. So far, some 1,626 guards have been trained and given guns, while the government hopes by 2016 that that number will be 5,685. We suppose that all this goes to show why the U.S.-Canada border has gone undefended for so long – there is literally almost no need for it to be. (Except for those injured moose.)