The Moncton shootings: Would tougher gun laws have made a difference?

Gun control is bound to come up in the aftermath of Wednesday's deadly shootings in Moncton, N.B., which left three RCMP officers dead and two wounded.

The alleged gunman, Justin Bourque, evidently had an antipathy towards police and a dislike of Canada's firearms laws, judging from postings on his Facebook account.

So how was this apparently angry young man able to acquire the rifle and shotgun he was seen carrying as he walked calmly along Moncton's quiet streets and through residents' yards?

So far, the Mounties aren't saying. A spokesman at RCMP headquarters in Ottawa told Yahoo Canada News the force would not be releasing any information on whether Bourque had a firearms licence or whether his guns were legally acquired while the investigation was continuing.

The Coalition for Gun Control said via email it was not commenting on the situation at this time, either.

But the still unresolved manhunt for Bourque has not stopped the National Firearms Association from using the incident as an example that Canada's gun-control system doesn't work.

[ Related: Moncton terror: When a shooting goes social ]

In a statement posted Thursday, the association expressed condolences to the families and friends of the officers killed and wounded, and deplored "the terrible actions by a clearly deranged individual."

"It is clear that Canada's excessive firearms control system has failed again," the association said.

"The excessive rules in place do not in any way increase public safety, but merely contribute to an expensive and unnecessary regime which harms only those of lawful intent.

"Resources wasted on this fundamentally flawed firearms control regime could be better placed to support a health care system which could be better enabled to diagnose and treat conditions that put people's lives at risk."

Association president Clare Sheldon told Yahoo Canada News the photos of Bourque suggest he's carrying non-restricted long guns, a 12-gauge shotgun and a semi-automatic sporting rifle.

“I’d be very surprised if he obtained them illegally," he said in an interview. "He’s probably licensed but a licence doesn’t stop crime, doesn’t prevent anything like this.”

Gun owners in Canada have need a licence to possess and acquire firearms since the last major overhaul of the Firearms Act in the late 1990s. The application includes a criminal background check and asks a number of questions about medical history, including mental health, and whether there have been any incidents of domestic violence in the home.

Tony Di Salvatore, a Vancouver-area firearms instructor who teaches the safety course needed to pass a test for a firearms licence, says the screening process is as thorough as it can be.

“Once that person has completed all of that then he’s supposedly supposed to be acceptable," he told Yahoo Canada News. “With that in mind, it doesn’t stop somebody who . . . five years from now runs into some problems in life, let’s say.

"You cannot control what a person does after the fact [of receiving their licence].”

[ Related: Study claims gun laws have no effect on Canadian murder rate ]

Sheldon dismissed the whole gun-control system, saying a recent study has shown there's no direct correlation between legislative efforts to restrict firearms in Canada over the last four decades and homicide rates in the country.

The study by Dr. Caillin Langmann, an emergency medicine expert at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., was published in 2012 in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

After analyzing Statistics Canada data from 1974 to 2008 using three different statistical methods, Langmann concluded there were no "beneficial associations" between firearms laws passed in the intervening years and homicide or spousal homicide rates.

“The entire screening process, the entire licence system is actually a waste of effort," Sheldon argued. "That’s what Langmann’s research demonstrates, that none of this stuff mattered.”

Other studies have come to different conclusions, but Sheldon believes the screening process in Canada would have a hard time catching the rare mass murderer with latent mental problems.

“The application process doesn’t stop anyone who knows what boxes to tick," he said, adding licence applications also require references, but “you can always find someone to say you’re a good person.”

No system would be perfect enough to prevent this kind of violent eruption, Di Salvatore agreed.

"The only way to give the illusion that you’re going to prevent it – and again it’s only an illusion because nothing is a hundred per cent – is by eliminating guns, period, taking everybody’s guns," he said.

But that would likely alienate legitimate gun owners – hunters, collectors and target shooters. New Brunswick, for example, has the second-highest number of firearms licences per 100,000 population of any province, exceeded only by Newfoundland and Labrador, with the northern territories topping the list, according to Canadian Firearms Centre data.

It would also fuel the underground gun trade for those who want guns for criminal purposes, Di Salvatore said.

Gun control advocates often point to Australia's tough gun laws, enacted following a 1996 gun massacre that killed 35 people and wounded 18 more in the city of Port Arthur. Automatic and semi-automatic weapons were banned, and new licensing and registration rules were implemented for legal guns. The law has been credited with the fact no such mass shootings have happened since.

But unlike Australia, which can more easily control what comes into the country by sea and air, Canada shares a long border with the gun-obsessed United States. Cross-border gun smuggling is already a chronic problem and Di Salvatore suspects it would only get worse if a lot of firearms were outlawed.

"Drugs are illegal in this country," he noted. "That doesn't stop it."

Most assault-style semi-automatic rifles have been prohibited in Canada since the mid-1990s. The remainder are classed as restricted, treated the same as handguns, which means unlike other long guns, they must be registered. High-capacity ammo magazines have also been banned.

"This is not about gun control," Di Salvatore said of the Moncton shootings. "This is about someone losing it."