Targeted: Citizenship, Advocacy, and Gun Control in Canada is a thoughtful read that explains the gun debate through the voices of those it affects most — firearms owners.
Author and political scientist Noah S. Schwartz defines what Canadian gun culture is, and how it differs in composition, motivation, funding, and expectations from its US counterpart.
Schwartz reveals observations gained by interviewing a host of Canadian sport shooters, hunters, collectors, and firearms advocates. He explains the importance of the cultural connections made at the ranges, gun shows, and in the field. These observations paint a colourful portrait of the many faces of the Canadian gun owner.
The book also drives home the point that when Canadians talk about gun rights, they are not espousing the American vision. Rather, we tend to communicate a tamer expectation, more in line with our national identity — of gun ownership as a privilege, albeit one based on the expectation that we should be treated fairly by our government. It is the failure of our governments to honour that expectation, he suggests, that has led to a feeling of betrayal and the rise of firearms advocacy groups, though in several different, and sometimes competing iterations.
He notes that firearms owners perceive that their beloved pastime, identity, and culture are under attack by politicians, the media, and the law for no good reason. This, he implies, has inspired many forms of gun advocacy, from small acts of individual evangelism to court challenges and efforts to sway public opinion or thwart federal policy.
The book also explains Canadian firearms advocacy groups and their various approaches, evolutions, and efforts, as well as the more subtle work done by provincial conservation and hunting organizations, such as the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH). He explains that the former groups tend to be more politically biased and adversarial, while the latter tend to present as politically neutral due to their charitable statuses and membership. Moreover, conservation and hunting advocacy groups tend to have networks of contacts that are used to working with various levels of government, which can often help influence policy in different ways.
Schwartz credits OFAH Executive Director Matt DeMille for encapsulating the feelings of Canadian firearms owners when he said, "What I'd like to see in firearms policy, and in our gun laws, is just some stability. And I think that's what firearms owners want. They just see this constant change, and the more that things are layered in, the less they understand about why it’s being done, and they have trouble rationalizing it. Firearms owners want to do the right thing; they want to be a part of the solution. They believe in public safety.”
Schwartz ultimately depicts the battle as an uphill one against a society that is woefully uneducated about the issue and heavily in favour of the pro-control coalition in Canada, especially when the issue only affects sport shooters and collectors.
Ultimately, Schwartz suggests that our federal government is missing out on an opportunity to work with a firearms community that cares deeply about public safety and has the expertise and incentive to help.
In short, Targeted provides an excellent assessment of a divisive issue and how it got that way.
It’s 248 pages worth reading.
MSRP: $34.95 paperback
$80.70 hardcover
$33.20 Kindle
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Originally published in the Jan.-Dec. 2026 issue of Ontario Out of Doors
