What is left out of the story is this is not the first total ban on hand-guns in Canada. Back around 2013 I was visiting Saskatchewan, working with a fine bunch of Canadians. One evening one of the fellows invited me to his "sporting club" to do some shooting (an indoor range, it being winter). A fine selection of handguns were produced for our entertainment. I did ask, later, how this was possible, having read about the "handgun ban" passed by the national government. It was explained that this is how it is done in Canada: the legislators get some silly notion, pass a silly law nearly everyone knows to be silly, and the (polite) majority simply ignore it until the politicians figure it out and repeal the silly law. It's the polite way to deal with oppressive governments, and I suppose the fact that the great "hand-gun turn in" resulted in a half dozen junky guns being collected was a clue to the government that enforcing this so called ban was probably a bad idea ;-). So long as everyone is polite (and understand the people remain armed) it seems to work out.