According to Statistics Canada, the stereotype rings true: Canadians are far less likely to be killed with a gun than their American counterparts.

In a study released Tuesday called Deaths Involving Firearms, the agency says that in 2000, the rate of Canadian homicides involving firearms was just 0.5 out of every 100,000 people. The rate in America was almost eight times higher, or 3.8 per 100,000.

Canada's overall rate of firearm-related deaths creeps higher once suicides and accidental deaths are taken into account. In 2002, the 816 Canadians who died from gun-related injuries countrywide amounted to an average rate of 2.6 per 100,000 people.

Comparing rates from province to province, New Brunswick, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta are higher than the national average.

Despite popular perceptions, however, the agency notes the number of gun-related deaths has been on a steady decline that shows no signs of abating.

Using data compiled for the Canadian Mortality Database, which is based on information from official death certificates, Statistics Canada said the death rate among males, for example, has declined by more than 50 per cent in the past 23 years.

"Between 1979 and 2002, the male rate fell from 10.6 to 4.9 deaths per 100,000 population and the female rate, from 1.2 to 0.3," the report said.

Of the total number of deaths due to guns during that time, only 15 per cent were homicides, and four per cent were accidental.

The majority -- 80 per cent --- were suicides.

The agency credits the overall decline in gun-related deaths largely to a sharp drop in the numbers of people who are killing themselves with the weapons.

Statistics Canada notes, unfortunately, that people are merely committing suicide by other means.

"Among all suicides committed from 1979 and throughout the 1980s, around one-third involved firearms," the report said.

"Beginning in the early 1990s, this share began to drop, and by 2002, about 1 in 6 suicides was carried out with a firearm."

The number of suicides by suffocation/hanging increased, however, rising from about 3 to 5 deaths per 100,000.