Many things are different, yet I feel much is misrepresented within the firearms community of my country.
Personally I feel that a safety course as a mandatory requirement is nothing big, neither is licencing. Licencing means you are registered as a firearms owner however so I think that having to register your firearms individually after that is silly to say the least. Many (if not all) of the representative groups for firearms owners in this country take a page from the American playbook and are constantly talking about defense. Home defense being top saying the worn out old line of "what if someone broke in and had a gun and you had to protect your family." It's pushing for firearms ownership, and is the polar opposite of "what if someone bought an AR-15/.50 cal/semi-auto of any type and went on a shooting rampage? Do you want to be associated with that?" shaming and all.
Our gun culture is more varied in ideals but the biggest and growing one is the nutters talking about killing people. I don't think it's necessary to talk about that, I think anyone in danger should have the right to use lethal force if necessary but they go on about it ad-nauseum. These people also want to kill the restricted registry (an act I do not really disagree with but feel it would vilify me and my fellow firearms owners in the eye of the mostly uninformed public) and allow full autos for anyone (once again I don't disagree but I feel it should be allowed with [very] strict licencing.)
The laws vary but mostly are very strict and many are arbitrary. In Canada people are licensed, which means you must have references, a record clear of any violent criminal activity and you have to sit through a course. There's also the restricted licencing system which is much of the same but all restricteds must be registered and with that licence you receive background checks through a computer regularly (some people say daily, I don't know about that.) There are different restrictions here too especially when it comes to semi-autos. All semis with a barrel under 18.5 inches are restricted along with various others (AR-15) included and all handguns regardless of caliber, action type, or intended use. All firearms must have a barrel longer than 4.25 inches as well. Which personally I think is really arbitrary, because at that length it goes on the restricted list regardless of what it is. We don't have to register our rifles (anymore) unlike some states (California.) There are also magazine restrictions (5 per rifle, 10 per pistol, semi autos only) which, might have been effective in the 90s but in the age of 3D printing, and the internet seem silly, and disproportionately affects law abiding owners.
How can America improve? Well you simply came to the wrong place for that. America is a different system all together. With states rights, 2nd amendment, being the worlds largest small arms manufacturer, etc there's not too much you can do. There's also the issue that the last "assault weapons" ban was laughable and was largely ignored by everyone. It also did silly things like prohibit bayonet lugs, (wut?) which would make my friends WW2 era M1 carbine an assault weapon by definition. Magazine where restricted to 10 rounds so people just started buying off of law enforcement rather than stores. IMO it's a shame but I don't think there really is anything that could be done, which sucks because every time there's a gang shooting involving an illegally smuggled pistol with a 32 round mag, the media looks to the registered owners for answers.
Sorry to my fellow Canada gunners for omitting so much. I did it simply for the sake of time.