In Alberta when released from prison it's required that they give you a handgun with bullets. why is this a law?, has it caused any...

If this was indeed implemented, it would have to have been
around two centuries ago, when horse and gun were the most effective methods of
transportation and defense, respectively. Looks like this was a purely provincial law,
not necessarily a country-wide thing going on in Canada.

As
with other provincial laws, they are unique to a smaller population with perhaps a
social circumstance so diverse and separate from the rest of the country that special
and somewhat odd allocations and concessions might be permissible. In the case of the
gun and the horse, it is basically (like the previous post inferred) that the person is
given the chance to go far away, and the gun would protect them in the
wilderness.

I am almost positive that if this is an
anachronistic rule that is still in place for being overlooked, it still does not mean
that it is being practiced today.