Canada may end registry of long guns

TORONTO – Canada’s Conservative government introduced legislation Tuesday to scrap a controversial law that requires the registration of rifles and shotguns.

Canada has long required registration of handguns, but the registry law passed in 1995 faced bitter opposition from rural Canada, the Conservative party’s base, which considered it an overreaction to the problem of urban crime.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said they don’t want laws targeting law-abiding citizens such as hunters.

Police and victims’ groups are voicing opposition, but the Conservatives have a new majority in Parliament after national elections in May, and can now scrap the law. They are also proposing to destroy the archive of registrations already collected.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried to kill the registry in the last session of Parliament, but the bill was narrowly defeated.

The former Liberal government passed the tougher gun control law after Marc Lepine shot to death 14 students with a semiautomatic rifle at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique in 1989.

Families of the victims began holding news conferences and lobbying politicians. By March 1991, they had collected 550,000 names on a petition urging federal action.

The bill won final passage in 1995.

But Harper’s Conservative government vowed to abolish the law when they took power in 2006, and the Conservatives celebrated the announcement Tuesday.

“The Harper government has stood on the side of law-abiding firearm owners, farmers, hunters, and rural Canadians in every region of this country,” said Conservative lawmaker Candice Hoeppner, who joined Conservative colleagues in announcing the new bill at a farm outside of Ottawa.