Quick links
long gun registry
DCHP-2 (Oct 2016)
Spelling variants:long-gun registry, longgun registry, gun registry, federal gun registry
n. — Administration, Politics
a registry administered by a federal program to document ownership of sports and hunting rifles.
Type: 1. Origin — Long guns are defined as non-restricted and non-prohibited firearms, i.e. firearms that are intended for sports or hunting. This definition includes most shotguns and rifles, but excludes handguns and most military firearms (see Canadian Encyclopedia reference). A man using a semi-automatic rifle killed 14 women engineering students at l’École Polytéchnique in Montreal in December 1989. In the wake of this incident (often called "the Montreal massacre"), the federal government began placing stricter restrictions on gun ownership, eventually passing the Firearms Act of 1995. Before the Act, only restricted firearms needed to be registered, but the Act required that all guns be registered. The implementation of the long gun registry has been a much-contested issue, with many people in the Western provinces opposing it, while other provinces, especially Quebec, seeking to keep the registry (see, e.g. the 2011 quotation). The program has also been criticized for its high cost. In 2006, the just-elected Conservative Party promised to abolish the registry, a promise they passed into law in 2009 (see the 2012, 2015 quotations and Maple Leaf Web reference).
See: restricted weapon
Quotations
1997
Step two is the ability to easily identify the target group for the purpose of property confiscation or segregation. This will be accomplished with the new long gun registry requiring all gun owners to provide their names, address and serial numbers for the central computer.
1997
Behind the dry constitutional arguments of who gets to legislate the registration of long guns lay the battle between those, like the Alberta government, who believe a shotgun is a simple tool, and others, led by the federal government, who think it an inherently dangerous instrument which must be regulated to prevent crime.
Mr. Ruby told the court that the issue belongs to the federal government and, if Ottawa decides that a shotgun or rifle is inherently dangerous, it has the right to enact a long-gun registry, even if such a law is bad policy.
2009
Perhaps this is the reason the Conservatives hid behind a private member's bill that anyone with any knowledge of the workings of the House of Commons knows has little chance of passing, rather then present government legislation that would have a real impact on the Liberals' Firearms Act, an impact that is not contained in C-301.
The record needs to be set straight on the real target ("political pacifier") - the Fireams Act, not on the relatively minor long gun registry.
2011
Bill C-19 proposes that the arms registry be not only abolished but that all the records will be destroyed.
Dutil made his case for preserving the registry at House of Commons hearings on Bill C-19 in Ottawa, but his federal counterpart, Vic Toews, has said plans to destroy the registry would go ahead.
The long-gun registry has long been a political hot button - wildly unpopular in much of the West and in rural Canada but enjoying broad support in Quebec. Advocates have argued it's a much-needed tool for police to keep Canadian communities safe while critics call it a costly intrusion into the lives of law-abiding gun-owners.
The Liberals established the gun registry in the mid-1990s but its origins date back to December 1989, when Marc Lepine walked into the engineering school of the University of Montreal with a semi-automatic rifle and shot 28 people, killing 14. He then took his own life.
The Conservatives introduced Bill C-19 in October.
With their majority in both the Commons and the Senate, the Tories now have the power to ensure the bill will be passed and that the longgun registry will be abolished.
2012
The federal long-gun registry was created by the Liberal Party in 1995, in the wake of the Dec. 6, 1989, massacre at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique, in which 14 women were killed by a gunman.
Since the long-gun registry was scrapped by the federal Conservative government last April, Quebec has gone to court and won the right to keep its portion of the long-gun data.
2015
It's gun registry data ruling day; The Supreme Court on Friday is set to say if the federal government has the right to destroy data or whether it must hand it to Quebec so the province can create its own registry.
References
- Maple Leaf Web • "The Long-Gun Registry in Canada: History, Operation and Debates"
- Canadian Encyclopedia • "Gun Control"
Images
