Canada Scrapping Gun Registry

Canada's government has decided to stop trying to keep track of every shotgun and rifle in the country. The ruling Conservative party has introduced legislation to scrap the nation's controversial long-gun registry, reports the Globe and Mail. The party plans to destroy the registry's database to ensure that it cannot be revived. The registry, which cost nearly $2 billion to establish, was created after a man with a rifle massacred 14 female university students in Montreal in 1989.

Supporters of scrapping the registry called it a symbol of the problem with big government and argued that most gun crime in Canada involved either handguns or unregistered rifles and shotguns. The government "has stood on the side of law-abiding firearms owners, farmers, hunters, and rural Canadians in every region of this country," a Conservative lawmaker says. Canada's provinces may still set up their own gun registries, but only Quebec appears inclined to do so. (More Canada stories.)