In 1989, Marc Lépine entered Montreal University’s École Polytechnique engineering school armed with a Ruger Mini-14 and murdered 14 people. Six years after the École Polytechnique Massacre (a.k.a. The Montreal Massacre), the Canadian parliament passed Bill C-68. The Firearms Act mandated that all Canadian long gun buyers—and hunters visiting Canada from abroad—register their weapons with the government. And a whole lot more, including a blanket clause deeming any citizen ineligible for registration if the rejection “is in the interests of the safety of that or any other person,” stating that “an inspector may at any reasonable time enter and inspect any place where the inspector believes on reasonable grounds a business is being carried on or there is a record of a business, any place in which the inspector believes on reasonable grounds there is a gun collection or a record in relation to a gun collection or any place in which the inspector believes on reasonable grounds there is a prohibited firearm,” and giving the Justice Minister the power to ban any weapon he or she chooses without judicial or parliamentary review. And so on. Conservative critics have now moved to eliminate the registry. And the battle is joined . . .
