The fate of Quebec’s long gun registry is at stake this week in a Montreal courtroom, as the province’s lawyers argue that they should be able to use the Quebec data from the doomed federal long gun registry as the basis for a provincial one.
The federal government, for its part, is determined to destroy the data in line with a bill that became law in April. A series of injunctions have protected the Quebec data until now – the most recent expires this week.
Using access-to-information laws, Global News obtained a redacted copy of the national firearms registry from the RCMP, created before long gun data started to be destroyed.
Since late 1998, Quebec residents have registered 1,624,480 non-restricted weapons, a category that covers most rifles and nearly all shotguns.
- The majority of Quebec’s long guns are rifles (920,023).
- Next come shotguns (683,109).
- Quebec has 15,078 combination guns, firearms that have both rifle and shotgun barrels.
- 6,270 weapons are covered under ‘other’. This is a catch-all category covering reproduction black-powder muskets, crossbows and the more powerful air rifles.
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