Breaking: Canada votes to abolish Long Gun Registry

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[link to www.cbc.ca]

Story:

The federal long-gun registry moved one step closer to being abolished as MPs voted on Wednesday in the House of Commons to scrap the controversial program.

With support from some Liberal and New Democrat MPs, the private members bill passed second reading by a vote of 164-137, sending it to committee.

If passed, Bill C-391 would scrap the decade-old registry and destroy existing data within the system on about seven million shotguns and rifles.

The Conservatives have long opposed the gun registry, brought in by the former Liberal government in response to the killing of 14 women at Montreal's L'École Polytéchnique in 1989.

However, there is also unwavering support for the gun registry including from the Coalition for Gun Control, the Canadian Chiefs of Police as well as the Canadian Police Association.

Wendy Cukier of the Coalition for Gun Control says firearm deaths such as suicides and murders of women have declined during the time the registry has been in place. The mother of one of the slain Montreal students made a public appeal this week imploring MPs to preserve the gun registry.

Conservatives argue the registry has been a billion-dollar boondoggle, although a 2006 study by the auditor general found eliminating the long-gun portion of the registry would only save taxpayers about $3 million a year.