Thanks Lagopus for the information. I wondered how that would proceed with confiscation. Handguns in Canada have always been considered a restricted item and required either a permit or registration. To my knowledge, I dont ever recall an outright ban that involved confiscation though. Usually if an owner possessed a firearm legally that then became banned through legislation, that person was still able to continue to possess it until they either no longer wanted it or died, but then it couldnt be passed on or sold to anyone else, it would at that point have to be surrendered to the authorities and then destroyed.
We in Canada have been through a very long and drawn out political battle involving our long-gun registry. It came into effect through a similar situation in 1989 involving one lunatic that had a hate on for women, whom proceeded to shoot 28 people (killing 14 women) at a college in Montreal, Quebec. In 1993, the Federal Liberal Party got elected as the Government and in 1995 proceeded to create the long-gun registry, due mainly to massive political pressure from the French Canadian population in Quebec. In short, the long-gun registry bureaucracy grew and ended up costing a whole lot of money to institute and maintain. In 2011, the Conservative party got re-elected with a majority Government and proceeded to scrap the long-gun registry in 2012. The Province of Quebec then appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada because they wanted the Federal Government to turn over the long-gun registry data as it pertained to Quebec, in-order to create their own Provincial gun registry. The Supreme Court of Canada has just now ruled that the Federal Government does have the right to destroy their own gun registry records, and so the records pertaining to Quebec can now also be destroyed. It was a close vote in the Supreme Court; it only passed by one vote. No doubt when or if the Liberal or New Democratic parties get in as the new Government, they will likely be trying to reinstate another federal gun registry. The Leader of the New Democratic Party stated as much. So the fight will be continued on into the future. Im not sure how much compliance or success that future Government will have the next time with gun owners though.
I have attached a couple newspaper links for anyone interested.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/multimedia/the-rise-and-fall-of-canada-s-long-gun-registry-1.2862001http://news.nationalpost.com/tag/long-gun-registryTim
