Quebec gun registry to come into effect

Quebec’s provincial longgun registry is set to come into effect today — the oneyear anniversary of the Quebec City mosque shooting.

Public Security Minister Martin Coiteux told reporters on Sunday that gun owners will have one year to register their existing firearms through a “simple, quick, free” process that can be done online.

The process requires them to provide a detailed description of the firearm as well as proof of identity.

He called the registry “an important tool” that will both prevent and solve crimes by allowing authorities to trace a gun’s ownership.

“It will help for suicide prevention, domestic violence prevention, the kind of operation by police forces when they know who is owning what (firearm), where, and how many,” he told reporters in Montreal.

Coiteux said the Jan. 29 date was not chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the mosque shooting where six men died, adding that he wants to treat the events separately.

“I don’t want to mix the two issues. They’re not mixed in the mind of the government or in my mind either,” he said, adding he’d chosen to speak about the new law a day early to allow today to be fully dedicated to commemorative events.

The province began plans to establish the log after the Conservative government abolished the federal longgun registry in 2012.

A Quebec judge upheld the constitutionality of the registry last October, after a legal challenge sought to block it on the grounds that it infringed on federal jurisdiction.