Canada debates gun control laws

TORONTO, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- The Canadian Parliament may vote to eliminate a gun-control measure enacted after a 1989 shooting spree that left 15 dead, officials said.

The measure requiring the registration of rifles and shotguns was enacted after a 25-year-old man killed 14 women and himself with a semiautomatic hunting rifle in 1989 at Ecole Polytechnique, an engineering school in Montreal.

The measure continues to divide rural and urban Canadians and its uncertain future has revived a national debate over gun control in Canada, said Gerald Caplan, a political strategist and member of the liberal New Democratic Party.

"Canada is suddenly changing into a place that loves guns and armies and war. I don't know how we got there but I don't like it," Caplan told The New York Times in a story published Monday.

Debate over the gun measure has pitted the Conservative government, which wants to get rid of the law, against the police, who overwhelmingly favor keeping it, The Times reported.