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SAINT-JEAN-SUR-RICHELIEU, Que. — Justin Trudeau scrambled to explain his stance on gun control Monday as the Liberal leadership candidate took flak from opposing sides on the divisive issue.

The presumed Liberal front-runner tried to mollify both sides of the debate, rekindled over the weekend by his description of the long-gun registry as a failed policy.

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Trudeau spent a news scrum with reporters handling one of the first divisive policy debates to have erupted during his campaign.

[np_storybar title=”Chris Selley: Justin Trudeau’s gun registry apostasy is excellent news” link=”http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/12/03/chris-selley-justin-trudeaus-gun-registry-apostasy-is-excellent-news/”]

In Hawkesbury, Ont., on Friday, Justin Trudeau threw the long-gun registry under his campaign bus.

This downright reasonable position simultaneously illustrates how unserious Canadian politics can be, and offers a strange glimmer of hope for improvement — strange because it’s coming from someone many people assumed, not without reason, was a fairly insubstantial, middle-of-the-road Grit, as wedded as any other to the party’s various myths and talismans.