OTTAWA—The powerful Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle used in the 1989 Montreal massacre and this summer’s Norway bloodbath.

Sniper rifles that can pierce light armour from a distance of up to 1.5 kilometres.

Or one that can drop a target two kilometres away.

They are all weapons that will soon be declassified under the Conservatives’ bill to kill the long-gun registry and freed from binding controls that now see them listed with the RCMP-run database.

They fall under the class of “non-restricted” weapons and they are about to become unregistered. Restricted or prohibited firearms such automatic assault rifles, sawed-off shotguns or handguns are not affected by the bill and would remain under current controls.

But under Bill C-19, the law would no longer require a licensed gun owner to hold a registration certificate for “non-restricted” weapons.

The Coalition for Gun Control, which has mounted the fiercest defence of the long-gun registry, says many are not the workaday rifles and shotguns used by “law-abiding duck hunters and farmers” that the Conservatives say should be protected from Orwellian gun control laws.

The coalition is still analyzing the legislation. But in information sent to the Star, its researchers point out that under the Conservative bill the Ruger Mini-14, the .50-calibre sniper rifle known as the Steyr-Mannlicher HS .50 — a sniper rifle that can pierce light armour from a distance of up to 1.5 km — and the L115A3 Long Range Sniper Rifle, which can accurately hit a target 2 kilometres away will no longer require registration certificates.

It pointed out that Canadian on-line gun merchants clearly classify menacing guns like the IWI Tavor TAR-21 5.56mm as non-restricted.

So far, much of the public reaction has been focused on the Conservatives’ plan to destroy all records now held on long-guns in the registry.

It’s a plan that registry advocates say is a throwback to four decades ago.

The coalition says if the proposed destruction of current data goes ahead no non-restricted firearm would have any record from which to track it except in those cases where businesses have voluntarily kept records and agree to share those records with police or for which a warrant is obtained.

In 1977, the Criminal Law Amendment Act required businesses to keeps records of firearm sales to help police trace firearms back to their original owners, according to the coalition. That requirement allowed police to trace the man who killed 14 women in the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre. The requirement for businesses to keep records was repealed in 1995 because those records were kept in the centralized registry.

The coalition argues now that all a gun store vendor would be required to do is “have no reason to think the person shouldn’t have firearms, verify the validity of the licence of that person, and keep a reference number for the inquiry about the licence. Since there would be no requirement of registering the firearm, there would also be nothing to indicate what firearms were sold to whom or how many.”

The coalition fears that the failure to include business record keeping provisions would make non-restricted firearms entirely untraceable as neither manufacturer nor dealers are required to keep records.

“Without the long-gun registry, the government must re-establish the requirement that merchants keep records of gun purchasers, and the same requirement must be imposed upon gun owners who give, transfer or sell their firearms,” said Denis Coté, president of Quebec’s municipal police federation (FPMQ).

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said last week the government intends to retain the only controls that matter: the system of screening and licensing of gun owners to ensure an individual doesn’t pose a risk to public safety.

Monday in the Commons, Toews switched tack in his defence of the government’s move. He argued destruction of the records would protect the privacy of lawful gun-owners. Last week, he’d argued the wholesale elimination of the data was necessary to prevent a future government from re-creating the registry some day.

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But the coalition argues the bill would dilute controls on illegal or dangerous transfers, since a gun owner would not be prevented from giving or transferring their guns to an unlicensed, dangerous individual.

“Six different public inquests have maintained the importance of licensing and registration to prevent tragedies,” said Priscilla de Villiers last week. Her daughter Nina died at the hands of an assailant using a legally owned unrestricted rifle in 1991.

Transfer of firearms ownership is “commonplace,” says the coalition. It points to statistics that show between 2006 and 2009 a total of 1.85 million long guns have changed hands.