NIPISSING – The federal NDP party has no intention of re-entering the gun registry debate.

Nickel Belt MP Claude Gravelle emphatically told the News the “we will not restore the gun registry.”

In referring to remarks made by party leader Thomas Mulcair on Dec. 3 that resulted in headlines that the NDP was in favour of taking a new look at the issue, Gravelle said “I believe one of the reporters at the scrum misunderstood what Mr. Mulcair said.”

Surprising to Gravelle was that while Mulcair’s statements were making waves in other ridings.

“I never received a single phone call about it. I didn’t get one email and no one came in my door to complain.

“This is a rural riding, if people were upset I thought I would have heard something. Sudbury MP Glenn Thibeault says he received over 150 calls, and he represents an urban riding. You’d have thought it should have been the other way around, but I heard from no one.”

On Dec. 3 outside of the House of Commons in a scrum with reporters, the Leader of the Official Opposition said, “What we’ve said is that the registration of guns is essential to help protect the public. We would bring back a form of registration. We would be certain to avoid some of the pitfalls of the last version. For example, the police have said clearly that they never asked and it wasn’t necessary that the only possible treatment of an offence was under the criminal code. They said that that went too far.

“For example, if someone had simply skipped a beat administratively, not only were their guns seized during a hunting trip, they were subject to a huge fine and they had a criminal record. The police have said ‘You should just give us the option of treating it criminally or administratively.’ That’s the type of thing that you could do, but every police force in this country with the exception of one has said that it helps protect the public and it helps protect them. A young police officer going to the door of a home where there’s been a signaling of a domestic dispute should know whether there are guns or not on the other side of that door.”

Gravelle isn’t the only NDP MP to definitively say his party is not looking to return a gun registry to Canada. Caucus member Charlie Angus issued a press release the day after Mulcair’s comments to also dismiss the issue.