Prince George, B.C.- The National Firearms Association  has started legal action to prevent the Province of Quebec  from establishing its own  long gun registry.

NFA President  Sheldon Clare  says the  legislation infringes  on the rules already established  in Canada’s Criminal Code  and is not  within  a province’s powers.

The National Gun Registry was dismantled  four years ago,   and Quebec tried to get access to the data from that registry.  It was a move  the NFA fought,  and won “We have already given them a bloody nose once when we prevented them from  getting the  gun registry data, we fought them in the Supreme Court of Canada.”

The first round in  this new battle  has  seen the NFA apply for an injunction to prevent the new legislation in Quebec from  coming into effect  until the case has been heard.  The NFA is waiting to hear if they were successful in that injunction application  “We  are taking every step to ensure this bad law never sees the light of day.”

The concern is, that if Quebec  is allowed to enact this new legislation,  other  provinces may  attempt to do the same. “It’s a possibility that there are other jurisdictions that may see the opportunity to   take advantage of a pattern  of bad legislation should Quebec be  successful.”

Quebec estimates it  would cost  about $17 million dollars to set up its own  registry and another $5 million a year  to keep it operational.

“The peer reviewed evidence is that none of Canada’s  gun control laws from the 1970’s forward, have had any effect whatsoever on violent  crimes, or crimes involving firearms,  they do nothing” says Clare  “All it is doing is  providing knee-jerk, feel good feeling  and not actually  doing anything about crime.”

Clare says  as tragic as recent  incidents such as the Orlando night club shooting  may be,   a firearms registry won’t prevent such incidents from happening  in the future “If people with bad intentions, want to do bad things,   they are not short of tools and equipment in modern day society  in which to wreak havoc.”  He says responsible firearms owners in this country should not be subjected to   legislated action which “harms only them and does nothing to  prevent violence and violent  crime.”

It is a long road  before  the action  against  the new legislation in Quebec reaches the Supreme Court of Canada,  but Clare is optimistic “We have a good string of victories behind us, we don’t take such matters lightly and we are in to make sure we do a thorough job of this.  We’ve done  a very  thorough and legal analysis of our situation and we believe we  are on the right side of history  here.”