Quebec wins gun-registry issue in court

The Canadian province of Quebec won its battle in court with the federal government and will keep its gun registry, a court decision released Monday said. Justice Marc-Andre Blanchard of the Quebec Superior Court sided with arguments the Quebec government presented, and declared the federal government's intent to destroy all data from its long-gun registry is unconstitutional, giving the federal government 30 days to return records collected in Quebec back to the province, the newspaper The Globe and Mail reported Monday. At issue is the protection of information on owners of guns other than handguns, collected by provinces, and whether the federal government has domain over it, the newspaper said. "The data in question cannot be solely qualified as being federal data," said Blanchard in his ruling, noting that registry records are collected by federal agencies in collaboration with provincial agencies.