OTTAWA (AFP) – Canada announced a ban on 324 models of assault weapons – granting amnesty in order to collect them from gun shops – with the aim of shipping them to Ukraine.
The move came on the eve of the 35th anniversary of an anti-feminist attack that killed 14 women at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal.
“To honour the memories of those we lost in mass shootings is to act on gun control and to restrict access to the very weapons used to commit these horrible crimes,” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told a news conference.
“Our goal is to ensure that no community, no family, is devastated by mass shootings in Canada again,” he said.
Nathalie Provost, a survivor of the December 6, 1989 Ecole Polytechnique attack who has long lobbied for gun control, commented: “I’m crying, but I’m also smiling because it’s an important step forward.”
