It Is Possible For Societies To Become More Free...

The Canadian House of Commons has passed a repeal of the long gun registration law passed in 1995 after the Montreal Massacre, in which a mentally ill person with a registered Ruger Mini-14 murdered fourteen women at a university.  (Yes, just women--the men he shot were generally bystanders.)  He claimed that it was a political action against feminism.  He was apparently abused by his Algerian-born father.  From the February 15, 2012 National Post:

OTTAWA — The Harper government’s controversial bill to end the long-gun registry has passed the House of Commons, marking the end of a long political battle over one of the most controversial law enforcement measures in recent memory.

The bill passed easily, by a margin of 159 to 130, as the Conservatives used their majority in the House secure passage of the bill, which now goes to the Senate where the Conservatives also have a majority.

What makes this law so outrageous was that it cost C$2 billion to implement--and as is generally the case with trying to maintain that much data, it was always hopelessly out of date.

I can understand why, if you were concerned about violent crime, regulating handguns would be an attractive idea. Handguns are actually widely misused by criminals, although also widely used for self-defense as well.  But shotguns and rifles are a tiny fraction of murders.  Knives and "personal weapons" (hands and feet) are much more commonly used.