Angry Canadians Demand Stricter Gun Laws

Canada, blessed with a low crime rate and strict gun laws, recoiled in horror Thursday at the Montreal massacre, a killing spree of the type many Canadians smugly believed only happen south of the border.

But reaction to the killing of 14 female students by a crazed gunman at the University of Montreal on Wednesday--the worst mass murder in Canadian history--turned rapidly from shock to outright anger.

“This is a human tragedy of enormous proportion and a grim reminder of the vulnerability of society and of the fragility of life itself,” Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said in a statement.

Flags flew at half-staff in the Canadian capital and across Quebec province as demands grew for even stricter guns laws and greater protection in general against crazed individuals.

“We’re not used to this kind of thing in Canada,” said Gary Rosenfeldt, president of the lobby group, Victims of Violence Society. “I think probably it’s a sign of the times.”

Rosenfeldt, echoing concerns of other social groups, said that while Canadian gun laws are strict, more could be done to keep mentally ill people off the streets.

There were also questions of how the gunman could have obtained his .223-caliber Sturm Ruger semiautomatic rifle, a kind of weapon that is supposed to be strictly controlled in Canada.

“How can you justify selling an assault weapon in a downtown store?” one irate woman asked on a Montreal radio talk show flooded with calls.

The gunman, dressed as a hunter, went on a shooting rampage on three floors of the University of Montreal, killing 14 women and wounding 13.

The French-speaking man, in a rage against feminists he blamed for ruining his life, later committed suicide.

Although there have been other mass shootings--the most recent when a man with a machine gun killed three in the Quebec Legislature in 1984--Canadians take pride in the country’s low crime rate.