It’s probably still a bit premature, so I’m holding off from firing a few rounds into the air in celebration.

That, and the neighbourhood probably wouldn’t be impressed, to say nothing of the local constabulary.

Nonetheless, myself and about seven million other legitimate gun owners are poised to utter a heartfelt “Hallelujah,” if not a few select curses over what should never have been undertaken in the first place.

Last week, the federal government took the first major step toward pulling the trigger on the largely detested, essentially useless, and monstrously expensive national gun registration program.

Or to be more exact, the registration of long guns, which for you firearms neophytes, are rifles and shotguns.

In 1995, the brain trust installed in power in Ottawa came up with the concept of mandatory gun registration, for virtually all firearms, short of air-powered popguns.

This intiative was spurred at least in part by the horrendous 1989 slaughter of 14 female students at Montreal’s École Polytechnique by Marc Lepine.

The public shock and outrage over this act of violence against women was well justified.

The legislation that ultimately followed, was not.

Supposedly designed to control gun crime, it instead targeted law-abiding citizens.

Hunters, farmers, target-shooters – they all had to register their firearms, and the majority did.

Predictably, the criminals did not.

The new law didn’t deter the crazies, either. There have been several major shooting sprees since – two at colleges – with mostly handguns. In one of the incidents, the semi-automatic weapon was actually legally registered.

Most gun crimes are committed with handguns, not duck guns and deer rifles, which formed the vast bulk of the guns registered.

Handguns have had to be registered in Canada since 1934. The new requirements did nothing to change that.

What was initially billed as an $85-million initiative eventually topped $1 billion.

A fine irony is that many semi-automatic rifles similar to what Lepine used, especially those in the ‘assault rifle’ category, are now restricted firearms, requiring the same ownership screening and special licensing process as handguns.

No massive registration program was required to take them off the gun store shelves – just a law dictating barrel lengths, magazine capacity, and/or outright banning specific models.

All gun owners must pass a background check, and a firearms safety course. Both are sensible, effective measures to help weed out the whackos.

No national registration program required for that, either.

As for reducing gun crimes, in 1996, Statistics Canada reported there were a total of 291,437 crimes of violence. Of this, just 2.2 per cent involved firearms. And of those, 75 per cent involved handguns – almost all unregistered.

So, nearly 15 years, and a billion taxpayer dollars later, the present mix of politicos on Parliament Hill seem willing to admit this bill didn’t give us much bang for our mega-bucks.

In fact, it would be fair to say it was a fabulous waste of money and resources.

Public safety is not measurably enhanced. Gun crimes continue, and in cities where they’ve spiked, like Abbotsford, it’s primarly due to outrageously violent wars between gangs.

Registration did diddley to control that, too.

Good riddance.