Emergency doctors and public health organizations say that scrapping Canada’s long-gun registry would weaken considerable achievement in suicide avoidance since the registry was established.

On Wednesday, in an open letter to MPs, 28 medical and health groups said that majority of the firearms deaths in Canada are suicides, and the guns most often employed are rifles and shotguns.

They disputed that gun-linked deaths and suicides in specific have decreased since the gun-registry ruling was passed in 1995.

Dr. Alan Drummond of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians said, “As a coroner, I go to lots of gun-related suicides. I’m telling you it’s difficult, it’s gut-wrenching”.

A private member’s bill to crumb the registry, proposed by Tory Candice Hoeppner, is before the House of Commons.

The health organizations said that most firearms deaths “occur when an ordinary citizen becomes suicidal or violent”, possibly as an outcome of alcohol or drugs, or because of a personal problem like job loss.

Drummond said that the registry is mainly useful when someone, who is sad or suicidal, is brought to an emergency department by police or a family member. If there is a gun in the home, doctors can urge police to get rid of it.