Polytechnique survivor calls dismantling of long-gun registry 'devastating'

Flags in Quebec are flying at half-mast today to mark 24 years since the mass shooting at the colePolytechnique in Montreal that left 14 women dead.

On Dec. 6, 1989, a man entered classrooms atPolytechnique, as it's known in Montreal, and forced the male and female engineering students to separate. He thenshot the women with a semi-automatic rifle.

Heidi Rathjen was atPolytechniqueon theday of what has come to be known as the Montreal Massacre. She was hiding in a classroom that the gunman didn't enter.

The anniversary of the shootingsis particularly painful for her and other gun control advocates since the federal government dismantled the long-gun registryin 2012.

"It was devastating. We have to keep fighting. Luckily we have a chance to keep that cornerstone of gun control in Quebec. We're not going to stop fighting until we get registration back one day," she says.

PolytechniqueinformedCanada's gun control laws

Rathjenco-founded theCoalition For Gun Controlin the wake of themassacre, and has fought for gun control laws for over two decades.

Her group lobbied the Canadian government for gun control laws, with the first stepstaken in 1990 when then Prime Minister Kim Campbell introduced Bill C-80. That bill died, but a year later was replaced with a revised version, Bill C-17, which eventually passed.

In 1993, Campbell'ssuccessor Jean Chrtien, brought in the long-gun registry.

Shortly after the dismantling of the federal long-gun registry was announced in 2012, Quebec filed an injunction to preserve the provinces data for the eventual creation of its own registry.

After several roadblocks including a Quebec Court of Appeal decision in June to not force the federal government to preserve the data Quebec won an appeal this month to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Survivors of the Montreal Massacre and people touched by the events of Dec. 6, 1989, assemble every year to mark those events and remember the victims.

At 12:30 p.m. ET, people will gather outside the Montreal courthouse after14 white roses arelaid at the cole Polytechnique memorial plaque.