Ontario's attorney general says his province should have the right to ban handguns.

Michael Bryant is quoted in Sunday's Toronto Star as saying that if the federal government does not give the provinces authority to ban the weapons, his province "will have to look at the narrow constitutional opportunities that are available to us."

According to Bryant, only the police, the military and Olympic sharpshooters should be allowed to have handguns.

The attorney general's comments come in the wake of what is believed to be the biggest known theft of handguns in recent Ontario history.

An Oshawa man's collection of 40 handguns was stolen from his home on Friday afternoon.

Ken Foster, 67, returned home from a hospital visit to discover his back door kicked in and his collection of 40 handguns stolen.

Foster says he collected the weapons over a 56-year period and that they were all legally purchased, registered and safely stored. Some of the weapons date back to the early 1900s.

"Nobody needs to have a handgun in their house, and nobody should because of the dangers caused even by safe storage of these weapons of human misery," said Bryant.