Gun Control Body The Answer

The Age

Monday April 29, 1996

John Crook

The time for ad-hoc piecemeal gun legislation is past, argues John Crook. Our politicians must produce a single authoritative set of laws that put community safety first.

THE Port Arthur incident was not only the world's worst such massacre, it was the 26th in Australia in the past 10 years.

It confirms that we are in a gun-massacre phase. We know this because the rate is now almost three a year.

We also know that there is a gun incident of some kind in Australia every month. Sometimes a few shots are fired and no one is injured; sometimes it is that latest expression of imported aggression, the drive-by shooting. All these suggest that unless Australian gun laws change, we are likely to slip into the US-style gun culture.

Our gun laws would best be described as a mish-mash of regulations that were never designed with the long-term safety of the community in mind. Opportunistic politicians and superficial discussion have been typical of the gun debate. If our community is to learn anything from the Port Arthur tragedy, it is that Australians should no longer be forced to live in a society where guns and shooter misbehavior are so tolerated.

In Australia, we have eight jurisdictions making ad-hoc gun laws in response to short-term problems. This has produced nothing approaching our real needs. Our needs are, unquestionably, a single, stringent and cohesive set of regulations on the ownership and use of guns.

Clearly, this shooting shows that the Federal Government acted wisely in 1990 when it introduced restrictions on the import of ex-military weapons and replicas. The gun lobby should be condemned for fighting these modest safety measures.

We ask the question: what more must we do? We must break with the system that has enveloped our jurisdiction over the past five decades. We must create a national gun control authority as an adjunct to the Australian Institute of Criminology in Canberra.

This authority should comprise about six full-time professional analysts and law reformers, and a core of criminologists. It should be given the initial task of examining gun problems and laws thoughout the world - Dunblane, Port Arthur and Killeen remind us that the private ownership of guns constitutes a threat to the safety of people in a range of democracies.

The authority should be of such standing that its recommendations would be respected by all parties. It would follow that politicians ignore its recommendations at their peril. The gun control authority would be accountable to the public and would be the first such legitimate body in the world. There is no reason why Australia should not set this precedent.

At present, this responsibility is left to police forces that seldom have the time, experience or intellectual training to consider such far-reaching solutions.

Our problem is to filter out the wrong people from legally obtaining guns, and all people from obtaining guns illegally.

This is not an easy task; it will require a generation of hard work to achieve. That's why long-term planning is the key to success. This is in marked contrast to the way parliaments make gun laws today.

The right of gun possession, too, should be an extended process. In order to filter out the wrong people from legal possession, there must be prolonged training. Providing the applicants have met with the approval of the instructors, they should then be required to sit a three-part test with written examinations. This would test the applicant's knowledge of gun laws, ethics and their understanding of the dangers that guns pose. This may seem complicated, but why not? It certainly makes greater demands on would-be gun-owners, but no more than one year 11 subject. The results are far more important.

To help prevent illegal gun ownership, we must take firm action to stop guns being stolen. We must insist that large gun collections are made secure. Collectors' guns should be made inoperable. Those weapons in private homes will have to be stored in the same way that hand-guns are presently stored: in locked, steel cabinets attached to a room-fixture, with ammunition stored separately. All guns should have gun- locks fitted and it should be a criminal offence to leave a gun in a position that allows ready access.

If hunting is to be allowed as justification for ownership, the applicant should show proof of a need to hunt. There is a case to be made for abolishing recreational hunting. Farmers and trained shooters should be allowed to apply for a feral animal reduction permit, and should have to prove that a landowner requires their services.

The politicians who could be honored for their efforts to protect the community from guns are few. Those who have taken positive steps include Sir Charles Court, who, as Premier of Western Australia, introduced laws two decades ago; David Tonkin, as Premier, in 1979 introduced greatly improved gun control to South Australia; John Cain sought to introduce an excellent set of gun laws to Victoria in 1982, but was prevented by a coalition-dominated Legislative Council; and Prime Minister Bob Hawke introduced importation restrictions on ex-military weapons in the early '90s.

Sadly, they have been outnumbered by those who did nothing.

John Crook is president of Gun Control Australia.