The LNP’s favourite apologist rag, The Australian, joined in the anti-gun two minutes hate this week with this drivel from Rachel Blaxland:
“Malcolm Turnbull has responded to the shooting of 17 people at a Florida High School last week by saying that “nothing speaks more eloquently” on gun control than former prime minister John Howard’s leadership after Australia’s Port Arthur massacre.
The Prime Minister’s carefully-worded comments come as he prepares to meet with US President Donald Trump next week.
In a White House speech on Wednesday, hours after the Florida massacre, Mr Trump emphasised school safety and mental health while avoiding any mention of gun policy. The shooting was the 19th school shooting in the United States in 2018, and the 30th mass shooting (defined as involving five or more fatalities) over the same period
Asked whether he had a message on gun control for Mr Trump, Mr Turnbull said it was a “good question”. “We don’t tell other countries how to manage their firearms policies, but obviously Australia’s is one of the strictest in the world,” Mr Turnbull said.
“We have a great deal to thank John Howard, and indeed Tim Fischer who supported him as leader of the Nationals at the time, for taking up the leadership challenge after the shocking Port Arthur massacre and introducing our tough firearms laws, which as you know dramatically restricted the range of firearms that are available.
“The United States has a very different culture in respect of guns. It’s a very, very intense political debate there. But in terms of policy, nothing speaks more eloquently than the leadership of John Howard and the effectiveness of the laws he put in place more than 20 years ago.”
In 1996, gunman Martin Bryant killed 35 people and wounded 23 when he opened fire on shop owners and tourists in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur using two semiautomatic rifles.
The massacre prompted Mr Howard to ban all semiautomatic weapons and destroy more than a million illegal firearms acquired through a gun buyback.”
No-one speaks more eloquent mistruths about Australian firearm laws and John Howard than the LNP.
“We don’t tell other countries how to manage their firearms policies” but you spend every opportunity saying “Why can’t you do what John Howard did?” This is also after Malcolm was beating his chest about Australia’s aspirations on becoming the 10th largest arms exporter in the world. Got it.
Not much analysis is spent on John Howard’s financial blackmail of Australian states into accepting the non-legally binding National Firearms Agreement, nor is it spent on anything illegal firearm crime related or any of Howard’s other Australia wrecking policies.
There were not over a million firearms destroyed, Miss Blaxland. The official number of firearms confiscated was 643,726 guns at a cost to the tax payer of $319,833,727 via a Medicare levy increase. Much economic “eloquence” of taxpayer money for no benefit. We’ve also got crooks importing them illegally at will and gun stores being knocked off.
As for guns in Australia, they’ve all been replaced now with annual import numbers putting us well over our historical totals:
And semi-automatics aren’t banned, but obviously Miss Blaxland was too lazy to jump on Google or intentionally dishonest. Meanwhile, here’s what you can get in New Zealand on the lowest category of firearms licence, with no mass shootings there in 21 years either:
Again, Americans generally don’t care about non-Americans’ opinions on their domestic affairs. The arrogance of some in the Australian community, to assume that we are bigger than what we think, is a meme that needs to go away. In reality, we’re an island in the South Pacific that hosts a couple of US military bases, a tourist destination and that’s about it.
We all remember how you’re last conversation with Trump went, Malcolm.
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