Australian Gun Reform Laws

New categories for guns were created and gun owners had to pass certain requirements and demonstrate genuine reason for owning a firearm as well as provide appropriate storage for the weapon. Strict fines and jail sentences were established for offenders, but owners of newly prohibited guns were able to surrender their weapons and receive compensated under the national guns amnesty.

Categories C and D guns (including semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and pump-action shotguns) were prohibited unless the applicant could prove a specific use for the weapon such as professional farming or hunting and that Category A or B weapons was insufficient. Category E included machine, teargas and shot guns a

Walter Mikac, a survivor of the Port Arthur massacre in which his wife and two children were killed, rallied heavily for tougher gun laws. “Deliver to us uniform laws that will give our children the best possible chance to live without fear of someone having access to violent power that can maim and kill”, he said at his family’s funeral. He wrote numerous newspaper and magazine articles, did many interviews and spoke at numerous rallies, relentlessly pushing for tougher gun laws.

Prime Minister John Howard took swift political action after the massacre, pushing for “a total ban throughout Australia on all automatic and semi-automatic weapons” and promptly calling a meeting of all Police Ministers, who unanimously backed the National Agreement on Firearms. He attributed the Port Arthur massacre to the lack of national uniformity and the weakness of gun laws in some states, and called for a national gun register and prohibitions on certain people.

The Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia played an important role in opposing most of the Government’s views and fought any further restrictions on their access to firearms, which it felt “treated [sporting shooters] as potential criminals rather than ordinary and responsible citizens”. It claimed “the proclamation of the act had more to do with… publicity… than with good government” and it was a “disastrous, disgraceful mistake”. It said “World Health Organisation figures show[ed] there was no relation between lawful gun ownership and gun crime” and that “legal access to guns is not reflected in gun misuse”. Furthermore, it claimed that if gun laws were tightened, criminals would resort to different weapons, and that guns would be pushed onto the black market where government control would be impossible.

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