The 1999′s spate of handgun shootings Australia-wide has highlighted serious weaknesses in the Port Arthur Gun Laws, and now is the time for Police Ministers to address this serious problem, according to Gun Control Australia. Accordingly we have written to police ministers and Senator Amanda Vanstone reminding them that the training and testing of shooters is quite inadequate and that it is time for the Police Ministers to form a special handgun sub-committee.

“With the Australasian Police Ministers’ Conference coming up in Sydney on Tuesday, GCA calls on all State and Territory Police Ministers to get tough on handguns and to increase the demands on training and testing of all shooters. These are two of the matters which were virtually ignored in the Uniform Agreement on Gun Laws adopted in 1996 ,” said GCA Spokesperson Randy Marshall.

“Of particular concern are inadequate storage provisions on gun collections. Many handgun collections have been burgled over recent years and hundreds of pistols and revolvers have become available to the wrong people. All handguns in collectors hands should be made permanently inoperable. Such collections are now prime targets for criminals seeking weapons,” Mr Marshall said.

“While long-gun imports are down by two-thirds, handguns continue to be imported at high levels of about 8,000 per year. It is also likely that many enter the country illegally each year. The increasing inventory of handguns represents a significant threat to community safety,” Mr Marshall said.

Port Arthur’s legacy is a safer Australia — in long-gun terms. The banning of military style semi-automatics and semi-auto shotguns (categories C and D) has helped shooting death rates continue to fall from the 1980s annual averages of 680 to 437 in 1997.

“This is excellent news,” Mr Marshall said. “But it must not lull Australian legislators and police into a false sense of security. Handguns are a new but not unexpected menace, and controls must be tightened pro-actively — not held in abeyance until we experience our own version of Dunblane or a US school-yard shooting”.