There are dangerous signs of complacency creeping into Australian governments’ gun control efforts.

While the Federal Government shows surprise that handgun incidents are rising alarmingly no additional controls have been placed on improved storage of pistol collections or on the opportunistic security industry.

In Victoria, the Bracks Labor government continues to pretend that the word “gun” has dropped out of the political lexicon. They seem to be all but allying themselves with the Nationals in their efforts to woo country votes by not mentioning guns or gun control. In Victoria the Nationals have broken their traditional alliance with the Liberals…and Victorians may soon have to endure the horror of a Labor- National strongly-pro-gun Coalition.

In New South Wales, 110 amendments to the State’s Port Arthur “uniform” gun laws are before Parliament. Some of its clauses are unwise, and the law could be a first step to bring NSW down to the diluted laws already in place in Victoria – laws brought in by the previous (Kennett) Liberal Government. These watered-down Victorian laws potentially allowed perhaps 5000 extra shooters to retain (banned) semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns and made it easier than ever for large collections of long guns to be burgled. As noted, the Bracks Labor Government continues to remain “mum” on gun law – something it should probably pay dearly for when disaster strikes and their inaction comes home to roost.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General’s Department in Canberra continues to procrastinate on the production of draft recommendations for a uniform training regime for all States. Its first pathetic attempt employed an inappropriate commercial training provider which based its approach on the safety of shooters not the safety of the public. One only has to be reminded of the killing near Warburton of a young man walking his dog, by a deer shooter or the death of a 10 year old boy and injury to his 9 year old brother in a a gun accident near Woodend, to realise that many gun owners exercise insufficient care with their guns.

Finally – GCA has always maintained that the buy-back collared only around two out of every three banned weapons. The Federal and State Governments claimed that they had bought back around 90% – but their estimates don’t make too much sense. Some gun lobby leaders think that less than half the banned guns have been handed in – so much for their claim that virtually all gun owners are law- abiding.

The complacency which is creeping into the thinking of various Australian governments and the acceptance by at least one state Labor Party of the National Party’s gun agenda spells danger for all Australians.