August 17th 2001 will mark the 10th anniversary of NSW’s biggest gun massacre -the 1991 Strathfield Mall shooting of seven people, said Gun Control Australia (GCA).

“Australians and NSW residents should be aware that this massacre of seven innocent bystanders in this outer Sydney suburban shopping mall by lone gunman Wade Frankum marked a turning point for Australian gun laws,” said Randy Marshall, GCA Spokesperson.

“Strathfield is very significant. It was the first large-scale random massacre in Australia’s biggest city,” Mr Marshall said. “The shootings occurred just six weeks after the introduction by the then NSW Greiner (Liberal) Government of new, lax gun laws. It came after the Melbourne Queen and Hoddle Street Massacres of 1987-88 (where 14 died),” Mr Marshall said. The post-Strathfield gun laws were a major contributor to the reduced number of gun deaths in Australia.

“It was a wake-up call for all Australian jurisdictions. Semi-automatic, military-style weapons had no place in urban Australian society. The media, churches, GCA and other pro-human groups said: ‘Enough is enough,’ calling with one voice for tighter gun laws – and not just in NSW,” Mr Marshall said. “Laws did tighten in NSW and elsewhere – and the principals of later laws such as the Port Arthur laws came into being.

“That they were not promulgated in 1991-92 was due to the usual gun lobby opposition and callous political opportunism by all parties,” Mr Marshall said.

“It took a further five years, and many more multi-victim shootings all over the country culminating in the 35 dead at Port Arthur, Tasmania, to achieve a body of Australian gun law that truly protects the community,” Mr Marshall said.

“Australians must remember Strathfield – not least as a reminder that good laws take time to come into being, and that proponents of good gun law must not waver. Effective opposition to good gun laws cost many lives between 1991 and 1996, and shooters’-rights groups would still like to see the current laws relaxed.”Current laws are a vast improvement – but still imperfect,” Mr Marshall continued. “Training remains ludicrously lax (one person in 1,500 fails the Firearm Licence test in Victoria today). Effective and enforced gun storage is still a major challenge and it is far too easy to get a handgun by both legal and illegal processes.” Mr Marshall said.