On their website in April and May and in their June 2006 edition of Australian Shooter the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA) has made a remarkable statement under the heading ‘TEN YEARS AFTER THE NATIONAL FIREARMS AGREEMENT OF 1996′.The first of its four points reads:

From 1996 onwards SSAA have presented the point of view that:

* the massacres of the 1980′s and Port Arthur were perpetrated by individuals who required the support of mental health advocates well before they committed their horrific crimes.

Is this true or is it a SSAA attempt to make all multiple shootings look like the work of sick people – people who should not have guns ?

On 23 January 1987 Richard Maddrell used his licensed six-shot pump-action shotgun to murder four teenage women in the Sydney suburb of Pymble. The reason appeared to be his aggravation at his failure to win the heart of one of the women. Thus disappointment and perhaps hatred appears to be the reason he murdered the four sixteen to nineteen year olds.

On 10 October 1987 John Tran used his licensed ex-military high powered rifle to murder five members of the Huynh family in the Sydney’s Canley Vale. It appeared that Tran was in love with Lieu Huynh but his love was not returned.

On 3 November 1989 Wayne Johnson murdered his parents and younger brother with a reloaded single-shot shotgun at their home near Launceston Tasmania. The reason for 15 year old Wayne Johnson’s actions appeared to be frustration that his parents had stopped his outdoor interests.

Disappointment, frustration and hatred are not uncommon feelings for many people. Should we then make sure that anyone who is granted the privelege of legal gun use is free of such human failings – or are disappointment and frustration not part of everyone’s life. Tran committed suicide but Maddrell and Johnson were given life prison sentences – this would not have happened if their legal defence could have argued that they were mentally sick. These cases must make us question whether the SSAA is exaggerating its case.

Let’s look now at the horrific actions of three gun enthusiasts who killed people.

On 12 March 1990 Don Clemensha murdered his ex-wife and two of her daughters in the Perth suburb of Girrawheen. Don Clemensha had owned 10 guns and was a member of a pistol club. On 21 August 1993 gun enthusiast John Lascano killed three people at a gunshop at the Melbourne suburb of Springvale, apparently because he was not able to get the handgun he wanted. On 25 January 1996 gun enthusiast Peter May murdered his three children, his estranged wife and her parents in the Brisbane suburb of Hillcrest, apparently in an act of revenge against his wife’s actions in moving out.

Perhaps the SSAA would like to support us in a move to stop gun addiction and make sure that if any signs of such a ‘disease’ are shown in a person they must immediately be excluded from legal gun ownership.

On one thing we seem to agree with the SSAA; there are a lot of people who should not own guns.