Because it only represents shooters and the gun trade, the formation late last year of the Commonwealth Firearms Advisory Council (CFAC) was the ALP’s blatant attempt to buy the gun vote.

The disgracefully biased composition of this panel reminds us how Julia Gillard has lost touch with the bulk of the Australian people; most of whom still remember the mass gun murders and the tragic price that over 70 murdered Australians paid before responsible gun laws were initiated.

To further disgrace the government, it is now clear that for several years some of the shooter groups represented on CFAC have deceived the public with incorrect reports about the improved gun laws. Shooter groups such as the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA) and the International Coalition for Women in Shooting and Hunting (WISH) have tried to pretend that the post-massacre years gun laws have been totally ineffective and a complete waste of money – nothing could be further from the truth.

For many years now, about 90 fewer Australians die in gun homicides each year and about 350 fewer die in gun suicides each year. Thus thousands of lives have been saved by the stricter gun laws.

Yet the Gillard government welcomes SSAA and WISH people on the gun law advisory panel and refuses to have people telling the truth about the success of the gun laws on the panel.

One wonders if there are any good principles behind the present Commonwealth government.