The veteran left wing journalist David Pemberthy recently lost his cool and, exasperated by the unstoppable succession of drive-by shootings in Sydney, suggested One Nation might have been right back in 1998 when it opposed the gun buy-back and supported legal gun-ownership on the basis that if you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns.
That such a dedicated left winger should say this is understandable, as the streets of some sections of Sydney’s West are now each night like an episode from The Untouchables, except that Frank Nitti’s boys were better shots, and we don’t have any Eliot Ness on the horizon.
The Howard gun by-back was a cheap publicity stunt, or should I say an expensive publicity stunt, cashing in on the emotions that followed the Port Arthur massacre and satisfying those elements in the Coalition and the media and the rest of Australian society that hold rural Australia in for daring to believe that law-abiding, properly-trained, peaceful citizens have the right to own a legal firearm.
Did anyone believe the outlaw motorcycle gangs would front up to the buy-back with their tails between their legs and their armoury of guns between their hands and say “Gee, Mr Howard, you’ve really convinced us how bad it is to own guns – take’em, take’em off our hands, and in future when we have a dispute we’ll just throw cream puffs at each other!”
As these outlaws have little fear of the law, and as it is so easy to smuggle and hide guns, the only solution is random stop-and-searches of vehicles in the suburbs where the gun crimes are occurring, based on profiling of likely suspects, and decreeing that anyone ever caught with an illegal firearm must for evermore be subject to unannounced inspections of their property at any time day or night to see if they are in possession of any more illegal weapons.
Bob Vinnicombe
