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Australian Shooting Prompts Appeals for Handgun Ban

October 22, 2002
By Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com Pacific Rim Bureau Chief

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Left-leaning parties and firearm control campaigners in Australia pushed Tuesday for gun laws to be tightened after two students were killed in a shooting at a Melbourne university.

The Australian Democrats, the third-largest party in the Senate, said it planned to introduce a bill to close what it sees as loopholes relating to the use and availability of handguns.

Chinese commerce student Huan Yun Xiang, 36, appeared in a Melbourne magistrate's court Tuesday charged with two counts of murder and five of attempted murder.

He is accused of opening fire with at least two handguns - reportedly a revolver and a semi-automatic pistol - and police confirmed he had permits for both. No motive has yet emerged.

"There are always people who will get around the law, but I'm not a great believer in the 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' argument," said Democrats Senator Natasha Stott Despoja.

Gun control advocates have called for a national ban on self-loading, semi-automatic handguns, which are currently available in all Australian states and territories.

After a massacre in Tasmania in which 35 people were shot dead by a young man armed with an Armalite rifle and described by a judge as a "pathetic social misfit," the government in 1996 prohibited private ownership of machine guns and restricted ownership of semi-automatic rifles.

But groups like the National Coalition for Gun Control claim that semi-automatic pistols are more dangerous.

"They pose a high risk to public safety, arguably a greater risk because they are so easily concealed," said coalition representative Roland Brown.

The Greens, another party advocating tougher gun laws, also called Tuesday for a ban on semi-automatic handguns.

Justice Minister Chris Ellison warned against a knee-jerk reaction to the Melbourne shooting, telling Australian radio that a large group of law-abiding Australians used semi-automatic handguns for sport.

State and territory leaders meeting in a fortnight's time will discuss issues relating to firearm regulation, Ellison said.

According to the Greens, there are some 300,000 legally-licensed handguns in Australia, a country of 19.5 million.

Australians can apply for a handgun license if they are 18 or older, belong to a shooting club and have no history of mental illness.

The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, which boasts 125,000 members, has been labeled the country's equivalent of the National Rifle Association.

The group's executive director, Gary Fleetwood, said Tuesday it was concerned that calls for a ban were part of an "incremental push to ban firearm ownership altogether" in Australia.

"If we're not comfortable with someone taking a semi-automatic pistol, the natural progression from that is how we're going to be comfortable with them having any handgun. And the progression from there is: 'How can they have any firearm?' "

Fleetwood said attempts to legislate "against madness and badness" wouldn't work.
"While there are adequate controls put in place and we screen people as much as is humanly possible, I don't think any legislation will ever stop someone who's gone over the edge, committing such a foul deed as we saw [in Melbourne]."

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