I never was a great fan of John Howard, in fact I seen him as a real bastard when it come to workers rights, refugees and social justice. But there is one thing I am forever grateful for to John Howard, and that is the tough approach he took on firearms in our society following the Port Arthur massacre of 35 innocent people by the gun crazed Martin Bryant 28th April 1996, the largest death toll by an individual in such an event ever anywhere in the World at the time. In the words of Michael Field, Tasmanian opposition leader then;

"We should remember the courage of the then-prime minister John Howard, as well as the political leaders of all political parties that ensured the changes in gun laws passed through the federal Parliament and authorised the gun buy-back scheme,"

This was despite muted protests at the time from the gun lobby and their political supporters from the conservative side of politics against a National Firearms Agreement and a gun buy-back scheme. The NFA restricted ownership of automatic and semi-automatic weapons and made it harder to obtain a gun licence. Despite repeated attempts by gun loving politician at the behest of their supports in the gun lobby to water down Howard's tough legislation Australia is still relatively free of seriously deadly weapons which another Martin Bryant could use to kill dozens of innocent people, something common place in America where such weapons are freely available.

There's no justification for high-powered automatic weapons ! Those who produce them should be used for target practice !

With a tiny defence force, and a gunshy population more interested in anniversaries of something that happened a generation ago than they are in the present and future, we had better hope that we never have to defend ourselves.

There's an old proverb that tells us:

"No, don't! Don't dig up the past.
Dwell on the past and you'll lose an eye!"

But the proverb goes on to say -
"Forget the past and you'll lose both eyes!"

The following link explains further. It's worth a
read:

http://www.whosoeverdesires.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/solzhenitsyn-and-the-bones-of-norilsk/

cont'd ...

We need to remember Port Arthur and also be
grateful to our former PM John Howard for the
steps he took at that time.

The age group that would be called on to defend Australia wasn't even alive at the time of the Port Arthur shooting; but here they now are, with a warped idea of firearms and the necessity for them, crippled by a knee-jerking PM long-gone, who wouldn't know one end of a gun from the other; who rarely stepped outside. The Australian gun allergy is one of the things on the CCP's check list - no armed civilian population.

And having lefties grateful to a right of centre politician is very bad look.