Subject: Tasmanian  massacre and gun control
Date: Thu, 2 May 1996 18:49:00 +-1000


Comrades,

No doubt you have heard of the mass killing at Port Arthur a few days back.

Understandably, this has been the major news item in the Australian media this week. The papers have had a field day (one rag printed a lift out poster of the (schizophrenic) killer with the banner headline 'This is the man', while another carried a photo of him with his eyes digitally altered to make him look madder).

But it has raised the political issue of gun control. And I wondered what people thought about the argument.

Traditionally, most of my comrades have been quite hard in opposition to gun control, along the lines that we didn't want the state to have a monopoly on armed violence.

But I dunno...Seems to me that the position was developed in the twenties and thirties when a large percentage of the working class had had experience with military service and kept a gun around the house as a matter of course. Today, I really wonder how appropriate the argument is.

That is, in Australia the only people who seem to own semi-automatic weapons (and that's what the debate is mostly about) are gun nuts or the loony right. Of course, a few workers go hunting and so on, but that seems quite different. I can't imagine in the present climate the state cracking down on shot guns and .22 rifles.

So should we stand with the (far right) Shooters Party against proposals to make it harder to get machine guns?

I know the general line bout trying to limit the power of the state and all, but still, it hardly seems like the proposed legislation does make it much easier for the cops to harass the left or the class. As I said, we don't have that kind of military hardware.

I imagine things might be a bit different in the US, where a considerable proportion of ordinary people do have weapons. The debate might there have far more reactionary connotations. But here I'm not so sure.

What do you all think? As I said, with the saturation media coverage at present, it actually is a very real debate for the Australian left at the moment

Regards,
Jeff


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