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Watering down Australia's gun laws a mistake: former PM

Xinhua, September 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

Former Australian prime minister John Howard said it would be a huge mistake to water down the nation's gun laws amid the debate over a controversial shotgun.

The Australian government temporarily suspended the importation of the Adler rapid fire shotgun in July as part of firearms review triggered by the Lindt Cafe siege in Sydney's Martin Place last December, Australia's national broadcaster reported.

However the government has now agreed to a 12-month sunset clause on that suspension, following a deal struck with a parliamentary senator on a migration vote.

Australian gun control advocates however have said the weapon should be permanently banned.

Former Prime Minister John Howard, who introduced Australia's gun control laws - touted world wide by gun control campaigners - following the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre where 35 people were killed, agreed.

"If the government ends up letting this in, and not treating it as I think it should be on the evidence available to me at the moment - treated as akin to an automatic or semi-automatic - then I would be very critical of that, certainly, and that would be a huge mistake," Howard said at a Sydney function organized by Gun Control Australia.

"I don't think a great majority of Australians want to see a weakening of gun laws," he said. "They think it's something we got right and I think we should keep it that way."

Howard said there are as many guns in Australia now as before the Port Arthur massacre that was the impetus to Australia's historic gun buy-back scheme destroyed more than 631,000 firearms.

"Like everybody else, I was just stunned," Howard said speaking of the events of April 28, 1996.

"My reaction was astonishment and I pretty quickly felt that I had to do something. This terrible lunatic had gone on this murderous rampage and all these innocent people had been killed," he added.

"The evidence is that, to date, close to 20 years after the tragedy (Port Arthur), that we have learnt something from it." Endi