It followed a string of other mass shootings in Australia.
Then newly elected prime minister John Howard pushed ahead with laws which banned semi-automatic rifles and semi-automatic and pump action shotguns.
“There is no legitimate interest served in my view by the free availability of weapons of this kind,” said Mr Howard at the time.
A compulsory "gun buy-back scheme" was carried out and 600,000 weapons were taken out of the community.
Tight restrictions were also put in place around licensing and ownership. It’s exactly the type of legislation that gun lobbyists in the US are fighting.
Violent crimes and gun deaths haven’t ended in Australia, but homicides by firearms decreased by 59 percent between 1995-2006, and shooting suicides decreased by 65 percent. There was no increase in non-firearm related homicides.
The difference is in Australia 85 percent of voters supported the law change, whereas in the US it's not popular politics.
Even John Howard, who himself introduced tighter firearms legislation, would not comment on whether the US should introduce tighter gun controls
Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Australia-reflec ... z0VdVIkHHN
