THE Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, promised to introduce tough gun control laws yesterday after the country's serious shooting incident a month, in spite of rallies and prospect of a campaign by gun owners.
"I understand how strongly some people feel about this issue, and I've always acknowledged there are, a lot of law abiding, people who are going to be affected by these new laws," Mr Howard told reporters in Sydney. "I also know that the great majority of the Australian people support the stand that I have taken ... and whilst I understand the views of people who dissent the government's position will not alter," Mr Howard said.
Some 60,000 gun owners staged one of the country's biggest protests since the Vietnam war on Saturday, just hours after a man armed with a pump action shotgun wounded five people near the city of Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory.
A rally of some 7,500 gun owners in Adelaide yesterday warned of a ballot box backlash against the proposed controls. Gun owners carried signs with slogans such as "Punish the criminals! Not the innocent" and "I voted Liberal, not now!", referring to the March 2nd election victory of Mr Howard's conservative coalition government.
Police detained a 23 year old man after Saturday's incident near Darwin, shooting him in the arm and hitting him with a stun grenade. The man was charged yesterday in a Darwin hospital with seven counts of attempted murder. He has not entered a plea.
Mr Howard plans to ban automatic and semi automatic, weapons like the ones used in the April 28th shooting massacre of 35 people, in Port Arthur Tasmania, and Saturday's shooting in the town of Palmerston, 12 miles south of Darwin.
Pro gun control rallies in Sydney and Melbourne yesterday, with crowds varying from a few thousand to 18,000, called on politicians to stand firm on their commitment to stricter laws despite the huge pro gun rallies. Opinion polls show 95 per cent of Australians favour tighter gun control.
Australian gun laws are not a national but a state responsibility and vary dramatically.
The country's most populous state, New South Wales, has already banned the sale of automatic and semi automatic weapons and has introduced legislation to return responsibility for gun control to the national government.