Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
IT WAS in Austin, Texas, that I once visited a gun fair displaying sufficient weaponry to stage a medium-sized war and all for sale to those citizens claiming their constitutional right to bear arms.
The fair epitomised the US gun culture and laws, laws frequently lampooned by commentators for their laxity, the all-too-frequent random, multiple shootings hailed as proof that liberal gun ownership endangers the lives it is designed to protect.
Perhaps, but in Australia, where the Port Arthur killings caused then prime minister John Howard to introduce some of the world's toughest gun laws, a curious situation has arisen.
That guns have been controlled is beyond dispute.