Gun Control

What Australia got right (and wrong)

Tom Frame author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:UNSW Press

Published:30th Oct '20

Currently unavailable, currently targeted to be due back around 8th November 2024, but could change

Gun Control cover

In the aftermath of the Port Arthur massacre on 28 April 1996 – when a gunman killed 35 people and seriously wounded another 21 in a quiet town in Tasmania – John Howard, a conservative prime minister who had been in office for just six weeks, moved swiftly to revolutionise Australia’s gun control laws. The National Firearms Agreement, produced just twelve days after the massacre, with support from all levels of government and across the Australian political divide, but derided by Howard’s natural political allies in the US, is now held up around the world as a model for gun control.

Gun Control draws on interviews with those who supported and opposed the new laws, and asks whether the aftermath of the tragedy might have been a lost opportunity to achieve much more than simply preventing a repeat of Port Arthur – vitally important though that was. Tom Frame argues that the mechanisms for amending national firearms agreement are in need of substantial revision alongside the agreement itself. Frame analyses whether the Australian Government achieved its intention, and what it might have done in response to the massacre, and didn’t. The book also traces the history of Australian gun usage and control, and compares this with the US experience.

Anyone interested in learning how a democratic nation reduced senseless gun deaths needs to read this."" — Jeffrey Bleich, former US Ambassador to Australia

ISBN: 9781742236346

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

240 pages