Australia warned of 'eroding' gun laws, 20 years after massacre

Yahoo – AFP, 28 April 2016

Gun Control Australia says the estimated total number of firearms in the hands of

civilians was now 3.2 million -- the same number as in 1996 (AFP Photo/David McNew)

Sydney (AFP) - Australia marked 20 years since its last mass shooting Thursday as campaigners warned its gun laws, which were severely tightened after the massacre, are being eroded.

Thirty-five people died at the historic Tasmanian colonial convict site of Port Arthur in 1996 as lone gunman Martin Bryant, armed with semi-automatic weapons, went on the rampage.

Now aged 48, he remains in jail after being sentenced to 35 life sentences without parole.

Martin Bryant, the gunman who 

massacred 35 people during a shooting

 rampage at Port Arthur, appears on 

screen during his first court hearing

on May 22, 1996 (AFP Photo)

Then-prime minister John Howard reacted swiftly by pushing for tough gun laws, including bans on certain weapons, a minimum age, licences and secure storage.

Since then there have been no massacres on such a scale, in contrast to countries such as the United States where mass shootings are common, with guns being blamed for around 10,000 homicides each year.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was to attend a memorial service to mark the anniversary at the popular tourist site, insisted the laws would not be watered down.

"John Howard ensured that we have had, and have, the toughest gun control laws in the world and we are committed to ensuring they remain just that," he told reporters in Tasmania.

"We are committed to ensuring that our national firearms agreement becomes stronger and that Australians remain safe from gun crimes, like the shocking events at Port Arthur."

But Rebecca Peters, a campaigner to reform Australia's laws after Port Arthur and the 10 other mass shootings in the decade before it, said that while the changes introduced by Howard were "a very powerful step forward", they were slipping.

"Australia was recognised as having the best gun laws in the world," she told AFP. "Twenty years later, those gun laws are being eroded, we are slipping backwards."

Gun Control Australia agreed, saying the estimated total number of firearms in the hands of civilians was now 3.2 million -- the same number as in 1996.

Walter Mikac, who lost his wife and two daughters in the 1996 Port Arthur

 massacre, pictured after a press conference on gun control in Australia on April 27, 

2016 (AFP Photo/Saeed Khan)

The organisation's chair, Sam Lee, said while people must have a gun license to possess a firearm, some owners were accumulating many weapons, while unlicensed people were also able to shoot at gun clubs.

"We have seen a watering down of gun laws... as the gun lobby groups continue to prosper and pro-gun representatives to state and federal parliaments gain power," Lee said.

Research by Philip Alpers, a University of Sydney gun control expert and founding director of GunPolicy.org, backed the concern.

"The million guns destroyed after Port Arthur have been replaced with 1,026,000 new ones. And the surge only shows upward momentum," he said in a commentary for academic journal The Conversation.

Related Article:

"The Biggest Filter" - July 18-19, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“..  War - Nobody Sees What is Coming

Let's talk about war. Let's discuss something that very few are considering. What you expect next is completely and totally out of perspective of what's actually coming, because you only have one kind of knowledge about war. Your war has advanced over history with bigger explosions, higher yields and weapons that fire faster. Nuclear, laser, sound - all are far more efficient ways to terminate life. That's how war has evolved. However, there hasn't really been anything called anti-war devices, have there?

I'm going to give you an invitation for discovery, and some are already in the postulation stage of this. Multidimensional fields change 3D reality. Period. I've told you that lurking in your future are discoveries that will help you with every aspect of your life, mainly due to the discovery of what makes basic physics do what it does at the atomic level. If you fully understand multidimensionality, you can manipulate the formula for mass and create massless objects. You can even do it with the tools you have right now.

There is physics possible that can create certain kinds of fields - listen to me - certain kinds of heretofore unseen multidimensional fields that are harmless to your biology, but will alter some attributes of 3D. These fields are designer fields, and they are isolated and specifically designed for one purpose. When in the field, conventional explosive reactions can't happen. Can you imagine putting a field within rooms of a building so that no matter what weapon is fired, whether it's a machine gun or a pistol, it simply won't work! What about targeting an airplane when it drops a bomb and it won't explode? This is pure physics. The alteration of 3D reality through multidimensional designer fields, both small and large, is coming. I know you don't believe it, but just wait. As you start to discover multidimensional physics and the ability to control it, you will discover that there is a "benevolent attitude" of this kind of physics. You can't "weaponize it" as easily as you can 3D. It is an entirely different kind of reality.

Again, I tell you that when you understand how mass is created at the atomic level, you'll learn how to create massless objects. By the way, that has another name. You call it anti-gravity, but there is no such thing. It's just the ability to finally control the formula that creates gravity with mass. You understand that this is simple physics, don't you? And it's very easy to manipulate for benevolent uses through other fields that you do know about. Just like you have learned to control certain kinds of physics that are 3D, you can also control multidimensional physics. Imagine a planet where it doesn't matter what war device you had, it wouldn't work anymore! What do you think about that? Imagine physics having the ability to shatter the molecules of a biological weapon. Do you think that would change world politics? It's happening, it's going to happen. It's in the laboratory today. You're broaching the discovery of multidimensional physics. Being able to control that which you don't think is controllable is what you are doing. It's going to make such a difference to the Human race!

You don't believe it, since your knowledge of how things work just doesn't allow for such a thing. This is your filter.  ….”