By Doug Lorimer
The Port Arthur massacre and the decision by the May 10 meeting of state police ministers to endorse Prime Minister John Howard's proposals to ban the possession by civilians of automatic and semi-automatic firearms and establish a national register of all firearms, have produced a series of large public demonstrations both for and against tighter gun-control laws.
The "pro-gun lobby" — an alliance of firearms dealers, leaders of various shooters' associations and advocates of far-right politics (often membership of these categories overlaps) — has sought to mobilise support from the estimated 2 million gun owners in this country through appealing to a combination of:
- Understandable resentment by large numbers of gun owners that they will be made criminals because of the antisocial act of a single "madman".
- Defence of "individual liberty" against increasing government regulation of the lives of ordinary working people.
- Fears based upon the backward ideas that exist among large sections of the population — national chauvinism, anti-Asian racism and homophobia.
Combining these with appeals to the widespread disaffection among working people with the major capitalist parties, and particularly disillusionment with the National Party among small farmers and rural workers, sections of the far right have sought to build a broader base for their electoral ambitions. On June 23, for example, former Labor MP and now independent MHR for the West Australian seat of Kalgoorlie Graeme Campbell and Sporting Shooters Association national president and ex-National Party member Ted Drane announced the launching of a new far-right populist party, the Australia First Reform Party, at a rally of 5000 gun-owners in Hobart.
Right to bear arms
One of the more bizarre aspects of the far right's propaganda has been its attempts to portray the Howard government's drive for tighter guns laws as a "left-wing" plot to "disarm" the Australian people. This claim has been repeatedly made by NSW Shooters Party MP John Tingle.
However, the traditional socialist position — first advanced by the mass socialist parties in Europe in the late 19th century — has not been for general disarmament of the population, but for an "armed nation". That is, socialists have argued for the replacement of standing armies and the police (with their unelected, privileged officer corps) by a well-regulated, popular militia with officers elected from and by the citizen-soldiers, and with weapons stored at neighbourhood or workplace depots. Socialists have argued that the creation of a popular militia would be a democratic guarantee against tyrannical government.
This was also the standpoint of the most radical forces in the North American revolution against the tyrannical rule of the English landed aristocracy. So strong was this view among the ordinary citizens of the newly formed United States that its capitalist "founding fathers" were forced in 1791 to accept an amendment along these lines to the original constitution they had imposed upon the country four years earlier. The amendment stated: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
Right-wing libertarians, however, have interpreted the democratic right of "the people to keep and bear arms" (through a well-regulated militia) to mean that every person should be entitled individually to purchase and own firearms. This bourgeois-individualist approach, of course, very much suits the business interests of firearms manufacturers and dealers.
Gun-control lobby
The public demonstrations organised by the "gun-control" lobby have simply provided platforms for capitalist politicians to push their "law and order" message of tighter gun-control laws, more cops and greater police powers as the answer to violent antisocial acts — a message most of the organisers of these demonstrations fully agree with.
Instead of demanding restrictions on the sale of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, the "gun control" lobby has fallen in behind the Howard government's and the state police ministers' reactionary proposals to make it a criminal offence for civilians to own automatic and semi-automatic weapons.
Indeed, by focusing on gun ownership as the problem, the "gun-control" lobby has enabled the federal and state governments, the capitalist politicians and the establishment media to divert public attention from the real causes of violent antisocial acts — the breakdown of human solidarity resulting from the alienation and despair that the capitalist private profit system inevitably creates.
Howard has claimed his gun-control proposals will stop Australia from "going down the American road". But the main reason why violent antisocial acts are so prevalent in the US is not because of widespread gun ownership. Rather it is because of the weakness of the elementary organisations of working-class solidarity — the trade unions.
The policies of the Howard government are aimed at achieving the same level of weakening of the unions in this country. His aim is to create a society where competition among working people for jobs, and access to education and social services, is as fierce as it is in the US.
[Doug Lorimer is the national organisation secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party.]