Gun control: bang or whimper at March election?

During New South Wales's elections in March the usual phalanx of single issue parties will be hoping to join the three independents, two Democrats, and two Call to Australia Christians who between them hold the balance of power in the two parliamentary houses. The performance of two of these parties holds particular interest for public health workers: the new No Aircraft Noise Party (see Focus 3 December, p 1464) and the Shooters' Party. Only 144 000 votes will win the Shooters' Party a seat in the upper house, where they may be able to frustrate gun control reform.

Around 600 people die in Australia from gun wounds each year, over 150 more than die from AIDS. Eighty one per cent of these are suicides—increasingly, teenage boys using their fathers' guns; …