Labor learned one thing from the defeat of Barrie Unsworth’s government all those years ago — it is not the opinions of a sensible majority that matters on election day but the militant minority who feel strongly about an issue.
Overwhelmingly there was support back then, as there is now, for severe restrictions on gun ownership and use, but normally Labor voting shooters, fearing the loss of their guns, could not get to the polling booths quickly enough to change sides.
Now I know that John Howard federally did not suffer in the same fashion after making gun ownership changes in the aftermath of the Port Arthur massacre but he did not have the problem of a cynical opposition pandering to the shooters vote. This time around in Queensland it looks like we might see a return to a political party seeking to gain an advantage from a militant minority.
On page one of The Australian on Thursday morning:
While the story was written in what could be called a tut-tutting way suggesting there was something wrong about connections between Bob Katter’s Australian Party and animal slaughterers, Mr Katter himself is unlikely to be upset.
He is not in the business of becoming the largest party in the state parliament and appealing to a coalition of minority interests with strongly held views will do him very nicely thank you.
I wouldn’t go branding all gun owners as “animal slaughterers”. Unless you’ve been involved been to a gun club or actually hunted you have very little insight. When I was a gun owner I would hunt with my friends for feral goat, pig, fox, feral cat, rabbit and the odd kangaroo. We were doing the farmer a favour by ridding him of goats, foxes, rabbits, cats and pigs. The roo’s were asked for by the farmer as meat for his working dogs. There were times he called us.
The photo above is probably what is known as a “canned safari”. Game stations in Africa specifically breed animals for the “hunt” at a price, Gazelle $750 and Zebra $1000. It practically guarantees a trophy and discourages poaching of wild stock in the game parks. I’d rather it done this way than illegal trophy hunting of endagered species in conservation parks.
I think you will find the majority of Australian gun owners are responsible. I believe the zealot you see in America with his ak47 are few here.