Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

Speaking to the amendment, this is all about 15 people being murdered. Why were they murdered? Because the immigration department allowed some extremely dangerous people into this country. So the first people who should be held to account are the immigration authorities. When this person was put on an ASIO watchlist, there was no effort made to remove registered high-powered firearms from that person, so the people who were enforcing the ASIO watchlist are the second group of people who were responsible in the end for the deaths of 15 innocent Australian people.

This happens in the background of what happened many years ago. In the year that that happened, Queensland had no gun laws at all. I went in to buy a pair of socks and ended up buying an AK-47 rifle and 350 rounds of ammunition, which was a lot better than those socks. There were no gun laws at all. We had eight deaths with guns in Queensland. With draconian legislation in Victoria, they had 54 deaths with guns in that year. So much for your gun laws! You might think twice about shooting somebody if that person can shoot back. Whenever men of great wisdom—

Government members interjecting—

Here are the men of great wisdom! I said 'men of great wisdom', and they all spoke up. When the men of great wisdom sat down and wrote documents by which we live—the Bill of Rights in Britain, the Magna Carta, the American Declaration of Independence, the French declaration of independence—every single one of them put in the right to bear arms, which you want to remove. You say you've got greater wisdom than all of those people. That's what you're saying. I'll tell you, mate—you haven't. If they get their way, then the only people who will have guns are the people in uniforms, and we know what sort of society that is where the only people who have guns are the people in uniforms.

North Dakota has the highest gun ownership in the world. The last time I looked to find out how many deaths there were with guns, they had no deaths with guns for two years. Similarly, Switzerland, where, by law, every single house has to have a gun, has the lowest death with guns rate in Europe. If you put forward a proposition, then you want to have hard evidence that backs up that proposition. When you are standing in defiance of the greatest wisdom in human history, then I think you should also put forward a bit of evidence. The evidence is very clear-cut that where you have the most stringent gun laws, you seem to have the most deaths with guns.

In an interview I did, I said: 'I don't know why, when you ban guns, you have more fascination with guns. But all I can say is that, in Victorian England, they banned sex, but, geez, they had a population explosion during those years.' In conclusion, Queensland had eight deaths with guns with no gun laws at all. Victoria, with draconian gun laws, had 54 deaths with guns. There really isn't any more that needs to be said in recommending this to the House.

See this speech in context