David Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion moved by the member for Kennedy. The member for Kennedy may have killed his own argument more spectacularly than I am able to do, but nonetheless I will set out Labor's position on this disallowance motion. It is fair to say that we are motivated by different principles than those that motivate the member for Kennedy. We do believe that the state should have a monopoly on violence. We do believe that it is a wrong-headed notion that a community is safer if its citizenry is armed. We do believe that if every citizen were to carry a weapon that would lead to a more violent society not a less violent society.

The proof of this, of course, can be found readily in statistics. If one looks at gun murders per 100,000 residents, we can see in the United States that the figure is 3.7, unsurprisingly the highest number in the world.

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