John Howard on 20 years of gun control

An early experience with guns

My father was a veteran of the First World War. He brought home an old German Luger pistol. It lay around the house; it was rusted and broken and obviously incapable of being fired in anger. But I remember once when I was about 10 I was playing with it in the front yard with a couple of kids and showing it to them. Somebody passing must have reported that, so the police turned up and wanted to have a look at it! They had a look at it, there were a couple of them, and they handed it back and said, 'This is not going to cause any damage.'

But it was an interesting thing. This would have been suburban Australia in the late 1940s, and however inoperable-looking the weapon may have been, a passer-by saw it and thought it was her duty to report it to the police. And the police came.

Hearing about Port Arthur

I heard it first in the media and then my press office rang me. I was at Kirribilli House. Like everybody else I flicked on the television and started watching the coverage. It was during the day on Sunday. I kept getting updates from my office and my department, but in situation like this the officials, like everybody else, are really relying on the police on the spot.

I was rung by the Tasmanian premier, Tony Rundle, and he was shaken as you'd expect. He talked then about the possibility of tighter gun laws, which was encouraging. Like everybody else I was absolutely horrified by what happened. 

I went to Canberra that night and I remember having a meeting with people on my staff ... I came to the Lodge and we sat and talked about it for a couple of hours. We discussed immediately the possibility of changing the law.

I decided this was big enough and important enough to use the authority I clearly had. At that time I'd only been prime minister for six weeks, I had a majority of 45 in a house of 150, we'd really annihilated the Labor Party in the last election and the new leader, Kim Beazley, was a very reasonable man. I knew the Labor Party would probably support any new measures we brought in and I thought, 'For heavens sake, what's the point of being in office when you can't do something significant in relation to something that affects community safety?'

Confronting Coalition colleagues

I think it's fair to say that from the very beginning a number of my senior colleagues, and particularly Tim Fischer and John Anderson from the National Party, pointed out to me that it was going to be very difficult. But to their eternal credit they were prepared to go along with it.

I had a personal discussion [with John Anderson] and he rather sheepishly said, 'I've got a few guns.' He'd collected a few, he had quite an arsenal. But he was absolutely magnificent, as was Tim Fischer. Sure, they both held fairly safe Coalition seats but they both knew how hard it was going to be with a lot of their farmers, because a lot of the farmers felt victimised.

I was aware of that, and I also became aware as time went by that more thoughtful people from the bush understood, despite the discomfort. I remember going to a rugby international, I think it was South Africa and Australia when the whole thing hadn't been completely bedded down, and quite a lot of people I ran into there came from the bush. They came up to me and said, 'Look, this is a pain in the neck for us but you ought to stick to your guns, so to speak.'

Guns and the rise of One Nation

I have no doubt that discontent about gun laws played some role in the emergence of One Nation under Pauline Hanson. It wasn't the main reason, but it was a subsidiary and quite important reason. A lot of people who felt part of the gun culture, and I'm not talking about farmers here, I'm talking about people who like firing guns for fun, may have seen themselves as the part of society that had been passed by by economic change and felt left out and alienated. Pauline Hanson appealed to them.

That made it very hard. Rob Borbidge, the Queensland premier, was extremely courageous. He was different from any of the other National Party leaders because he was the premier of a National Party-dominated Coalition government. He'd only been in for a short period of time. I rang him and he said, 'John, this is going to be very, very difficult for me.' I said, 'I understand that Rob, but I've got to do it.' He said, 'Well I'll back you but please understand how difficult it's going to be for me.'

He never wavered. He was defeated at the next election and the strength of the One Nation vote in the 1998 Queensland election was the main reason why he lost. He paid the heaviest price of all and I've always acknowledged his courage.

'I felt embarrassed'

I received a warning and it led to me making a mistake that has embarrassed me ever since. Graham Morris, who was travelling with me, told me that the Federal Police Protection Unit had been warned by the local police that somebody had rung them and said, 'We're going to shoot the bastard'. It was a death threat.

They said I oughtn't to do it and if I insisted then I should wear a bullet-proof vest. I first of all said I wouldn't wear a bullet-proof vest and then Graham said 'Look, you've only been prime minister a few weeks, what am I going to say to Jeanette and the children if something happens?'

In the end I agreed, but I saw the footage afterwards and you could see the vest under my sports jacket. I felt embarrassed. I've never worn a vest since. Later on, after I'd made the speech I went down and talked to some of the people in the crowd and I didn't feel unsafe. It was just an error of judgement on my part. I don't blame Graham, I don't blame the police, they were just doing their job.

Unlikely allies

My allies were the great bulk of people. We had very strong support, and strong support from corners I normally didn't get support from. I think it was the only time in my political career I might have polled a majority in Annandale. 

I can remember a woman coming up to me once in the street and saying, 'Look John, I've never voted for you in my life and I never will, but you're absolutely right about the gun laws.' I thanked her.

Despite our similarities, the US and Australia are very different

There was the massacre of 14 people in San Bernardino, just 100 kilometres east of Los Angeles, and I was asked by CNN the following day to do an interview. I have done a lot of interviews. I didn't agree to that particular one because I don't want to overdo it and the last thing I want to do is pretend the culture and the circumstances in America and Australia are the same.

Gun possession is seen, wrongly in my view and historically erroneously, as being some kind of fundamental right of the individual. The original intention was the right to maintain state militias. That's quite different, there was still this feeling growing out of the American Revolution that the naughty central government or some force would come and take away our rights.

The British gave us our independence, we voted for our constitution. We arrived at our constitution even more democratically than the Americans. 

Choosing your audience is important

[George H.W. Bush] invited me to his presidential library in College Station in Texas. It was a nice event and he had several hundred friends and supporters. They were all very politically sympathetic to me because we're broadly on the same side of politics.

I gave a little speech and they applauded that, then one fellow got up and asked a few questions and asked what I was proud of. I said, 'We stood beside the United States in the fight against terrorism.' Loud applause. 'We got our budget balanced.' Very loud applause. 'We brought in national gun control laws.' The audience went 'uuuhhh'... it was like the sound of air exhaling from a balloon.

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