Just as much spent per capita on gun lobbying as in US
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BOB Katter's Australian Party (KAP) is one of the biggest beneficiaries of donations from the gun lobby in Australia - that rivals the US for donations per capita.A new report by the Australia Institute found "the Australian gun lobby is as large and spends as much on political campaigns per capita as the National Rifle Association does in the USA".Australia has one of the strictest gun regimes in the world, brought in after the Port Arthur massacre, that saw a huge gun buyback program and the banning of semi-automatic rifles. Both major parties support the national gun controls, seen as one of the biggest achievements of former Liberal prime minister's John Howard's time in office.But the gun lobby appears to be chipping away at the laws by funding political parties, according to the report, although gun groups deny this is the case or that they are trying to change gun laws.In the US, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has a big support base and personally backed Donald Trump for President. Mr Trump vowed never to allow any change to the US second amendment that allows Americans to bear arms. The US suffers from over 340 mass shootings a year. Over 40,000 Americans died from gun-related deaths in 2017, the highest in 30 years. Americans own about 265 million guns.The Australia Institute report, commissioned by Gun Control Australia, found that pro-gun lobby groups are "also utilising alternative political strategies of supporting crossbench election candidates on unrelated hot-button election issues such as electricity pricing in an effort to create a pathway to ultimately undermine Australia's strict gun laws".Key findings were:The size of the Australian gun lobby is comparable to the US gun lobby when compared in per capita termsGun lobby groups have donated $1.7 million to Australian political parties over the past eight yearsBob Katter's Australian Party has been
