[The Age | Text-only index]     Howard enters US gun debate
Date: January 17 2013  Andrea Hayward  Former prime minister
John Howard has shared his experience in overhauling Australia's
gun laws in one of the United States' most influential
newspapers.  Following the massacre of 20 children at
Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School in December, US
President Barack Obama has demanded an assault weapons ban and
universal background checks for gun buyers, pitting himself
against the nation's powerful gun lobby.  Mr Howard wrote in the
New York Times that he did not want to lecture Americans on the
subject, but hoped to contribute constructively to the US debate
on gun laws.  He said he knew he had to act to curb gun
possession and the type of weapons used by Martin Bryant in
April 1996 when 35 people were killed in the Tasmanian's
murderous rampage through Port Arthur.  "I also knew it wouldn't
be easy," Mr Howard wrote.  Bryant used a semi-automatic
ArmaLite rifle and a semiautomatic SKS assault weapon to