Another shocking shooting in the United States. Like most Australians, my feeling of horror is followed by a flicker of relief. Unlike the Americans, when we suffered a tragedy, we acted – we did something that made our country safer. John Howard’s political courage after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre channelled our national grief into some of the toughest gun laws in the world.

Since then there hasn’t been another massacre – as everyone from Barack Obama to John Oliver has noted. Studies have suggested that the mass gun buyback and stricter licensing rules resulted in lower rates of homicide and suicide. But while we’ve been basking in international acclamation of a policy we got right, the Australian gun lobby has been quietly scratching away at the restrictions.

This month Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm forced the Abbott government into a partial retreat on an already trumpeted ban on imports of a new rapid-action shotgun. Leyonhjelm happily boasted in the Senate that he had undertaken political “blackmail” – in return for the government’s backflip, he abandoned a plan to vote for an entirely unrelated Labor amendment that would have required an adult or guardian to be present when blood, saliva or fingerprints are taken from children by the Australia’s Border Force.

Now a review of firearms law is developing into a politically tense contest between the prime minister’s determination to protect “community safety” – a central element of his pitch in next year’s federal election – and the National party’s determination to stand up for the interests of law-abiding gun owners in the bush.

The whole point of Howard’s sweeping post-Port Arthur gun laws was to restrict the private ownership of semi-automatic rifles and semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns – the kinds of rapid-fire guns that can be used in massacres – and to impose a strict and uniform licensing system.

But earlier this year the gun control lobby began raising the alarm about the imminent importation of the Adler A110 shotgun, a Turkish-made weapon capable of firing seven shots in rapid succession. Robert Noia, a Brisbane-based gun importer, who also happens to be the son-in-law of Queensland independent Bob Katter, could hardly keep up with demand. More than 7,000 customers had paid $800 for the gun in advance.



“It would have completely undermined the National Firearms Agreement. It puts rapid-fire shotguns in the hands of the general community, which is exactly what the agreement was designed to avoid,” said Roland Browne, vice-president of Gun Control Australia. Browne said the Adler “fell through the cracks” of the 1996 agreement because it works like a self-loading shotgun, even though technically it is not one.

The concerns were heard in the prime minister’s office and in late July the Sunday Telegraph ran an exclusive story revealing that Abbott had staged a “dramatic” intervention to ban the import of the Adler for at least six months, until a review of the firearm agreement recommended in the wake of last year’s Sydney cafe siege had been completed. The Sunday Herald Sun accompanied the story with an editorial saying Abbott should be congratulated for the move.

But shooters’ organisations, the National party and Leyonhjelm were not pleased. And in less than one month, the government had staged a partial reversal, promising that the ban would definitely be lifted in 12 months, with Leyonhjelm claiming credit.

“We are not happy the federal government has placed a ban on imports of lever-action shotguns with a capacity of more than five rounds – commonly called the Adler ban – while it reviews the National Firearms Agreement ... Last week I managed to blackmail the government into adding a 12-month sunset clause to its Adler ban,” he told the Senate.

In an article in the Bendigo Advertiser, headlined: “Ban on Adler A110 shotgun import lifted”, Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie said the initial decision had been made without consultation with firearms owners and showed “the system is broken”.

Of course, if you look at the fine print, the “ban” may not be lifted at all, and the real fight has just been delayed. That is because the review – being conducted by a working group mainly comprising state police forces – is considering the licensing categories and whether the Adler should continue to be a category A (available to licensed shooters who can demonstrate a genuine need) or be shifted to category D, restricted to government agencies or occupational shooters, like those doing feral animal control.

The working group is also reportedly considering a much bigger and more controversial change, to reclassify all lever-action shotguns and even the possibility of another mass buyback of such weapons already legally owned by shooters. But the gun lobby secured another last-minute change that could be critical to those decisions.

The Abbott government has re-established an “industry reference group” to “have input” into the review. (It abolished the former industry consultative group that had been running since 2010 soon after coming to office as part of its “war” on red tape.)

Leyonhjelm was claiming credit for that too. “I also blackmailed the government into reopening regular consultations with a long list of representative firearms groups,” he told the Senate. The reference group’s first meeting is next Wednesday.

For now, Leyonhjelm and the Nationals are talking up their “common-sense victory” to regional media and shooters’ organisations, while the justice minister, Michael Keenan, was issuing a statement on Friday insisting that the government “remains tough on gun laws” and the ban had not been relaxed at all.

But saying different things to different audiences can only go on for so long. The recommendations of the review – with the newly added industry input – will go to state and federal ministers in November and then to the council of Australian governments in early 2016. That means the final decision balancing all the Liberal’s promises about community safety and the gun lobby’s (and National party’s) demands for law-abiding shooters to have access to the weapon is set to hit the headlines right at the start of an election year.

Leyonhjelm, for one, is not afraid of taking on the government’s “national security” arguments. “The Coalition government is struggling in the polls, with little sign of recovery. The only issue on which it seems to make headway is national security, so we continue to be bombarded with thundering rhetoric about the terrorist threat … And before long, we got a manufactured moral panic about guns. How insulting it is to link Australia’s 800,000 licensed firearms owners to terrorism,” he told the Senate.

Over the 20 years since Port Arthur, the gun lobby have steadily won concessions. For example:

The original agreement restricted gun licences to adults but now several states have brought in “minor’s permits” and in Western Australia there are no age limits for club shooting. The Sporting Shooters’ Association says this would be the “ideal situation” across the nation.

The agreement established a 28-day “cooling off period” between applying for, and getting a gun, but four states have now done away with that for second and subsequent guns.

And while almost a million guns were handed in and destroyed in the post-Port Arthur amnesty, imports have now taken the national gun inventory back to 1996 levels.

These things have happened while we rested on our laurels, thinking the Howard government’s gutsy stand would continue to keep us safe, while the pesky detail of the agreement was discussed in obscure working groups and relegated to the shadows. But after 20 years, Australia’s gun control debate is igniting again.