Port Arthur survivor Peter Crosswell said he would be devastated if Tasmania's gun laws were weakened in any way.

Mr Crosswell was shot by Martin Bryant while lying on the ground trying to protect two women.

Sorry, this video has expired Peter Crosswell speaks about being shot in the Broad Arrow Cafe ( ABC )

He was one of the few people to survive the shooting massacre inside the Broad Arrow Cafe at the convict-era tourism site at Port Arthur in 1996, later being awarded a bravery medal for his actions.

"After Port Arthur, there was a lot of work put in by a lot of people, a lot of people were in a great deal of pain then, to get these gun laws in place," Mr Croswell said.

The Tasmanian Liberals have proposed changes to gun laws which would give farm workers and sporting shooters greater access to category C weapons, including pump-action shotguns, self-loading rifles and silencers.

Mr Croswell said the existing gun laws should not be tampered with.

"This is something the whole community, after Port Arthur, determined was the right way to go," he said.

"You try and find positives out of any disaster and the one thing that I concentrated on most in my rehabilitation [after Port Arthur] was the changes to these gun laws.

"That was the only good thing to come out of it," he said.

Peter James says he "can't believe a responsible person would want to weaken Tasmania's gun laws". ( ABC News: Tim Morgan )

Mr Croswell said he sympathised with farmers, saying the system was "very cumbersome".

"But it is also protecting the rest of us from the bad people out there," he added.

Dr Bryan Walpole was one of the first responders at the Royal Hobart Hospital Emergency Department after the Port Arthur shooting tragedy.

He condemned the Liberal Party's proposed changes.

"How can you trust a government that does this, sort of sneakily, just before an election," he said.

Dr Walpole said he felt betrayed after efforts he made after the tragedy to help establish national gun laws.

He said if the policy were to proceed, it could lead to further deaths in the Tasmanian community "because we're putting weapons in the hands of people that are able to kill multiple people at any one time."

"Single-shot rifles require time to load and reload, and it gives people time to get away get out of the way.

"When you're using a pump action or a semi-automatic, then you can fire off multiple rounds per second and that puts people in harm's way," he said.

The convict-era penitentiary at Port Arthur, in Tasmania's south-east, the scene of Australia's worst mass shooting. ( ABC News: Gregor Salmon )

First responder 'disgusted' at prospect

Paramedic Peter James was one of the first on the scene on the day of the Port Arthur massacre.

"I was gobsmacked, I just can't believe a responsible person would want to weaken the gun laws that we have especially in this state the history we've got. I was disgusted," he said.

Mr James said after the changes to the laws following the Port Arthur shootings, he saw a marked decrease in call-outs involving firearms.

"After the buyback after Port Arthur, the amount of domestic violence gun incidents I went to decreased dramatically and I just don't want to see an escalation of that, families being terrorised by unstable people and killed," he said.

"I've seen the worst of it down at Port Arthur myself and the entire community would be at greater risk."

Walter Mikac with his girls, Alannah and Madeline, in the 1990s. ( Supplied: Walter Mikac )

'Incredibly disappointing'

The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, which was set up by Walter Mikac — whose wife and two daughters were killed in the massacre — also condemned the plans.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 53 seconds 53 s Bryant's weapons and ammunition ( ABC )

Foundation general manager Linda Barry said "our foundation was born out of tragedy … and we don't want to forget what occurred at Port Arthur".

"The gun laws and the National Firearms Agreement are in place for a reason, and to look at watering those down is incredibly disappointing," she said.

Mr Mikac told News Corp the proposed changes to gun laws were a "total betrayal" of those lost.

"We would be totally betrayed to think that within a 20-year period they are looking at going back," he said

"It's about people having the most basic human right of being able to about their day to day life without the risk that they are going to get killed."

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