Collectively the pieces argue Australians are less safe due to tough gun laws and that the Democratic presidential frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, plans to introduce laws based on those in Australia for the registration and licensing of guns, and eventually the confiscation of some types of guns. Guns on display in the Smith & Wesson booth at a gun expo in Tennessee in April. Credit:Bloomberg In his regular column, "Standing Guard", the NRA boss Wayne LaPierre writes that, "a friend of mine who lives in Australia provided an indelible message that is the key to everything Hillary [Clinton] and her cabal plan with their step-at-a-time agenda. "My friend issued this warning; 'Don't let them register your guns. If they know you have them, then they can come and take them'." He wrote that, "Australia forever proves that confiscation is the endgame that begins with registration and licensing."

In his column on the following page the NRA president Allan Cors warns that US President Barack Obama is "always laying groundwork for the embrace of Australian model". National Rifle Association’s CEO Wayne LaPierre in March last year. Credit:AP He goes on to note that despite tough gun restrictions in China and Britain, children have been wounded in mass knife attacks. On the following page the executive director of the NRA's powerful lobbying arm, the NRA-Institute for Legislative Action, Chris Cox again quotes Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton as endorsing the Australian model. Rifles on display in the Colt's Manufacturing Co. booth at an NRA event in Tennessee in April. Credit:Bloomberg

"Clinton is right," he writes. "The Australian example is worth looking at. Not as an example of what should be embraced but as a reminder to the American people of just how extreme the Obama and Hillary gun control agenda truly is." It goes on to describe the forced buy-back of semi-automatic rifles and pump action shotguns introduced under the Howard government after the Port Arthur massacre. Potential customers try out handguns at an annual NRA event in Tennessee in April. Credit:Bloomberg "Make no mistake, when Obama, Clinton or any other anti-gun politician cites Australia or the UK as a model for US gun control, these are the measures they are endorsing." His piece appears over an advertisement calling for donations.

Another short piece entitled "Australia: The Effects of Gun Control", quotes from an investigation published by Australian online publication The New Daily saying that Australian residents are "more at risk from gun crime than ever before with the country's underground market for firearms ballooning in the past decade". The unnamed NRA author adds the following: "So let's get this straight, guns are hard to acquire for law-abiding citizens but criminals are getting them anyway?" Australian laws are cited again in another feature by Mr Cox on gun control policies advocated by both Mrs Clinton and the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. It noted that Mrs Clinton was first lady when Australia's laws were introduced, which might have influenced her views. "To paraphrase movie mobster Vito Corleone, Australian gun owners faced an offer they could not refuse," wrote Mr Cox, noting that the gun buy-back instituted with the laws was compulsory. A second feature again attacks Mrs Clinton's position on guns and cites her support for Australian laws, quoting her as saying of them: "It think it would be worth considering doing it on the national level if that could be arranged."

And finally the Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich writes in a piece entitled "Yes, Obama Does Want to Take Your Guns", that "the so-called 'common-sense' and 'modest' laws in Britain and Australia … aren't common sense or modest at all, but rather require extreme confiscation and bans." She writes that the Australian laws have not had a significant impact on gun violence in Australia. This position contradicts Harvard research which suggests that Australia's firearm homicide rate dropped by about 42 per cent after around 650,000 guns were removed from circulation. The NRA has not yet responded to an inquiry about its focus on Australian laws.