SYDNEY

“SIX PEOPLE DIED waiting for the police to save them because they could not save themselves. That’s not a criticism of the police. The officer who shot the Bondi Junction mall attacker dead was courageous and professional and performed her duty well. But the fact of the matter is, that Australia’s gun laws leave the rest of the population as sheep waiting for slaughter any time some rabid maniac decides to take his personal fury out on innocents. If just one civilian had been carrying a firearm in that mall, some of those poor victims might have been saved.”

The above was posted by the American firearms pressure group Self-Evident, on the group’s highly popular website, Double Tap.

“It’s a no-brainer: in a world of increasingly random attacks, those who cannot defend themselves and their families have become helpless prey to every kind of vicious predator there is,” said the group’s press officer. “But maybe that’s the way Authority wants it.”