'Gun Nation' shows us just who the real threat is

Hypocrisy of One Nation 'plastic patriots' shows who real threat to our way of life is.

Video stills from an Al Jazeera Investigations report into One Nation's trip to America to solicit funding from the powerful NRA. Featuring One Nation Chief of Staff, James Ashby and Queensland Leader Steve Dixon. Picture: Al Jazeera

OPINION:

IT'S as hypocritical as it gets.

A party founded on fear which has traded on the supposed threat of foreign influence to our nation for decades, caught red-handed, trying to sell off our democracy, then cries foul about foreign interference in Australian politics because they were sprung.

One Nation's pillars of patriotism have been demolished in one fell swoop.

Damning video recordings showed two of the party's 'brains trust', James Ashby and Steve Dickson, our former Buderim MP, auctioning off our democratic system.

For the basement price of $20 million they offered control of both the Upper and Lower Houses, to the United States' powerful National Rifle Association.

I'm assuming the hardcore One Nation fanatics won't be perturbed by these revelations, but they should be.

They probably consider the US not to be a 'foreign' influence, and want to become more like our American counterparts. Why that would be is anyone's guess.

According to gunviolencearchive.org there had already been 64 mass shootings in the US since January 1 this year.

In 2018 nearly 15,000 people died and there were 340 mass shootings and more than 2800 children aged 12-17 were injured or killed. And 2017 was even worse.

How bad? This bad: 346 mass shootings. 61,927 total incidents. 15,660 deaths. 3247 children aged 12-17 killed or injured. 733 children aged 0-11 killed or injured.

Why on earth would anyone want to bring more guns into Australia?

Yet One Nation wants to dilute our gun control laws, fuelled by pure greed, using NRA cash to fund their assault on seats, gain power, and continue to make money through the political process, as Pauline Hanson has done for years.

The National Safety Council, using 2014 data, found people in the US were more likely to die by gun than by car or truck incidents, drowning or in fires.

Pedestrians had a one in 646 chance of death, compared to one in 370 victims of gun assault.

People in the US were more likely to be killed by mass shootings than by heat waves, sharp objects, tornadoes, storms or earthquakes.

One Nation will hide behind farmers and sporting shooters, but reality is, we don't need more guns or more lethal weapons and it's time we question what the real threat to our way of life is.

Is it the supposed risk of an 'Asian invasion' or Sharia Law somehow taking over in this country, as Senator Hanson would have us believe?

Or a dog-whistling, fear-mongering, money-driven hardcore conservative party, loyal to no one, prepared to put more lethal weapons on our streets as they sell our Parliament off to a US pro-gun lobby group which trades on tragedy and disregards human life?

Of course One Nation aren't alone in selling us out, both Labor and the Coalition have skeletons that need a spotlight, but One Nation's brazen hypocrisy deserved exposing.