A RALLY of Australian gun owners has been told that government bans on rapid fire weapons are a totalitarian attack and their right to bear arms can only be bought back with "blood".
"Make no mistake, once it's given up, it (freedom) must be bought back", Firearms Association vice-president Mr Ian McNiven told a rally in Queens land state on Wednesday.
"The only currency you can purchase freedom back with is blood that's the only currency", said Mr McNiven, whose comments were aired on Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio yesterday.
Asked by a reporter whose blood, association president Mr Ron Owen said "The people who oppose freedom." He did not elaborate.
Mr McNiven told the rally of 200 gun owners that the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, who led the crackdown on automatic and semiautomatic weapons after the massacre on April 28th of 35 people in Tasmania, was attacking Australians' rights.
"The little jackboot (Howard) is launching a brutal, totalitarian attack on our fundamental freedoms", Mr McNiven said.
The Queensland rally is the first of a series planned by gun owners who have also said they would campaign against politicians who support the new gun laws.
"We'll purge our parliaments of these leftwing traitors that want to take our freedom", Mr McNiven told the rally in Gympie, southeast Queensland.
"And once more for jackboot Johnny (Howard), are you going to surrender your arms?" Mr McNiven asked the crowd, which answered with cries of "No".
The Firearms Association is one of the country's smaller gun lobby groups, claiming about 3,500 members, but its leadership has been the most strident since the tough new gun laws were announced in the wake of the Tasmanian massacre.
The Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia, with about 50,000 members, is the largest shooting organisation. It also has stridently opposed the tough new gun laws, but not threatened violence.
Australia's farming organisations have supported the tougher gun laws, but sought exemptions for low powered weapons used on farms. Opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Australians, about 90 per cent, back the crackdown.
A spate of suspected suicides has followed the massacre, officials and church sources said yesterday.
Officials in Tasmania said eight people were thought to have committed suicide in the two weeks after the murders.
The 35 victims were gunned down at the former convict settlement at Port Arthur, a tourist at tract ion in Tasmania's southeast. Nineteen were injured.
Thousands are expected to attend a memorial service at Port Arthur on Sunday.