Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull declines to offer Donald Trump advice on gun control after Florida mass shooting
The country has some of the world’s toughest laws, introduced after a gunman killed 35 people on the island state of Tasmania in 1996
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has declined to offer US President Donald Trump any advice on gun control days after the latest mass shooting at a US school, despite Australia’s success in cutting gun violence.
Australia has some of the world’s toughest gun control laws, introduced after its worst mass murder, when a gunman killed 35 people at Port Arthur in the island state of Tasmania in 1996.
Australia has had no mass shootings since then.
But Turnbull, who met Trump for talks in Washington on Friday, said he was not going to offer the United States any advice on the issue, which is dividing Americans.
“It’s a completely different context historically, legally and so forth,” Turnbull told a news conference following talks in the White House, adding that he was satisfied with Australia’s gun control.
“We certainly don’t presume to provide policy or political advice on that matter here,” Turnbull said, according to a transcript of the news conference released by the prime minister’s office.
