G'day Sandra,

I don't know the name(s) of the sort of American "Yellow Press" that run to this sort of thing, but I've seen other (unrelated) cases of really dubious and unsourced stories published in US with "far Australia" as a safe, remote but (~) English-speaking setting for stories of similar ubelievability.

(That said ... Freda had better have her glasses script checked - I remember specifically doing a count of visible pistols during a 30-minute lunch-hour foray (I remember it as the week after the Port Arthur shootings). I counted 15 semi-automatic pistols and revolvers on George St Sydney ... Police, security guards, armoured car staff, &c - and I know well that many more were not on display (eg - in banks). Perhaps I notice better as I have trained with such weapons and was trained to look very carefully for them ... but there are many more than I remember 40 years back when I started work.

I worry about some of the people who legally carry them ... I know there is a trade in 'lost'/'misplaced'/overwise acquired illicit guns ... and the only people who ever offered such to me - were police! (A long time ago).

The problem is that you can't push this genie back in the bottle - the fall of Russian Communism has seen the rise of pseudo-American style "Mafias" in the former Eastern states who sell anything that makes money ... and weapons are fatally attractive and there are millions of Eastern military firearms out there with nobody counting.

Regards,

Bob Bolton