I suppose this is one sphere in which Australia is thankfully radically different from the United States. It is difficult to envisage a federal conservative leader in the United States moving forward with tighter gun control laws over there, even after a massacre like the one experienced in Port Arthur. Of course, they have it a bit more complicated over there thanks to the Second Amendment and indeed the varying laws imposed by the state legislatures.

First, he did undoubtedly show physical courage in addressing that rally, vest or no vest – a moderately good shooter with a high-powered rifle could have gotten off a lethal head shot from a very, very, very long way away. More broadly, I imagine some of the threats to MPs would have been genuinely scary.

That said, in a political sense, he was on a massive winner and he knew it. 70% of the country was with him on the issue, as were the Opposition and the Democrats.

And, frankly, if had had listened to the Nationals and his backbenchers a bit more carefully, he might well have achieved pretty much the same results with a lot less aggro. Yes, the hard core survivalist crowd were never going to be happy, but the ban was not particularly well targetted (if you’ll pardon the pun). I’m not an expert on guns, but I do know that there’s a hell of a lot more to how lethal a gun is than just whether it’s a semi-auto. Calibre, the magazine size, and the details of the cartridge matter a great deal.