Malcolm Turnbull isn't about to tell the US what to do about its gun deaths but says Australia has a lot to thank John Howard for regarding the gun controls he put in place in the 1990s.
The prime minister will head to the US later this week for talks with President Donald Trump, a week after a young gunman killed 17 students in an attack in Florida.
"We don't tell other countries how to manage their firearms policies but obviously Australia has one of the strictest in the world," Mr Turnbull told reporters in Melbourne.
"We have a great deal to thank (former Liberal prime minister) John Howard, and indeed Tim Fisher who supported him as leader of the Nationals at the time, for taking up the leadership challenge after the shocking Port Arthur massacre and introducing tough firearms laws."
He said the US had a very different gun culture and was in the middle of an intense political debate.
But outspoken Nationals MP George Christensen takes a different view on guns, a stance which risks inflaming an already fractured governing coalition partnership over the Barnaby Joyce affair saga.
Mr Christensen posted on Facebook a visit to a local shooting range in Mackay, North Queensland, saying shooters don't deserve to be demonised like they are by the "media and the Left".
"Gun owners aren't criminals," he said captioning a picture of himself firing a rifle.
In a separate. picture showing him with a handgun, Mr Chirstensen says: "You gotta ask yourself, do you fell lucky, greenie punks?", paraphrasing a line from Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry movie.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young hit back, saying a member of parliament inciting violence against a group of voters should be a "sackable offence".
"If the leader of the Nationals had any class he'd sack him," the senator said in a tweet.
