Why we owe it to Alison and Adam to watch their final moments.

“I woke up this morning and I felt differently.”

Yesterday, I was sure that I didn’t want to see the shooting of Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward. I was angry that news coverage and auto-play on some sites made sure I saw it, or at least heard it.

I didn’t want to see her fear. I didn’t want to see the light go out of her eyes. I didn’t want to see their killer’s face. I didn’t want to hear the terror.

But after thinking about it over night, this morning I feel differently.

I did what we all do. I turned away. I turned away from the violence which meant that I never appreciated fully how terrifying this shooting was. I was able to ignore the devastation. I got to go on with my day.

I was able to hide from the reality. And if I was able to ignore it, then hundreds of millions of people around the world were able to turn away too. Americans were able to turn away and continue to enjoy their culture of gun violence.

Australians were able to ignore it – and continue to ignore the fact that the PM has lifted the ban on extremely dangerous weapons and allowed them to be imported into this country.

From next year, Australians will be able to import the Adler A110 lever-action shotgun – which has been described as a “game-changer” by gun-enthusiasts. The Adler A110 can fire eight shots in eight seconds using a lever-action mechanism – it is a semi-automatic weapon – but the rapid-fire Adler A110 will be classed as a Category A weapon, the most relaxed classification under our current gun laws.

And the reason that Tony Abbott did this? Not because farmers need it. Or because there were strong reasons to allow it for sporting purposes. He did it to win the support of a cross-bencher for tougher border security measures. Senator Leyonhjelm said the ban on the Adler A110 was “the beginning of another assault on their right to own firearms”.

We have the best gun laws in the world, and the PM gave that away this month to make life easier for himself politically. That is a national shame – and we’ve ignored it.

In NSW alone, there has been a 40 per cent surge in gun registration over the last 14 years. There are now more than 850,000 firearms in private hands in Australia’s most populous state.

The number of guns is growing – and now people will be able to access shot guns that can fire 8 shots in 8 seconds.

So, instead of condemning newspaper front pages that look like this:

I now see that they have value.

We owe it to the victims of this shooting to not turn away.

We owe it to them to acknowledge the horror.

And we owe it to them to respond.

We cannot allow more dangerous weapons in this country. We need to properly fund our mental health services. We need to equip people with the knowledge to identify concerning behaviour and report it.

This must be our response. This must be our obligation.

We owe that to Alison Parker and Adam Ward.

For our previous coverage of this tragedy, try these:

“We are different people this morning. We are grieving.”

This week I saw the face of a woman just moments before she died.

What cameraman Adam Ward did in his final seconds may have saved many lives.

Reporter and camera operator shot dead live on air.