Two young men were shot dead in a Mayfield street on Sunday - reportedly the result of a neighbourhood dispute - and another was killed at Raymond Terrace shortly after midnight yesterday.

While precise circumstances surrounding the three killings are not yet clear it is natural that attention should be drawn to gun control laws.

The Greens have been quick to accuse the NSW Labor government of watering down gun laws and the party has called for a ban on semi-automatic handguns.

Regardless of the validity of the Greens call, the government is notoriously vulnerable to attack on the gun issue because of its reliance on the Shooters Party to have its bills passed in the state's upper house.

The price of this support has been controversial demands by shooters for relaxed gun and hunting laws, with yet another proposal before parliament this month. The shooters want gun owners, disqualified after domestic violence orders, to be able to regain their licences after five years instead of 10.

Sporting shooters insist they are already as tightly regulated as they need to be, but police revealed this week that more than 560 firearms were reported stolen - mostly from private homes - last year alone.

Many stolen guns presumably find their way onto the black market and end up in the hands of criminals and hoodlums with no interest whatever in obeying rules. Once guns fall into the wrong hands the danger arises that they will be used during a crime or a heated confrontation.

With so many guns being stolen from private premises it appears fairly obvious that supposedly secure storage arrangements commonly in use by licensed shooters are frequently inadequate.

Perhaps the time is approaching when sporting shooters should be required to keep their guns and ammunition at genuinely secure off-site storage depots.