OPINION: The shooting of Sergeant Gary Hamrey on the Gold Coast is cause to crack down harder on availability of guns Sergeant Gary Hamrey was shot and injured while chasing down suspects to an armed robbery. TODAY is the feast of St Michael, the patron saint of police. It is the date, September 27, when each year we remember officers killed on duty. On the National Police Memorial in Canberra there are the names of 754 officers who have fallen since the first police death in Sydney in 1803. Early this morning, another name was almost added to the tragic honour roll. Most people were in bed when the Gold Coast's dog squad chief, Sergeant Gary Hamrey, set off in pursuit of two armed bandits. It was 1.20am and with his police dog Rush he was fulfilling his duty as an officer to protect and to serve, in the best tradition of the job he has worked for the past 33 years. Shot in the cheek at point blank range and without warning, according to early reports from police, he returned fire. He was alongside a colleague, a Senior Constable from Runaway Bay who similarly had put his life on the line. It is the same day two convicted killers, Donna Lee McAvoy, 39, and Phillip Graeme Abell, 41, were to be sentenced for the murder of Hamrey's colleague Damian Leeding, a 35-year-old Senior Constable. The similarities between the two cases - two years and four months apart - are breathtaking. In both cases, officers were responding to armed hold-ups at Gold Coast taverns in the dead of night. Both officers were shot in the head. The shooting should prompt a new look at the availability of guns to criminals who are seemingly all too willing to fire them. In the meantime, Hamrey and his colleagues will today thank St Michael, the Archangel, for looking over him last night.