Robert Brown, Fishers and Shooters Party NSW
'Law-abiding firearms owners are not criminals.'
It’s impossible to have a sensible conversation about firearms law and firearms-related crime without the anti-gun groups peddling hysteria in search of an easy headline. Much of the debate about firearm crime has unfortunately led to legislation which penalises and demonises law-abiding firearms owners and treats them as criminals because they’re an easy and visible target.
The reality is that the 1996 National Firearms Agreement, gun buybacks, and onerous regulations have not prevented gun deaths or gun crime. Almost all of these incidents involve black market, illegally-sourced firearms that are outside the public view, or reach of authorities.
To combat this situation the Shooters and Fishers Party in New South Wales have sponsored a bill in Parliament since 1998 to introduce mandatory sentences for any crime committed by a person possessing a firearm. For 20 years this bill has laid dormant on the Upper House notice paper because nobody is willing to support it – be they from the Labor Party or the Coalition.
The NSW Police Minister Troy Grant brought some sense to the debate on November 5 last year when he spoke about the gun crime situation during discussions with the Federal Justice Minister on the National Firearms Agreement:
“The New South Wales Government has made it clear… that our problem in relation to firearms and crime is not registered firearms, it is an illegal firearms – illegal guns – issue that we face.
Greater that 97% of firearm incidents reported in New South Wales relate to unregistered, unbranded, unlicensed firearms.
Victims of gun crime… are victims of illegal guns and unregistered guns – not the ones you buy at firearms dealers.”
Case in point: the firearm used in the tragic shooting of NSW Police worker Curtis Cheng in Parramatta last year was an illegally-sourced firearm. Pistols have been registered in New South Wales since 1927, and it was nowhere on the official record, except for the records with the manufacturer overseas. Yet, a law-abiding firearm owner is often subject to excessive and punitive regulations that operate under the assumption that they are a potential criminal.
In fact, any target shooter, farmer or hunter possessing a firearm has to hold themselves to a higher standard of conduct in their everyday lives.
Anybody wishing to obtain a firearms licence has to complete an approved firearms safety course, aimed at ensuring that their firearm is handled and stored in the proper legal manner.
In fact, any target shooter, farmer or hunter possessing a firearm has to hold themselves to a higher standard of conduct in their everyday lives. This is because of the discretionary power in the legislation that allows Police to deem somebody no longer a “fit and proper person” to possess their firearm.
Licensed hunters in New South Wales must complete training and abide by a Code of Conduct from the Game Licencing Unit which not only covers safety matters, but also legal responsibilities and animal welfare issues.
These firearm education measures have been very effective, but there’s more to do to get the balance right.
The Shooters and Fishers Party – soon to be Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party – had long championed increased penalties for criminals using firearms.
Licenced, law-abiding firearms owners are not criminals. Governments should concentrate on crime, not the demonisation of licensed firearms owners. The two are not one and the same.
A professional Australian shooter competes in the Olympics. Source: Getty Images
David Shoebridge, The Greens NSW
'Gun control - the dangers of deals.'
There are some simple facts that every politician should get their head around. One of these is the fact that guns kill people. The more guns we have in society and the more lethal those guns, the more people who will be killed and maimed by them. Once these facts are well established, we can start legislating to make society safer.
Of course this doesn’t mean banning all guns. People can have legitimate reasons to own a gun. Farmers often need access to guns to be able to deal with injured livestock or remove invasive species that threaten and kill stock. Others have a legitimate interest in target shooting or a niche interest in collecting 19th century blackpowder weapons.
Effective firearms laws are about getting these competing interests right. However it also means that, where there is any real doubt, community safety must come first.
Australia on the whole has been getting this balance right, and stands in stark contrast to America where the pro-gun lobby has been so powerful that it is legal to open- carry weapons into universities and schools in many states. This proliferation of weapons also sees America as the world capital of mass shootings and a world leader in accidental shootings by children and even animals.
Almost exactly 20 years ago the Port Arthur massacre was a turning point for gun control in Australia, with then Prime Minister John Howard responding to this unimaginable tragedy with a gun buyback and the National Firearms Agreement.
The 1996 National Firearms Agreement harmonized gun laws across the country, requiring all weapon holders to have a firearms license, to register all weapons they owned and to store them in a secure locker. Around 643,000 firearms were removed from circulation as a result of this move.
Since then Australia has not suffered the tragedy and loss of another mass shooting. Firearms related suicides have fallen dramatically, especially among young men in rural and regional Australia. Basically, the place has been a hell of a lot safer as a result of sensible gun laws.
Over 600,000 newly-illegal guns were surrendered in the amnesty following the passing of gun control laws (Photo by William West)
Since this time however, political expediency and in particular deals with pro-gun MPs like the Shooters Party have weakened gun laws. In 2012 the NSW the Coalition government wanted to get legislation through Parliament to privatize the state’s electricity generators. So they cut a deal with the Shooters MPs that exchanged their vote for privatization in return for opening up National Parks for recreational hunting.
Unfortunately, those types of deals have become a common feature of New South Wales politics. Both the Coalition and the former Labor Government have cut these kinds of deals. These deals have consequences—the overarching one being the slide towards a pro-gun and hunting culture.
The State’s former Labor government gave millions of dollars of public money to gun clubs, created a bizarre taxpayer-funded hunting authority called the Game Council and weakened key gun controls. All of this was in return for consistent support form minority Shooters MPs to get unrelated legislation through Parliament.
Between just 2008 and 2010 the NSW Labor government made more than 30 amendments to gun control laws, including the introduction of the notorious section 6B of the Firearms Act, which enables people to handle and be trained in the advanced use of firearms without any kind of background check.
Political expediency and in particular deals with pro-gun MPs ... have weakened gun laws.
Since then, in addition to allowing shooting in National Parks the NSW Coalition government has given hunters access to silencers, snuck pro-hunting materials into primary schools and even proposed allowing children as young as 12 to hunt unsupervised on public land. Not satisfied with this they have legislated for night time duck hunting and opened up more than 140 State Forests to recreational hunters.
This isn’t all just a response to a few well-placed Shooters MPs. It also reflects the opinion of a good many National Party and Liberal Party MPs who have swallowed the US line of a “right to bear arms”. Pro-gun zealots come in most political colours and are found in most parliaments.
In the Federal Parliament the “colourful” Queensland MP Bob Katter is often heard pushing for laxer gun laws. No doubt he gets support for these calls around the family dinner table with his son–in-law one of the country’s largest gun importers. Meanwhile, in the Federal Senate David Leyonhjelm has said he would love the US National Rifle Association (NRA) to become more active in Australia to tear down the nation’s gun laws. He has appeared in NRA promotional material declaring Australia to be a “nation of victims” because we have sane gun laws.
These Federal MPs are currently working on the Federal Coalition to overturn the importation ban on the dangerous Adler 500 8 shot rapid-fire shotgun. What is really troubling is that they have such a willing audience amongst Coalition and Labor MPs.
We know what works. Strict gun controls keep us safer. Reflecting today on the political cost that John Howard paid in 1996 when he brought in the National Firearms Agreement we need to remember a valuable lesson. It’s not just guns that pose a threat to public safety, it’s also weak-kneed politicians who give in to the powerful gun lobby. Society needs to be protected from both.
Robert Brown and David Shoebridge appear on Insight's | Catch up online now:
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