Bruce in West Oz
New member
On Saturday, 19 August, I attended the State Delegates Conference of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, Western Australian Branch.
We were addressed by the retiring Superintendent of Police, the man with overall responsibility for firearms licensing and regulations in West Oz. He upset a few delegates by stating "I don't like firearms".
He then let us in on the planning/legislation facing us over the next two years. It was decidedly disheartening.
1. WA is seen as being "recalcitrant" by the Feds in that it won't bring in ALL the post-Port Arthur recommendations; e.g. we don't have a 28-day cooling off period for second or subsequent guns and we don't require firearms being transported in a vehicle to be (literally) chained and padlocked to the car -- yet! We will be under increasing pressure to "conform".
2. ID cards
Firearms owners can expect within 2 years to be required to carry a photographic ID card
with an extract of licence on it. This is NOT a replacement for the licence, but a supplement to it, purely for ID, to be produced on demand by any police officer. (I would have thought it would have been cheaper just to require us to have a tattoo -- perhaps on the forearm? Or maybe a coloured patch on our clothes?)
3. Compulsory training is looming just over the horizon (probably early next year) for ALL applicants for a firearm in Western Australia. We have been "requested" by the police to come up with a course, which they will then modify and tell us what we have to do. SSAA WA has voted to adopt the Queensland SSAA training course and rewrite it to suit our situation. There is still some confusion as to who will be allowed to "teach" this course -- there is a push to make it only those with tertiary degrees in education! This course will be compulsory even if you just want to own an air rifle, or if you are a farmer wanting a .22 to throw in the back of the ute.
4. Licences
Our licence is currently 12-monthly with automatic renewal; i.e. the renewal is sent to you in the mail, you pay it and away you go.
We can expect 5-year licences (approx $180 - $200) with NO RIGHT OF RENEWAL. At the end of
each 5 years, all firearms will have to be reapplied for, and the criteria of "need" and "reason" met all over again. If you are unable to meet these criteria to the satisfaction of the police, you will lose your licence and hence your firearms.
There is a push for the training course to be taken compulsorily at each renewal of the licence as well.
5. Recall
The computerised Firearms Registry is such a dog's breakfast here that within 2 years ALL
registered firearms will be "recalled" to the police so complete details can be taken down and the registry updated. That's approx. 285 000 firearms!!!
We were also informed that we should be GRATEFUL to our current Police Minister, because if he wasn't "pro-gun" (????????) we wouldn't have even what we have now!!! The inference was "stop whinging and accept it, because if you don't, we'll make it a lot worse".
Other
Club support
Police are getting tetchy about firearms being used for purposes for which they are not "approved". In other words, if you have a Club-supported handgun, for example, and when you applied for the licence you stated it was
for IPSC, you can't use it for Field Pistol or any other match EXCEPT IPSC. Same for, say, a centrefire you applied for for benchrest -- you can't use it for metallic silhouette or field rifle. Police are aware it's happening and are turning a "blind eye" at present -- but we've been warned.
Additionally, the situation may arise where you have, for example, a 6mm PPC for benchrest, a .223 for field rifle, a scoped .22 handgun for Field Pistol and an open sighted .45 for field pistol, and a shotgun for clays, ALL on Club support. Previously, to retain Club support, you had to shoot one
official match every 8 weeks. Now, the police are informing us they expect that person to shoot one match FOR EACH SUPPORTED FIREARM every 8 weeks.
This also has implications for match scheduling -- we have to cater for
all matches every 8 weeks. If we can't, we are not allowed to give Club support for that firearm!
If you have a firearm by virtue of being a property owner, or having permission to shoot on a property (which the police think big enough), you are only allowed to shoot on that property! (A friend of mine wanted a .303 on Open licence, so he supplied letters of permission to shoot on properties totalling 24 000 000 acres! The police knocked him back on his application and he was forced to hire a lawyer to eventually get his licence.)
Range maintenance
IF there's an accident on a range, and the subsequent police inspection finds anything wrong with that range (broken fence, missing or torn warning flags, faded safety signs etc.), our insurance cover will be voided and CLUB OFFICIALS will be held responsible and sued.
RUMOURS
There's always plenty of these at a meeting such as this, but the most substantial was that regarding the move by various State environment agencies to close ranges as their lease became due -- on environmental
grounds.
One (new) range was being sound monitored that Saturday -- shooting on Sundays is already prohibited there because "guns are louder on Sundays".
The largest complex -- Wanneroo Shooting Complex, Pinjar -- is under threat due to perceived lead pollution, as it's a Class 1 Water Reserve. The lease is due for renewal in 2003.
Handguns are also in for a hiding after the Olympics. The Olympics are important because, had shooting not been offered as an event, Sydney would NOT have received the Games. However, once they are over, there's no reason to hold back. The consensus was that semi-auto handguns will be placed on the prohibited list, which is anice way of saying they will be confiscated and banned entirely. This is Australia-wide, not just in WA.
When we asked what we could do about the above, the reply was "Nothing". Under the Westminster system, Parliament is supreme. We are allowed to have firearms by the "grace and good will" of the government, and if we don't like the conditions placed on that privilege -- tough, we can always give up our guns and take up golf.
So there you go. We'll keep fighting, but ultimately we'll lose because we lost that very first fight. Once we had lost, our "power" was broken, and we were easy meat.
B
We were addressed by the retiring Superintendent of Police, the man with overall responsibility for firearms licensing and regulations in West Oz. He upset a few delegates by stating "I don't like firearms".
He then let us in on the planning/legislation facing us over the next two years. It was decidedly disheartening.
1. WA is seen as being "recalcitrant" by the Feds in that it won't bring in ALL the post-Port Arthur recommendations; e.g. we don't have a 28-day cooling off period for second or subsequent guns and we don't require firearms being transported in a vehicle to be (literally) chained and padlocked to the car -- yet! We will be under increasing pressure to "conform".
2. ID cards
Firearms owners can expect within 2 years to be required to carry a photographic ID card
with an extract of licence on it. This is NOT a replacement for the licence, but a supplement to it, purely for ID, to be produced on demand by any police officer. (I would have thought it would have been cheaper just to require us to have a tattoo -- perhaps on the forearm? Or maybe a coloured patch on our clothes?)
3. Compulsory training is looming just over the horizon (probably early next year) for ALL applicants for a firearm in Western Australia. We have been "requested" by the police to come up with a course, which they will then modify and tell us what we have to do. SSAA WA has voted to adopt the Queensland SSAA training course and rewrite it to suit our situation. There is still some confusion as to who will be allowed to "teach" this course -- there is a push to make it only those with tertiary degrees in education! This course will be compulsory even if you just want to own an air rifle, or if you are a farmer wanting a .22 to throw in the back of the ute.
4. Licences
Our licence is currently 12-monthly with automatic renewal; i.e. the renewal is sent to you in the mail, you pay it and away you go.
We can expect 5-year licences (approx $180 - $200) with NO RIGHT OF RENEWAL. At the end of
each 5 years, all firearms will have to be reapplied for, and the criteria of "need" and "reason" met all over again. If you are unable to meet these criteria to the satisfaction of the police, you will lose your licence and hence your firearms.
There is a push for the training course to be taken compulsorily at each renewal of the licence as well.
5. Recall
The computerised Firearms Registry is such a dog's breakfast here that within 2 years ALL
registered firearms will be "recalled" to the police so complete details can be taken down and the registry updated. That's approx. 285 000 firearms!!!
We were also informed that we should be GRATEFUL to our current Police Minister, because if he wasn't "pro-gun" (????????) we wouldn't have even what we have now!!! The inference was "stop whinging and accept it, because if you don't, we'll make it a lot worse".
Other
Club support
Police are getting tetchy about firearms being used for purposes for which they are not "approved". In other words, if you have a Club-supported handgun, for example, and when you applied for the licence you stated it was
for IPSC, you can't use it for Field Pistol or any other match EXCEPT IPSC. Same for, say, a centrefire you applied for for benchrest -- you can't use it for metallic silhouette or field rifle. Police are aware it's happening and are turning a "blind eye" at present -- but we've been warned.
Additionally, the situation may arise where you have, for example, a 6mm PPC for benchrest, a .223 for field rifle, a scoped .22 handgun for Field Pistol and an open sighted .45 for field pistol, and a shotgun for clays, ALL on Club support. Previously, to retain Club support, you had to shoot one
official match every 8 weeks. Now, the police are informing us they expect that person to shoot one match FOR EACH SUPPORTED FIREARM every 8 weeks.
This also has implications for match scheduling -- we have to cater for
all matches every 8 weeks. If we can't, we are not allowed to give Club support for that firearm!
If you have a firearm by virtue of being a property owner, or having permission to shoot on a property (which the police think big enough), you are only allowed to shoot on that property! (A friend of mine wanted a .303 on Open licence, so he supplied letters of permission to shoot on properties totalling 24 000 000 acres! The police knocked him back on his application and he was forced to hire a lawyer to eventually get his licence.)
Range maintenance
IF there's an accident on a range, and the subsequent police inspection finds anything wrong with that range (broken fence, missing or torn warning flags, faded safety signs etc.), our insurance cover will be voided and CLUB OFFICIALS will be held responsible and sued.
RUMOURS
There's always plenty of these at a meeting such as this, but the most substantial was that regarding the move by various State environment agencies to close ranges as their lease became due -- on environmental
grounds.
One (new) range was being sound monitored that Saturday -- shooting on Sundays is already prohibited there because "guns are louder on Sundays".
The largest complex -- Wanneroo Shooting Complex, Pinjar -- is under threat due to perceived lead pollution, as it's a Class 1 Water Reserve. The lease is due for renewal in 2003.
Handguns are also in for a hiding after the Olympics. The Olympics are important because, had shooting not been offered as an event, Sydney would NOT have received the Games. However, once they are over, there's no reason to hold back. The consensus was that semi-auto handguns will be placed on the prohibited list, which is anice way of saying they will be confiscated and banned entirely. This is Australia-wide, not just in WA.
When we asked what we could do about the above, the reply was "Nothing". Under the Westminster system, Parliament is supreme. We are allowed to have firearms by the "grace and good will" of the government, and if we don't like the conditions placed on that privilege -- tough, we can always give up our guns and take up golf.
So there you go. We'll keep fighting, but ultimately we'll lose because we lost that very first fight. Once we had lost, our "power" was broken, and we were easy meat.
B
.