As three people were shot, a man threatened people with a machete at a McDonald’s, a woman was stabbed in public in Fitzroy and a slew of service stations and a jewellery store were robbed last week the Australian Government again launched another wave of anti-firearm propaganda in order to sell the firearm amnesty and to try and shill for the Nationals, who are in real threat of losing yet another seat to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party in NSW in the upcoming Cootamunda by-election.
It kicked off in earnest last week when SFFP MP Phil Donato announced he would like to see the age of junior licencing reduced from 12 to 10 in NSW. The Helen Lovejoy’s of the Australian media then all responded on cue with their usual cries of Ragnarok and school shootings, without explaining how exactly the death toll will reach the stratosphere by lowering the supervised junior age two whole years. They also failed to explain New Zealand does not have an age limit under supervision, allows firearms that Australia doesn’t, has a minimum adult licence age of 16 and doesn’t have a whole pile of dead children for the gun control crowd to dance on.
There are currently 7196 junior firearm licences in NSW. Numbers on how many people under 18 killed by gunshot since 1989 according to the ABS:
Yeh, hardly the apocalypse.
The Daily Advertiser also chimed in, attempting to pin the blame for firearm crime on legal firearm owners and theft from said premises, while not mentioning once that theft from licenced owners in NSW is not even .1% of the 915,000 + total firearms owned in that state.
From the article:
“We’re fortunate in Australia that we’ve seen so little gun crime. The United States, for all of it’s freedoms, has an absolutely shocking number of gun-related deaths every year. Walk into any Walmart or Bass Pro Shop and you can find a number of firearms available for sale with far fewer checks and balances on who buys them. There are even the really worrying weapons, like semi-automatic assault rifles, not just the supposed “rapid fire” shotguns that the Greens carried on about earlier in the year. Ammunition for these guns is also cheap and plentiful.”
Comparisons to the USA and defining semi-automatic rifles as “assault rifles” is a clear indication of the quality and intent of this article. Victim blaming is still in vogue.
Arguably the pick of the week was this press conference from NSW Police, proclaiming that over 6400 firearms had been handed in during the amnesty. This was sleight of hand because that was the total number, including those that were turned in for registration. The real “claimed” number was closer to 2360.
From Yahoo:
“Thousands of firearms, including a .44 Magnum revolver, assault rifles and sub-machine guns have been handed to NSW police as the national gun amnesty reaches the half-way mark. The amnesty which ends on September 30 allows anyone with an unregistered firearm or firearm-related item to legally dispose of, or register, such items with police without penalty.
Since being declared a month ago, 1700 rifles, 460 shotguns and nearly 200 handguns have been surrendered and thousands more firearms submitted for registration. Surrendered items include four SKS assault rifles, a 9mm homemade sub-machine gun, a Colt AR-15 rifle, M1 carbine, a .44 calibre Magnum revolver, and a Leader Dynamics T2 MK5 assault rifle.”
Firstly, it’s not clear if these were genuinely surrendered or were from seizures which NSW Police are trying to claim as surrenders. Given that firearm parts are also being used in the total number, it’s not hard to see the statistical gymnastics in play. Watch out for those deadly scopes, people.
Furthermore the firearms on display during the press conference, in my view, purely looked like they had been plucked straight out of a museum (including a Bren gun), or from previous seizures and not surrenders. No sign of the Sylvania Waters’ Glocks or the M72LAW’s either.
On top of that, they were caught by Ron Owen, coming off yet another win against Queensland Police, recycling stock photos from 2016 as part of their propaganda.
Michael Keenan also took to the media during the week to spruik said apparent success. However, Keenan was purely trying to distract from yet another Australian Border Force smuggling scandal involving organised crime this week. ABF is already embroiled in a scandal with Commissioner Roman Quadvelig.
There was some good news however, with the Lithgow Small Arms Factory proactively trying to save historical firearms being handed in during the amnesty. This comes right after Cleaver Firearms stepped in to rescue an Owen gunnery training camera last month.
Kudos and much respect to both of them.
With another two months of the firearm amnesty to go, more spurious articles and inaccurate claims are such a safe bet, that I doubt even Sportsbet would bother running a market.
All this corruption and they want us to believe the registry is safe
All well and good, but we’ve tied both our hands behind our back, as the key question is not explored; who gave the govt authority to have guns, for they certainly never asked us in any referendum ?