Victorian Labor were congratulating themselves in the Banana Republic over apparently defeating gun crime once and for all Tuesday night:
“A Victoria government bill cracking down on gun crime has passed the state’s Legislative Council with minor amendments.
Under the laws, police will be able to impose a firearm prohibition order on someone as young as 14, banning them from acquiring or carrying a gun and meaning they can be searched without a warrant.
The orders would target those with a history of crime, criminal association or who posed a risk to public safety. The Andrews Labor government bill passed the Legislative Council on Tuesday night with an amendment to allow shooters to sell firearms online without a dealer.
The amendment was brought on by the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party and the bill needs to return to the lower house for final approval. Premier Daniel Andrews earlier labelled the legislation a “game changer” for police and said it should pass without amendment.
The government also accused the coalition of stalling the bill but this was labelled a “desperate lie” by opposition leader Matthew Guy. “We will move some amendments but if they do not get up we will vote for it,” he said earlier on Tuesday.
One of the proposed changes was to reduce the time frame of an order from 10 to five years for adults. Mr Guy said the government had the opportunity to pass the legislation at the end of last year but didn’t.
Police Minister Lisa Neville disagreed, and said she wanted “to give the opposition every opportunity for this to be a bipartisan supported piece of legislation”. Police had been consulted over some minor changes that “they could live with” but the opposition rejected it, she also said.”
Yeh, nah.
Great work by Jeff Bourman to add the amendment to get dealer-less online firearm advertising running in Victoria. Apart from the pensioners’ discounts and a cap on prices for junior licences, the rest of the bill is, quite frankly, a turd sandwich.
As stated before, Firearm Prohibition Orders are a slippery slope and the idea of banning criminals from owning illegal firearms is an oxymoron – you have to actually catch them first. Not taking away from the good work by Victoria Police on locating the stolen firearms from O’Reilly’s, but note also how they accomplished that with good Police work and not more laws.
FPO’s are also completely useless in stopping firearm crime and very low return on investment as the NSW example shows. The NSW Ombudsman’s 2016 report is mandatory reading:
Now add to that an already over stretched Police force and the weakest judicial system in the country and you see just how ‘effective’ this will be.
Daniel Andrews and Lisa Neville haven’t wasted any time congratulating themselves about how banning crooks from owning something that is easily obtainable illegally anyway, is an apparent stroke of legislative genius. We look forward to the excuses given when the crime continues.
Waste of time and money. Game changer indeed.
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