NSW Police firearm amnesty raises more questions than it answers

Keen to pat themselves on the pat back and keep attention away from their continued mistreatment of David Dunstan, NSW Police put out this release regarding the firearm amnesty:

Nearly 10,000 firearms and firearm-related items – including 602 handguns and 1575 shotguns – have been surrendered to police and dealers in NSW as part of the National Firearms Amnesty. The three-month campaign which ran from 1 July to 30 September 2017 also saw 13,729 firearms were handed in for registration and 2101 were acquired by dealers.

Of the top ten local area commands (LACs) to receive the most surrendered firearms, firearm-related items and prohibited weapons, nine were in areas outside of metropolitan Sydney. Oxley LAC received the most with 1322 items. NSW Police Force Deputy Commissioner Regional Field Operations, Gary Worboys, says the response from the community has been overwhelming, especially in regional areas.

“It’s extremely encouraging to see community members recognising the danger posed by these weapons and doing the right thing by handing them in or having them registered,” Deputy Commissioner Worboys said.“There has been a really strong response across the state which means there are now fewer unwanted or unregistered guns on our streets.

Deputy Commissioner Metropolitan Field Operations, Jeff Loy, said gun crime affects everyone.

“In the wrong-hands, guns are a lethal weapon so it’s pleasing to see people are keen to do the right thing and have used the opportunity to dispose of firearms and other weapons to ensure they don’t end up in the wrong hands,” Deputy Commissioner Loy said.

Surrendered items of interest include 20 SKS assault rifles, eight M1 carbine military self-loading rifles, four sub-machine guns, a Colt AR-15 rifle, a .44 calibre magnum revolver, an Adler 110 shotgun, and a Mauser model 1918 T-Gewehr-Bolt Action anti-tank rifle.

“It’s concerning these high-powered weapons and modified guns were in our community but they have now been destroyed under amnesty arrangements,” Deputy Commissioner Loy said.

Under the amnesty 130 prohibited weapons including 14 crossbows, 27 suppressors, samurai swords, knives, and other edged weapons were also handed in.

Anyone with information concerning gun crime in NSW should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Remember, information can be provided anonymously. We don’t need to know who you are; all we need is the information you have to hand. It may just help us get illegal guns of the street, and save lives in the process.

Apart from the usual false claims of SKS rifles being ‘assault rifles’, we hope that T-Gewehr is handed in to a museum or a dealer. And we’re thankful that cannon is off the streets and Australian Border Force can rest easy from the threat of piracy.

Is David Dunstan’s .22 rifle also counted among those handed in as ‘involuntary’?

The EF88 Austeyr handed in was not an EF88 and was actually an AUG, given the raised rail, lack of ADI moulding on the buttstock and the lack of lockout button for semi-auto fire. Plus one to NSW Police on it’s substandard level of firearm identification and still apparently being able to justify the military appearance law.

One also has to question why an Adler 110 was handed in. Was this a legitimate hand-in or pure propaganda from NSW Police? Or was it the infamous Adler that was alleged to have been stolen and shortened from Broken Hill last year, that just amazingly happened to pop up in the news a week before the reclassification?

The stats are also disingenuous when this claim from Oxley that 950 firearm barrels were handed in. How many more were purely firearm parts and not complete firearms? It’s safe to suspect that there has been a pretty decent massaging of the statistics from NSW Police.

Well, plenty of questions remain about the amnesty:

What was the breakdown per category of firearm handed in?

How many were from deceased estates?

How many were handed in by known criminals?

How many were functioning firearms?

How many were purely firearm parts counted as firearms?

Are the non-firearms surrendered during the amnesty counted as part of the total?

Without access to this information or data, the amnesty is just another PR stunt from NSW Police and another kicking of the can from Michael Keenan. Given that there were 6 shootings in 4 days last week, including two people shot on Friday night, it’s pretty fair to assume the criminals didn’t hand theirs in.

We also remember what happened the last time there was a firearm amnesty in 1997 in NSW and many of those so called surrendered firearms ending up back on the street.

It’s also meaningless considering how many firearms there are 915,000 firearms and counting in NSW and on average 120k guns a year are being imported across Australia:

While a permanent amnesty is a far better option as is the case in several states already, it seems that common sense, as always, has not prevailed.

It’s also interesting that the NSW Police press conference was notably silent about illegally imported firearms, such as the one recovered by NSWPOL literally two days earlier.

But they’re just an ‘urban myth’ according to Philip Alpers.