A few months removed from claiming the Pardus shotgun took AR15 magazines, Australia’s own Shannon Watts struck again in the Newcastle Herald:
“THE Hunter is gun mad – and proud of it – with shooters stockpiling almost 100,000 registered firearms.
A Fairfax Media investigation can reveal that the number of registered firearms in the region has increased by about 30,000 – or a third – in the past five years. In 2012 there were almost 70,000 registered firearms in the Hunter, compared to 99,502 in July last year. This equates to, on average, an additional 16 guns per day.
In the same time, the number of people with gun licences jumped from 17,400 to 26,500, a 52 per cent increase. There is also a growing number of Hunter postcodes where guns outnumber adults. Three rural postcodes covering Merriwa, Aberdeen and Willow Tree all have more guns than adults.
Data obtained from NSW Police under freedom of information laws reveals Merriwa’s postcode has 1655 registered firearms shared by 1609 adults and Aberdeen’s has 684 guns shared by 567 adults.
Gun Control Australia chairwoman Samantha Lee said the region had a “Rambo culture”, she described as “worrying”.
And then:
Ms Lee said Australia’s tough gun laws, introduced by John Howard, had been significantly watered down by state governments since they were introduced under the National Firearms Agreement in the days after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.
According to research by Philip Alpers, an associate professor of public health at the University of Sydney, all Australian states have succumbed to pressure from gun owners, or the parties that represent them, to water down some aspects of the agreement.
The report, issued late last year and commissioned by Gun Control Australia, found that NSW was non-compliant in allowing the use of silencers, in allowing non-professional pest control shooters to use high-powered semi-automatic weapons and permitting unlicensed shooters to have firearm training.
Gun Control Australia has been pushing for a limit on the number of firearms per licence holder so there are fewer guns being stored in the one place. “I think it’s a mixture of forgetting what happened 20 years ago at Port Arthur and the government wanting the gun vote,” Ms Lee said.
“The concern is we’re going to go back to pre-Port Arthur days.”
Rambo culture?
Well, Lee (unintentionally) accurately described the current situation with firearm owners in Australia: people who just want to be left alone continually being hassled by the government and Police.
Lee just recycled the same old talking points she does every article: patently false claims of laws being watered down, citing long discredited cash-for-comment “researcher” Philip Alpers and then throws in a Port Arthur reference for the emotive set.
Further, GCA’s “report” cites dubious research by the aforementioned fake Professor Philip Alpers. The states are under no legal obligation, apart from financial blackmail with the threatened cut of federal funding, to comply with the National Firearms Agreement as it is not, and never has been, a legally binding agreement. Even Rebecca Peters was forced to admit this on the ABC last year.
Citing anything by Philip Alpers is an insult to actual researchers like Dr Samara McPhedran, who has undertaken numerous peer reviewed, excellent studies addressing the firearm debate in Australia.
So much so, that Alpers has had the pin well and truly pulled on his funding:
Well, we would welcome a return to the pre-Port Arthur days, where firearm owners weren’t all treated like murderers in waiting, the laws were fairer (for the most part), sections of the Australian public didn’t turn into programmed frightbats when anything firearm related was mentioned and firearms were viewed as just another tool, as evidenced by a recent video on the ABC.
We’d also like a return to the days of actual nuanced debate and evidenced based policy instead of the usual emotive screeching about Port Arthur and authoritarian overtones on firearms.
2 ammunitions. The Pardus takes AR15’s magazines. Rambo culture.
At least Sam has got two more catch phrases than the I didn’t do it boy.
Riddle Me this: “If the anti gun proponents have such firm grounds for their hateful propaganda – why do they base it on so many lies and so much misinformation?”
I welcome this duplicitous loon spouting the numbers of guns and registered gun owners, how many of them have committed violent crimes Ms Lee?
You see registered gun owners are more law abiding than the Police, so the more LAFOs the better. and a rambo culture? again I refer you to the non existant LAFO violent crime statistic, so tell me again about how Rambo that culture is?
Number of countries who followed Australians gun laws since 1996??? Zero .. that’s says a lot
Also why listening to Samantha a person who never fired a gun, never own one, and don’t know anything about it !!! Like asking directions from a blind guy
I can’t work out why the clowns from GCA keep up with their scare mongering and lies. Surely one of them can read and check FACTS
I would like to know why. A march or rally has never been organized since 96. Political emails fall upon def ears. We need to be heard on the streets. Im x army so I truley believe we need to arm up and take back control. But thats me I earned the right to say that. But seriously we need to rally.
I’m ex army and Trevor, you are a dickhead that does far more harm than good and you didn’t earn the right to advocate replacing the elected Govt by force (if you actually served) – advocating a coup does not help our cause one iota. also, if you were able to find enough like minded idiots to give the police and military a run for their money, you’d find that over 90% of law abiding firearms owners would side with them to defeat you.
Do the entire firearms community a favour and keep such stupidity to yourself.
Yes I served. And so did my brother who paid the price for it. Sorry to piss u off not intended. But after pushing and trying to get commonsense laws or even acknowledgement its no wonder shooters not just me feel let down. Even from ssaa. Deaf ears. All im saying is a march or rally letting em know we wont go away is what we may need. After all emails and letters dont seem to be working. So if ya ganna call someone a dickhead save that word for the one who caused all thos in the first place. Howard and his antigun mates.
Bullshit Trevor, you didn’t say “march in a rally”, your exact words were – I quote ” Im x army so I truley believe we need to arm up and take back control.” at least have the guts to own your stupidity.
Also, why would you think the SSAA would push for a right to self defence, it’s written on the tin – SPORTING shooters association of Aust – join the Shooters Union and learn not to make idiotic comments that can be used to make all shooters look like violent dickheads, we will get zero progress by threatening the general public (and yes, a coup is a threat).
I agree with Trevor. The whole lot is falling on deaf ears with peanuts like Lee being able to take over the airways with her agenda-driven BS
yes Mike and Trevor i also agree wholeheartedly. the levels of treason going on in this country is astronomical and has being building greater and greater since gough whitlam first got into govt. he along with a few of his cronies changed a few words in the styles and titles act that allowed him to turn our govt into a corporation when he became PM. our govt is as a result no longer bound by our constitution. in fact the first major act of treason was at the end of the first world war with the signing of the treaty of Versailles as it signed away our sovereignty to the then league of nations. joining the UN did the same thing over again as has signing of most of the treaties coming out of that same organization. this treason covers all areas of our political and judicial systems. even the courts are operating way beyond the bounds of our constitution and our common law. what is called Australian common law is not common law, it is statute law that has simply been upheld by judges. to become common law a statute law MUST go before judge and jury with JURY NULLIFICATION in play. what this means is that the jury can say yes this person did break this law however we find the law to be unjust and therefore null and void. under our natural common law for even a simple fine to be issued (yes even simple parking and traffic infringement fines) it must again go before judge and jury. this is our common law as originally written into the constitution and ratified by we the people in a referendum in 1901. prior to the changes gough made as PM there was never more than 20 pieces of legislation go before parliament in any given year and not all passed. since then there have been somewhere around 600 or greater pieces of legislation go before parliament in any given year and most get passed. how is it possible for all “REPRESENTATIVES” to go right through all those pieces of legislation pick them apart in debate to work out if they are for the betterment of the australian people or not before passing them? it simply is not possible especially when some of them are a few thousand pages of legalese and to become common law it should be in plain english. basically every single law since gough whitlam is by our constitution NULL and VOID
Sam Lee must base her factless information off Alphers dodgy “research” (the man with NO formal qualifications). She’s shining like the dull, mindless muppet Alphers has groomed her to become with surprising speed. No facts, no reason, no commonsense…just dumb, dumb, dumb. A few facts would get them a long way, but it’s just impossible to make facts appear out of thin air. Gun Control Australia should be investigated!