After encouraging news coming out of QCAT in regards to farmers and Category H licences, came this report recently that firearm ownership in Queensland is up 30% over the last six years:
“Gun ownership is on the rise in Queensland with the number of registered firearms increasing by more than 30 per cent in the past six years.
Police Minister Mark Ryan has revealed there were 844,129 firearms registered with police as of June 3 in response to a question on notice from the opposition.
It’s a 30.09 per cent increase since 2013 when the total number of firearms registered with police was 648,852. Mr Ryan says the increase can be largely put down to farmers and graziers but any Queenslander has the right to apply for a gun license.
“A significant proportion of Queensland’s firearms owners are farmers and graziers with legitimate reasons for the possession of a firearm including to deal with wild animals that attack their stock,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
Mr Ryan said police rigorously assess gun ownership applications and are often criticised for being too strict.
The Palaszczuk government makes no apology for this and community safety must always come first, he said. The increase in gun numbers is reflected in the number of licenses granted by police over the past six years, which has increased from 162,860 to 196,399.”
Complete rubbish claim by Mark Ryan. There is no evidence provided by Ryan that supports the claim that farmers and graziers are the leading cause for this increase in ownership. Is there a corresponding increase in farming and grazing activity that explains this? On the basis of the evidence above, no.
This is purely Labor spin to distract from the fact that more people are getting their firearm licences than ever before.
That means Queensland has the highest per capita firearm ownership rate in Australia on a state by state basis.
NSW is in the lead:
New South Wales will soon have a million firearms by the end of the decade, a rate of growth that a Greens MP warns could encourage a local version of American gun-ownership culture.
New Police Firearms Registry data shows an extra 65,000 firearms were registered in NSW in less than two years, bringing the state’s total pool of legal guns to 915,000.
Victoria comes in 3rd place:
Import numbers nationally are increasing every single year:
On the face of it, it looks like NSW will win this state of origin for once, bar a huge last minute effort from the Mexicans or Banana Benders.
The fact of the matter is, more Australians are buying guns and getting into shooting and hunting than ever before and all Sam Lee and the rest can do is whinge about it.
That being said, they are still quite clearly rookie numbers.
Bump them up.
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