andreweden wrote:I’m all for keeping them honest. Well done.
A bit off topic....
I had no idea so many guns are stolen each year! Quick tally of over 3000 from those figures.
Do we have determined and resourceful thieves or is there a security issue?
Are firearms being targeted or just opportunistic thieves?
I’d like to think that even if my house was burgled that they would not get into my safe.
Firearms are certainly being stolen, but they just don't seem to turn up in criminal hands...or at least if they are they are not being reported by the officers finding them.
I was surprised to read yesterday that apparently there are only around 200 Victorians that own more than fifteen firearms - surely that can't be right?????
From Firearms Lawyer Australia on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=544730835883774&id=438012929888899"Firearms Lawyer Australia
Yesterday at 09:40 ·
SHOOTER HUMAN RIGHTS -2 this is my follow up piece on Shooter Human Rights and deals at the end with the adoption of a 15 firearm flag being adopted for CAT AB shooters in Victoria.
I recently chatted to a club armourer, who told me of a Police Officer who endeavoured to sell him a quantity of ammunition, he asked to see identification and in particular a firearms licence- he went a bit white and left without completing the transaction.
I have heard similar tales from gun dealers, and when I question them, the detail leaves me with the clear belief that they are telling the truth.
This dovetails with disappearance of quantities of ammunition drugs and firearms etc. seized occasionally disappearing.
One client of mine had a considerable quantity disappear some years ago from Sutherland Police station. While he had broken the gun laws- and paid a price for this- he was a righteous individual and had me write to the Regional Superintendent. An investigation was held- and while I am sure it was thorough, as senior Police Management take that type of allegation very seriously, they could find no evidence of what happened to the ammunition.
That the disappearances go on is not the point here- you will never stamp corruption out of the Police Force. NSW did a sterling job for many years. Conversations with criminal lawyers today though tends to suggest that it is making something of a comeback.
My concern is that firearms owners are by and large frightened to report matters involving ammunition disappearing. There is a strong culture in the Police Force of watching your mates 'six', and this together with an attitude of being a persecuted community, with many dealings with Police leading to a perception that the Policeman is just looking for something to breach the individual for.
This perception of persecution is evident from the following examples:
" We are identified on the Crim Trac data base purely because of what we do
" Shooters are often singled out by Police who demand that vehicles be unpacked so that firearms can be inspected.
" The former NSW Police Commissioner's edict on 'zero tolerance on gun crime' encourages a culture of targeting recreational shooters who represent an easy safe target.
" The approach of Police toward inspections of safes is often geared toward trying to catch the individual out / entrapment.
" The NSW Firearms Registry has reduced the number of small dealers over the last couple of years from 550 to 220 reducing service to the shooting community. I am aware of no compensation being paid to those loosing small / micro businesses as a result of this.
" Given that many areas will not support a full time gun shop, this leads to people needing to travel long distances for registration / compliance matters. This is hardly consistent with access and equity principles.
" Then of course we had the issue of lack of any proper consultation with the shooting community in respect to the Firearms Regulations 2017 , about which I have written previously.
" To quote a Victorian example, calling for submissions in respect to Regulations over the Christmas holiday period may have been bureaucratically expedient for the policy development team working on the Victorian Regulation review however it showed a high level of cynicism toward regulatory compliance by VICPOL and the Victorian Department of Justice toward the need to afford proper natural justice and to consult stakeholders.
" In Tasmania, we have the lack of proper consultation in respect to the classification of the Warwick, again a matter that I had written about.
" VICPOL are trying to change their excellent processing model (which I believe to be the best model in the country) to the NSW model, which is an Administrative lawyer's horror story, that fails to afford natural justice before decisions are made, and where ones first external recourse is not to a Board, but to an expensive legalistic tribunal.
" Then we have the Human Rights 'Freedom of Association' issue I raised in a recent post.
In 1996, when shooters were focussing on the loss of their semi-automatics, I wondered how long it would take Plod to morph re last vestige in Australia as a right to bear arms into a belief shooters have no rights.
Well it has happened.
Which brings me to another very recent form of oppression- a UN Committee has recently expressed concerns about the number of firearms in public hands. This dovetails with quasi limits being imposed in Victoria- where there is to be a flag added to the VICPOL computer system that leads to additional questions about genuiness of need when one reaches fifteen firearms.
This is of course quite daft, because one could have fifteen absolutely identical firearms and thus no capacity to justify 'genuine reason special need' before questions are raised.
That this is a soft barrier and can be exceeded is a good thing. What is not good is that some representatives of the shooting movement- Field and Game, SSAA and CFCV agreed to it.
SSAA went into the meeting with a figure of twenty five firearms, but there should never have been any agreement on numbers, if VICPOL demanded a figure, and threatened a low one, as I understand occurred, representatives should have left the meeting and mobilised- running a public campaign against the changes.
Police would no doubt have claimed, as they do in NSW, that stolen private firearms fall into the hands of criminal hands when stolen. This is a complete furphy- the number of registered firearms located in the hands of criminals is very low. This lie needs to be publically exposed. Indeed, many sporting firearms are completely unsuited to criminal use.
My observation is that most stolen firearms wind up being used for sporting purposes by individuals who have been denied access to firearms by what they view as unjust AVO's or the effect of the five or ten year bar on ownership following an AVO or conviction under the Firearms Acts. If you unjustly make someone a criminal, they may just become one.
Additionally, there is no problem with the number of firearms in public hands in Victoria. Few people- only about 200 in Victoria have more than fifteen firearms.
This figure shall no doubt be adopted by other states, and then we shall see a playout of the old 'ten green bottles' kindergarten song, except this time it shall start at fifteen, and the subject matter shall be firearms not bottles.
The Victorian 15 firearm figure do not reflect good governance. Instead it reflects is a synthesis of the internationalist push toward disarmament, the ignorant, discriminatory view held amongst some 'modern' city types people toward what we do (the Green Agenda) and a decision, made by Police without evidence to treat all firearms users whether legitimate or otherwise as an OH&S risk. That is all."