Hi shooters,
I know quite a few people are reluctant to discuss the topic, but I believe it would be beneficial for new and seasoned shooters to know a little bit more about how they can contribute to the agricultural industry, assisting farmers and regional shires alike. Yes, this would likely entail giving more shooters the responsibility to engage in conservation efforts that form part of our culturally rich frontier heritage, using semi-automatic centre fire rifles and semi-automatic shotguns, regardless of their appearance and supplied magazine capacities.
I do acknowledge the implications this may have for contract shooters who rely on occupational shooting for a living who do not wish to incite competition in the industry (smalltime operators undercutting government and private contracts and so forth), however the more we can promote gun culture to fit and proper, law abiding people in Australia after its destruction in the late 90s, the better. I do not believe that withholding information and placing artificial barriers within our community is going to facilitate change anytime soon. This apprehensiveness, hostility, fear and lack of trust runs rampant in many of our A, B and H ranges, and unfortunately is most often directed at our new shooters, the future voices of the industry and sport. Constituents with a vested interest in occupational and sporting shooting purposes must increase in number to substantiate our claims and encourage change to occur.
The current laws are draconian, mis-reprented as an effective means of reducing crime in our community by the mainstream media and consistently justified by misleading statistical data sets/interpretations of said data collected and published by left wing tertiary and government institutions. In the past two months alone, ex-criminal, gang affiliated acts of violence on police and civilians using restricted, unregistered firearms by unlicensed, prohibited persons have slipped by unnoticed by the mainstream media. Those who listen to the few reputable news outlets remaining will know these examples are not exhaustive. Lever action shotguns, straight pull rifles and semi automatic .223 pistols have been reclassified in recent years, leaving owners powerless and without a voice when their firearms are seized at the discretion of the oppressive structures that form the nanny state. Unfortunately, this causes shooters to vilify those administrative officials distancing us from polite society. These office are undeserving of this resentment as they are merely doing their jobs; products of their own environments. The law abiding firearms owners in this country are vilified and punished for their vocation and sport which stems back to not only our national identity on the frontier, but also our colonial ties to Great Britain in the tradition of hunting. We all know this and choose to do nothing to ‘change the rules’ so-to-speak. True libertarian values must be afforded to the people of Australia to shift responsibility from the state back onto the individual.