The knee is jerking again.

[old man emu]

I don't own any firearms. I don't want to own any firearms. But I can see that in the wake of Bondi there are cries for  stricter firearm controls. The controls that have been mentioned often sound like knee-jerk reaction of people with little knowledge of firearm ownership in Australia.

 

Let me say that I see ideas like restricting the total number of fireams held by an individual as being dificult to manage. Don't forget that the authroities only know about the registered firearms held by the community. We know that there are very many unregistered firearms in the community. Once again, any restriction on total number of firearms owned will only impinge on owners who are following current laws.

 

How many is too many? A person might reasonably own several different types of firearms. Maybe one shotgun for hunting and another for target shooting. Maybe a centrefire rifle for kangaroos and another for pigs. And don't forget the .22 for rabbits and foxes.

 

The first step that I fully agree with is the unification of records kept by States and Territories relating to licensed persons and registered guns. In this digital age unifying those records might only require the transfer of existing records from one database to another. It might need a bit of program development, but for years fingerprint records have been linked across States and Territories.

 

Firearms licences only for Australian citizens???? Look at the ages of young Middle Eastern men using firearms in the drug and illicit tobacco wars. They are no doubt Australian citizens, having been born here.

 

Here's the criteria:

a child born in Australia gains citizenship if at least one parent is an Australian citizen or permanent resident at the time of birth; otherwise, they aren't automatically a citizen, but can acquire it on their 10th birthday if they've lived in Australia for their first 10 years.

 

Protecting society from the misuse of firearms is an impossibility through laws, be they equitable or restrictive. Before slamming down on firearm ownership, careful consideration must be made of the consequences of any regulations proposed.

 

 

 

[Marty_d]

There's some low hanging fruit.

As mentioned in another thread, there should be data matching between state firearm registers and ASIO, and restrictions on people and their families/ close associates who have ever been linked to extremism.

[facthunter]

Your eligibility should be continuously reviewed and you should have a Bluddy GOOD reason to have one in the first Place. All concealed weapons should be restricted.. Nev

[Litespeed]

The data matching can not occur because the states have yet to fully digitize records and agree to access.

 

WA is still paper records.

 

 

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, Litespeed said:

The data matching can not occur because the states have yet to fully digitize records and agree to access. WA is still paper records.

 

 

Therein lies the problem to be overcome. If the Federal Government seeks to combine all the ownership databases, then a few million could be trown at the problem. I think that the electorate would accept the spending of tax dollars in that way.

[Litespeed]

Agreed, given the billions ASIO get in funding, the millions should be a great investment.

 

The stumbling block has been the states , gun lobby and previous long term LNP government.

 

I note today John Howard was bitching about changing the gun laws is a distraction from the labour failures- just more bullshit and bluster from the LNP.

 

No one without a genuine need should have access to a gun, bar inside a gun club and the gun stays at the club.

 

 

 

[old man emu]

11 minutes ago, Litespeed said:

I note today John Howard was bitching about changing the gun laws is a distraction from the labour failures- just more bullshit and bluster from the LNP.

When will politicians of teh Parties not in power folow the adage "If you can't say something nice, say nothing"?

[Litespeed]

I expect for the LNP and other more right wing parties, the answer would be never.

 

I bet they got Howard to say it, thus any flack they can dodge with a strawman.

[onetrack]

Quote

The data matching can not occur because the states have yet to fully digitize records and agree to access. WA is still paper records.

 

There was no co-ordination between the States licencing authorities for decades, due to parochial interests, and "jurisdictional claims and interests". Then, in late January 2006, a rapist/double murderer, who raped and murdered two sisters, one after the other in Melbourne, stole one of the womens cars and took off to the North of Australia.

 

The murderer was intercepted on a lonely section of the NW Coastal Hwy, many kms from Karratha, about 3 days after the murders, by a lone police officer, Sgt Gray, who was looking for him, for driving off without paying for fuel.

The murderer (a giant of a man) jumped out of the stolen car and launched a massive king hit attack on the policeman, breaking 13 bones in his face in the one hit.

The policeman went down, but came back up again, and the murderer came at him again. The policeman drew his firearm and killed the murderer on the spot, with one accurate shot (he just happened to be a firearms trainer in the W.A. Police).

 

But for over 6 hrs, no-one knew who the murderer was, who the car belonged to, and what the murderer had done. This was all due to a lack of a national database of vehicle registrations and a lack of information-sharing between State Police forces.

Within a very short time after this disturbing event, a national database of vehicle registrations was initiated, accessible to any police officer anywhere in Australia, and other important information-sharing on fleeing felons and violent crimes was established.

 

If it took just one murderous attack on a lone police officer in the Outback to galvanise the States into action to produce real-time violent crime information-sharing, and a vehicle registration database to be set up - then I'm sure Australia's worst terrorist attack on our soil, should ensure that everything that is needed, to standardise firearms laws and requirements across Australia, and to set up a national database of firearm owners, and those on terrorism watch, is rapidly carried out.

[Marty_d]

I find it very hard to believe that any government department relies on paper records for anything.

This isn't 1980. The data may be on incompatible systems or databases but it would be digital somewhere, and if it's digital it can be ingested, converted and matched.

 

[onetrack]

The W.A. system is largely digital/computer-based - BUT - as always, there are a number of firearms owners who are not computer literate, and more importantly, they reside in many far-flung areas of the State, where computer access is limited due to inadequate internet/phone service coverage.

As a result, firearms users can apply to keep using paper records - and they currently have to keep their A4 size paper firearms licence with them when they are purchasing ammo, or transporting their firearms.

 

As you might all know, W.A. has had a new, revised and much tougher Firearms Act since last year, in a reaction to a vicious depraved murderous bastard, who owned 13 firearms legally - but who was in a bitter dispute with his ex-wife - and he was mentally unstable.

Despite his daughter warning the W.A. Police several times that he was dangerous, shouldn't own firearms, and had continually threatened to kill her mother, the W.A. Police did nothing.

Accordingly, this murderous bastard set out on a trip to the city looking for his wife, to kill her - broke into her female friends house, looking for her (and she wasn't there) - and when he realised he wasn't going to able to kill her, he killed her friend and her daughter instead.

 

The daughter went ballistic and went on a campaign for tighter firearms laws, and the W.A. Police reprimanded 8 officers for numerous failures in failing to adhere to the previous Firearms Licensing laws. And of course, the Premier and MP's went on a knee-jerk rampage, carried out a major gun buyback, stated they were intent on removing around 90,000 firearms licences from firearms owners in the city - stating they had no need for firearms - and they've pretty much achieved their aims.

 

Many firearms owners I know, have given up on owning firearms here, the Govt has just made it too hard. Many farmers are complaining they can't even get hold of a firearm to destroy stock or vermin. It's all a violent over-reaction on the part of the States MP's and Premier, and tens of thousands of W.A. firearms owners have paid a heavy price, simply because the W.A. Police didn't do their job properly, previously.

 

https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/western-australia-police-force/licensing-services-firearms

 

Edited 7 hours ago by onetrack

[pmccarthy]

People in prison have been killed with a rock in a sock. If that weapon becomes popular, will Albanian ban rocks or ban socks?

[Jerry_Atrick]

22 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

People in prison have been killed with a rock in a sock.

They must be a bit pungent by now 😉

 

In the UK, which also has uite strict gun laws, almost anythign can become a dangerous weapon under the dangerous weapons act. If someone is carrying a rock in a sock for the purpose of commiting some damage, then that particualr rock in a sock will become a dangerous weapon under the act. I can't recall precisely, but I think it is an objective test - i.e. not what the person actually intended, but what the reasonable (not average) person would deem to be the purpose. I could be wrong on the intent threshold.

 

 

[old man emu]

6 hours ago, onetrack said:

the Premier and MP's went on a knee-jerk rampage

That is the very problem with knee-jerking - unintended consequences. Once again the good intention adversely affected those for whom the intention was not met. There's a Latin saying, festina lente, which roughly translates as "hasten slowly", or its equivalent, "look before you leap".

[Marty_d]

6 hours ago, onetrack said:

The W.A. system is largely digital/computer-based - BUT - as always, there are a number of firearms owners who are not computer literate, and more importantly, they reside in many far-flung areas of the State, where computer access is limited due to inadequate internet/phone service coverage.

As a result, firearms users can apply to keep using paper records - and they currently have to keep their A4 size paper firearms licence with them when they are purchasing ammo, or transporting their firearms.

 

As you might all know, W.A. has had a new, revised and much tougher Firearms Act since last year, in a reaction to a vicious depraved murderous bastard, who owned 13 firearms legally - but who was in a bitter dispute with his ex-wife - and he was mentally unstable.

Despite his daughter warning the W.A. Police several times that he was dangerous, shouldn't own firearms, and had continually threatened to kill her mother, the W.A. Police did nothing.

Accordingly, this murderous bastard set out on a trip to the city looking for his wife, to kill her - broke into her female friends house, looking for her (and she wasn't there) - and when he realised he wasn't going to able to kill her, he killed her friend and her daughter instead.

 

The daughter went ballistic and went on a campaign for tighter firearms laws, and the W.A. Police reprimanded 8 officers for numerous failures in failing to adhere to the previous Firearms Licensing laws. And of course, the Premier and MP's went on a knee-jerk rampage, carried out a major gun buyback, stated they were intent on removing around 90,000 firearms licences from firearms owners in the city - stating they had no need for firearms - and they've pretty much achieved their aims.

 

Many firearms owners I know, have given up on owning firearms here, the Govt has just made it too hard. Many farmers are complaining they can't even get hold of a firearm to destroy stock or vermin. It's all a violent over-reaction on the part of the States MP's and Premier, and tens of thousands of W.A. firearms owners have paid a heavy price, simply because the W.A. Police didn't do their job properly, previously.

 

https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/western-australia-police-force/licensing-services-firearms

 

Yes, you can apply on a written form, but when that form is lodged it's either optically scanned or manual data entry by staff. Either way, the data is held on a state government database.