Missing the Target

The debate between the gun lobby and the Minister for Police Paul Papalia has recently reignited following the announcement of the buyback fund as part of the redraft of the Firearms Act and yesterdays reading in of the Act.

Mind you, it's a pretty one-sided debate, with the gun lobby firing ads at the Minister (and missing badly), while the Liberals remain hunkered down in a safe house up on the hill, wisely sitting out this particular firefight. As for the Nats they have retreated to the hills to consult with their constituents.

The smart Liberals and Nationals will keep their heads down because they have read the mood of the community and don't want to be on the wrong side of the debate when the inevitable next tragic shooting occurs. The Nats have the most to lose because if the shooting is in one of their electorates, as one tragically was last year they have no where to hide.

Meanwhile, the Firearms Alliance is running what has to be one of the most inept political advertising campaigns since Clive Palmer spent $123 million on his United Australia Party Ads, only to win one senate seat at the last election.

I don't know who's advising the Alliance; maybe it's Palmer's old media team, but their money would be better spent bankrolling the Shooters and Fishers Party back into the State's Upper House, in the hope of winning the balance of power at the next election.

But first of all the shooters lobby need to explain what they are seeking, as their advertising campaign seems more like a personal attack on the Police Minister than offering any coherent argument as to why the government has gone too far with its proposed reforms.

Mind you, Papalia won't be losing too much sleep over the ads, he has broad community backing for tighter gun laws, plus a good working relationship with the farmers and pastoralists who have managed to secure sensible changes to cover their needs.

(And yes I know the definition of a primary producer in the Act is defined as a property, but rest assured it is old news and that clause will be amended. Thats what comes with haveing a working relationship with the Minister.)

With the reading in of the Act and the launch of the buyback fund The Minister is well-placed politically to buy off segments of the firearms community with his $64 million war chest.

This will target those license holders who rarely, if ever, open their gun safes and who don't want to go through the hassle of finding a landholder to give them a renewed property access letter or join their local sporting shooting club.

The buyback will also sit well with recreational and sporting owners who want to keep their license and currently own at or below the new maximum of 5 (recreational) or 10 (recreational plus sporting) firearms.

The fund will give them an easy way to trade in their old and unsaleable firearms for an upgrade at taxpayers' expense.?

Papalia is no doubt aware that the Howard era buyback simply saw more guns in less hands, as the average per license holder across Australia has risen from 2.1 to 4.0 since the Port Arthur massacre.

The bizarre thing is Australia is isafer as the buyback seems to have changed Australia’s culture around firearms, no doubt Papalia is seeking to do the same thing again albeit by capping the number of guns per owner.

He has also made the good point that stloen guns almost always start as legitimate lisensed guns and the less guns in a household to steel the less guns end up in the hands of the wrong people. Even with the best safes its still possible to break into a gun safe just look at all the firearms stoes that have been broken into.

It is clear that Papalia has picked a fight with a select group of people, its the hard core owners of firarms that dont like restrictions or they simply want to won alot of guns.

The most unhappy will be those forced to give up some of their guns to conform to the new rules, including passionate collectors with lots of valuable weapons or those who lack access to family and friends with large properties and are unwilling to join a sporting shooters club.

Quite rightly, these license holders will be gunning for the government in the ballot box at the next election over the loss of their historic rights.

They will no doubt argue that the Minister has given no credible justification for why capping the number of firearms an individual can own will make any difference to the number of firearm deaths.

If the Minister was deadly serious about community safety, he would have initiated a debate about adopting rules similar to say Singapore, where individuals can only own a firearm if they belong to a club, and even then, the firearms must be stored at the club.

But that’s probably a bridge too far, even if the logic is hard to argue with.

I suspect even the Liberals and Nationals would have had to stick their heads above the trenches and align with the shooters if that was to be part of the new Act.

The Minister is no fool, he knows how far he can push stakeholders and the 5 and 10 rule is a calculated limit. Mind you even some of the more intellectually challenged gunowners will work out they can sign up their brother, father, or mate and partner to double their arsnel.

Mind you, without seeing the new regulations, which are still being drafted, and are not due until the end of the year, we have no idea what all the restrictions are and how many people will be forced to empty their gun cabinets.

But they must be pretty severe, as the government has put enough money on the table to buy back around a third of the 360,000 weapons that are legally in WA.

With 90,000 owners having an average of 4 firearms each, that's 30,000 voters either voluntarily or being forced to give up all or some of their firearms to comply with the 5 or 10 limit and the new rules.

To add insult to injury many of these owners who are set to lose firearms won’t be able to access the buyback scheme, as by the time they work out where they sit under the new rules, the money will have run out or the fund closed.

The fact that the fund is finite and has an end date, set for when the new regulations are likely to appear later in the year and the first letters from Firearms Licensing Branch will appear in people's mailboxes just before the next state election must sooner or later focus the political minds in the Premier's Office.

We know that Cook does not like fights over legislation, as we have seen with the pulling of the Heritage and Water Acts, so there is a possibility the new Firearms Act could yet become political and part of the election debate.

But listening to him and the Minister for Police at the press conference on wednesday I suspect they are not for turning.

Mind you I suspect the Shooters Alliance, have convinced themselves they are onto something, but you would never guess from looking at their ads.

As for the Shooters and Fishers Party, if they were to get fired up by the shooting Alliance, there might be enough political ammo to get a representative back into the Upper House, but they might would need to hold back their cash for the election campaign, and hope like hell their is no tragic shooting in th days leading up to election day.

Either way I suspect they will need a million dollars and some smart advertising people to get their message across.

The real question for now, is, how will the Nationals respond over the coming weeks when the new Act is due to be debated.

Will they ignore community sentiment and position themselves to pick up shooters votes by proposing amendments to double the maximum number of firearms per license holder and make it easier for recreational shooters to access property letters?

Or will they back the government and keep their heads down?

It's like a game of political Russian roulette, with the government loading the gun and handing it to the Leader of the Opposition. Your turn!

The nats missed their opporuntity to pile into the debate as the PGA and WAFarmrs were negoiating with the government.

Now their only hope of appeasing their shooting base is to move an amendment to lift the hard to justify restrictions on the number of firearms per person to 6, 7, 8, 10 , 20 pick a number, while leaving in place restrictions on the number of licenses allowed per rural property based on its size (this will be a reg to watch out for), plus maybe moving to doub the penalties for owning a unlicensed firearm.

This is the sort of common-sense amendments the Firearms Alliance should be arguing for in their current campaign, rather than attacking the Minister with ads that miss the mark and will be long forgotten by the next election.

In the meantime, the Farmers and Pastoralists will continue to live in the real world of a government having the numbers to pass whatever legislation it wants and quietly continue our work with the Minister to ensure we retain workable access to what are tools of our trade while not being linked to the next inevitable shooting in the bush.

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