The New Gun Laws are all About Cultural Change

This got published in the West Australian today, predictably it got the usual suspects fired up hunting me, claiming Im not helping the recreational shooting community.

Im not sure whos advising them but shooting the messenger, (someone who works on behalf of primary producers) is not a great way to win the hearts and minds of mums and dads who fear lunatics with guns running around schools.

Anyway make up your own mind if Im missing the mark.

One little bit to add to the equation is, Im reliably informed that the WAFirearms Community Alliance was approached by the Ministers office prior to the release of the discussion paper but they were nowhere to be found.

Maybe they were too busy taking pot shots of those who were not on their side.

Reminds me of the Voice debate the hard left were so busy yelling at No campaigners accusing them of being dianasaurs and dickheads that they forgot that the rest of the community was listening.

Lesson for the Shooters, always be aware of the wider community not just your own supporters, compromise is essential in the art of politics, be prepared to give up something to gain something, playing to your own base rearly delivers a good policy outcome.

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The New Gun Laws are all About Cultural Change

It’s been 18 months since the state government announced a complete rewrite of the 1973 Firearms Act, since then over 20 people have died including tragically a rural shooting by someone who should never have had access to a firearm.

?Every firearms death is a tragedy, WAFarmers and the Pastoral and Graziers Association understand where the government and community is coming from, so we have made a commitment to work with government, even through we know new restrictions are coming our way.

Unfortunately, the Recreational Shooters Alliance is not so interested in working with the government or accepting that the vast majority of the community are not comfortable with the growing number of people who have access to firearms.

Despite this the Minister has made it clear that 90,000 license holders and 360,000 firearms is too many and he believes they increase the risk of firearm deaths either by suicide or by deliberate shootings.

How big that risk is open to debate, as is, if the proposed caps of 5 or 10 firearms on recreational, primary producers and sporting shooters will make any difference over time.

In fact it will be interesting to see if the opposition is going to oppose these changes when they come to the floor of parliament as it only takes one school shooting to literally kill the debate.

I suspect the Minister for Police’s real plan is to quietly change the states gun culture over time by pushing rec shooters into formal gun clubs where there is a safety culture.?

This would ensure only primary producers and a very limited number of recreational shooters that are linked to a rural property, as nominated vermin shooters can have access to firearms.

This opens the perfect opportunity for the sporting club community, to come together and work with the government to provide a safe space for the remainder of the recs to operate within one of the many shooting clubs across the state.

Unfortunately, segments of the shooting community seems to have totally missed the opportunity, preferring to see the debate as a American style ‘right to bear arms’ fight rather than a community safety discussion.

The end result is the government has given up on the more extreme end of the firearms community and is ploughing on preferring to work with the farming sector to get a workable outcome.

One of the changes the government has put to us is wiping all the existing property letters linked to farms and stations and putting in place serious caps of the number of rec licenses that will be issued depending on size and location of the rural property.

We have yet to see the detail but it’s hard to image the Minister is going to sign off on a 100 acres in Margaret River being allowed 5 rec licenses plus a primary producers license all with .308 rifles in their gun cabinets, or for that even allowing matter 30 rec licenses on a 10,000 acre wheatbelt property.

My bet is the Minister will use rural caps to go after the 70,000 or so recreational ?license holders to make it difficult to even find a rural property owner willing to sign an access letter as farmers will be holding these back for themselves and their own family.

This will leave the recs with no choice but to join a gun club or hand their guns in.

As for primary producers, we have commitments from the Minister for up to 10 firearms as tools of the trade plus another 5 for a separate recreational license, plus another 10 if you join a shooting club. We can live with that.

We await details on how they will divide up primary production licenses across properties that have partnerships, leases or sharefarms across multiple titles, but my guess is the government won’t over complicate it as the Minister has made it clear primary producers are not his focus.

In the long run time will tell if imposing the toughest guns laws in Australia will save lives, but past experience with safety changes driven by government, be it boating, farm safety, or road proves that imposing more restrictions, adding training, and ultimately changing culture slows people but it only takes one gun to end a life, so the caps are probably a step too far.??