NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell has announced the Firearms Amendment (Ammunition Control) Bill 2012 which will impose new restrictions on the sale of ammunition to law-abiding firearm owners and additional onerous record keeping requirements for firearm dealers (www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/nswbills.nsf/131a07fa4b8a041cca256e610012de17/7d714d724cf1852dca2579a4001b0b8c?OpenDocument)

This Bill will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to reduce drive-by shootings by CRIMINALS in Sydney.

What it will do is:
(1) inconvenience tens of thousands of LAW-ABIDING FIREARM OWNERS, particularly in the bush,
(2) drive firearm dealers to the wall with the added paperwork, and
(3) breach Mr O'Farrell's pledge to reduce red tape for businesses and the community by 20% by June 2015


Below is the link to an online petition for anybody wanting to show their support to sign. With both liberal and labor supporting this Bill it will take a monumental effort to get it scrapped. Please pledge your support for the law abiding licenced firearm owners in NSW.

www.gopetition.com/petitions/barry-ofarrell-stop-your-attack-on-law-abiding-firearm-owners.html

signed it for you,

We already have this up and running in W.A.
Its a pain in the neck for no benefit.
For years over here I could walk into my local shop, buy what I needed, and walk out again.
As the shop owner knew what I was licensed for it worked well- and if someone new wanted to buy- they showed him thier license first time around and after that they were treated the same as me.
Then the rules changed and now everytime I need to show my license and sign the sales records book.
The paperwork for the shop owner get worse all the time- for no realistic benefit at all.

Crims will get their firearms and ammo one way or another- they are crims and dont particularly worry much about paperwork and regulations like we do.
Its not that hard to make gunpowder (black or smokeless) primer compound and melt lead for cast lead projectiles to make their ammo from scratch, if they cant be bothered to steal or illegally import ammo.
I would imagine its way easier than making their methylamphetawhateveryoucallitamine.
Same for their firearms- it doesnt take a genius with a modern factory to manufacture effective firearms- a basic "house clearing" type submachine gun is (in theory) a fairly simple excercise that has been done by crims, rebels and governments all around the world.

As a side note- I read a couple of days ago that after spending several BILLION dollars to set up a firearms licensing system for rifles and shotguns over the last few years, the Canadian government scrapped it as it was ineffective.
That several billion dollars would have paid for a lot of nurses in hospitals- and police on the street.
I feel the same applies here.

stephen

As sn said, we have had this in WA for ages and it is a bit of a pain.

In the 1930's to about late 1950's boys did shooting at cadets after school and took the rifle home. The standard birthday present for a 16 y/o (ish) boy in the country was his first .22 rifle.
We didn't have schoolyard shootings, or drug dealers wasting each other. What's changed?

Maybe the Govt needs to deal with society's problems before restricting lawful activity. Trouble is the latter is easier and appeases the vocal minority.

Thanks very much, enlightened "we know better" far left intelligentsia who totally screwed discipline, the justice system etc (the list goes on ) over the last 50 years or so, which has led to the lawlessness we see now.

So, even though the actual process / record keeping is only the tiniest bit troublesome for gun owners, it is yet another assault upon lawful firearms owners that will not change rates of gun crime - so I'll sign it.

Ados said...

FormulaNova said...

Is an 'inconvenience' really such a problem?

Reading through this, it looks like it is insisting that those buying ammunition prove that they own the type of weapon that takes that type of ammunition. Why is that unreasonable? Why would anyone want to buy ammunition for a gun they didn't own?

Paperwork? You don't want people that sell guns and ammo to have to do paperwork?

Why would you be against this?

Sorry, but I can't see anything thing in this that would really be a problem for your typical licensed gun owner.

This begs the question, if you had an unlicensed firearm, where would you get the ammunition from?

agreed. with all the other much more pressing issues going on in OZ and indeed the world, this is basically a non-issue in the broad picture.

So if crims get banned guns and shoot people (currently), you people firmly believe that making licensed gun owners sign for ammo will reduce gun crime?
The more pressing issues are the reasons for the crime.

Mark _australia said...

Ados said...

FormulaNova said...

Is an 'inconvenience' really such a problem?

Reading through this, it looks like it is insisting that those buying ammunition prove that they own the type of weapon that takes that type of ammunition. Why is that unreasonable? Why would anyone want to buy ammunition for a gun they didn't own?

Paperwork? You don't want people that sell guns and ammo to have to do paperwork?

Why would you be against this?

Sorry, but I can't see anything thing in this that would really be a problem for your typical licensed gun owner.

This begs the question, if you had an unlicensed firearm, where would you get the ammunition from?

agreed. with all the other much more pressing issues going on in OZ and indeed the world, this is basically a non-issue in the broad picture.

So if crims get banned guns and shoot people (currently), you people firmly believe that making licensed gun owners sign for ammo will reduce gun crime?
The more pressing issues are the reasons for the crime.

I don't know because I am not a criminologist. I have owned firearms in the past for hunting and the local gun store owner already kept records of who bought ammo etc. it was just a way of covering his arse. I certainly wasn't inconvenienced in any real way. I don't see the problem.

Guns dont kill people by themselves....people kill people.

sn said...
As a side note- I read a couple of days ago that after spending several BILLION dollars to set up a firearms licensing system for rifles and shotguns over the last few years, the Canadian government scrapped it as it was ineffective.
That several billion dollars would have paid for a lot of nurses in hospitals- and police on the street.
I feel the same applies here.

You read firearm supporter stuff. I dipped (as an outside consultant from Australia) in that project in its early days in 1997. Even from afar, I kept in touch with the developments and some people there for a while, as it is one sad story.

It was at very, very best mismanagement and incompetence, mostly from the IT side. I'd like to say more, but there are implications, so I must remain polite... The money wasted (here again very difficult to use such a mild term as wasted) had nothing to do with the worthiness or not of the project, nor the complexities of the project - as it was and remains a fairly linear thing to implement.

It's the same incompetence I meet all over in that industry. "printf-hello-world" is nowadays a 2-month project and it will fail after $10M anyways in the modern IT industry.

Back to the topic: I don't really see the signing of papers as huge inconvenience.

No, not a single law will guarantee wiping out all crime. However if a couple of simple steps assist in tracking killers in only a small % of all shootings, then it's a start.

Carantoc said...

lachlan3556 said...

...

This Bill will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to reduce drive-by shootings by CRIMINALS in Sydney.

...

So what do you suggest would reduce the current rate of drive-by shootings ?

Remembering I've spent all of 2 mins to think of something:
- I'd give more resources to the Police force so they could dedicate more time to illegal guns/drugs/etc.
- Set up a dedicated group to investigate (inc. surveilance operations) these crimes (hopefully already done)
- Increase penalties for carrying/trading/using illegal firearms or any part of (ie: ammo and parts)
- Offer increased incentives to individuals who give useful evidence/tip-offs
- Sniffer dogs are used at airports to find gun stuff i think, why not use them at random breath testing sites to target illegal guns
- Anything to target CRIMINAL activity...

Law abiding firearm owners are simply sick of being used as a scape-goat, as the criminals walk free

As Jordan Maxwell said at the end of a doco i watched,

'if you only listen to one piece of advice from me it's this....never,ever give up your firearms.'

Would the Chinese pesants have been so sh/t upon by the govt if they had firearms to defend themselves?

petermac33 said...

As Jordan Maxwell said at the end of a doco i watched,

'if you only listen to one piece of advice from me it's this....never,ever give up your firearms.'

Would the Chinese pesants have been so sh/t upon by the govt if they had firearms to defend themselves?

Yes. The Chinese government have big guns.

Who is giving up guns anyway? The discussion is about whether legitimate gun owners can only buy ammunition for the guns they own.

Seems like the biggest regulators end up being the Liberal/Nats.

Can anyone provide a graph of gun related crime over the last 50 years or so in Australia? It would be interesting to see if gun related crime drops away when more laws attempt to regulate and control gun ownership are brought in.

Drive by shootings are a problem mainly because the mainstream media beats it up and the police don't seem to be able to deal with the situation. Perhaps its a cultural issue where the victims won't talk to the police even though they know who the shooters are.

Perhaps its a war between different criminal groups. If so let them kill each other and help improve society. If its about money from drugs as it probably is, take away the profit by decriminilising the drugs. Instead of scoring from your mate or dealer, go see a doctor, get a script and get your score from the chemist.


Edit:
Found this page:
http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html

The reporting of violent incidents involving guns are are tracking fairly neutral to slightly downwards and increased regulation don't have much effect one way or another.

I think Barry O'Farrell is finally doing something good. I really cant see how anyone could argue against ensuring gun owners can only purchase ammo for the guns they legally own.

And this incident...... where do I start?
www.heraldsun.com.au/nocookies?a=A.flavipes
If a 14yo boy isn't responsible enough to know to never to aim a gun anywhere near people WTF is he doing with a gun or a license, after that incident I hope they ban duck hunting forever and make gun licensing a s**t load tighter.

Dawso said...

I think Barry O'Farrell is finally doing something good. I really cant see how anyone could argue against ensuring gun owners can only purchase ammo for the guns they legally own.

And this incident...... where do I start?
www.heraldsun.com.au/nocookies?a=A.flavipes
If a 14yo boy isn't responsible enough to know to never to aim a gun anywhere near people WTF is he doing with a gun or a license, after that incident I hope they ban duck hunting forever and make gun licensing a s**t load tighter.

For one the 14 year old was found to have nothing to do with her being shot, he was just the closest to what happened and was flogged in the media for it. Out of the 100,000's rounds fired over the past few years this is the first of this kind of ACCIDENT. She was illegally protesting as well, and illegally disrupting shooters by standing in the direction of the shooting. By the looks of her injuries the shot probably came from someone a couple of hundred metres away. It was a terrible accident but the protesters do their best to stand where they are at maximum risk.

FormulaNova said...

R0CKH0PPER said...

Guns dont kill people by themselves....people kill people.

The gun sure helps. You don't hear of too many massacres with hunting knives.

In this country we have only had one mass shooting/massacre that was perpetrated by a licenced shooter (The Monash killings), and he was using firearms he got through illegal means. All the others have been done using illegal firearms by criminals.

Cars kill far more people every year than all guns put together, shouldn't we be banning them...or at least increasing the training required to own one. What about smoking? No benifit to anyone, proven to kill and cause disease to the smoker AND OTHERS, yet still they allow it. Where's the logic?

log man said...

Everyone seems to going straight to weather or not this will effect the illegal,criminal side of the argument. What about the kid who finds dads gun and plays with his friends and a disaster ensues. What about the country kid so so distraught about his girlfriend and the other bloke he decides to go and settle a score. What about the Gay boy who does something stupid because he doesn't understand who he is. The more we can remove guns and ammo from society the better. Sure it won't solve these possibilities but if you take the gun out of it it can cool down tempers and stop people from doing things they'll regret later.

Thats why we have stringent storage requirements, to try and prevent this. I don't think any of these examples you wrote out would be stopped by this piece of legislation to any extent. Pardon me being blunt but they would all only use a handfull of bullets at most. Suicide rates have nothing to do with the number of firearms and the rate was falling well before the last big gun ban (as the link above shows quite clearly).

lachlan3556 said...

Dawso said...

I think Barry O'Farrell is finally doing something good. I really cant see how anyone could argue against ensuring gun owners can only purchase ammo for the guns they legally own.

And this incident...... where do I start?
www.heraldsun.com.au/nocookies?a=A.flavipes
If a 14yo boy isn't responsible enough to know to never to aim a gun anywhere near people WTF is he doing with a gun or a license, after that incident I hope they ban duck hunting forever and make gun licensing a s**t load tighter.

For one the 14 year old was found to have nothing to do with her being shot, he was just the closest to what happened and was flogged in the media for it. Out of the 100,000's rounds fired over the past few years this is the first of this kind of ACCIDENT. She was illegally protesting as well, and illegally disrupting shooters by standing in the direction of the shooting. By the looks of her injuries the shot probably came from someone a couple of hundred metres away. It was a terrible accident but the protesters do their best to stand where they are at maximum risk.

Personally I see it if you shoot a gun you are entirely responsible for where the bullet goes.

whoops just noticed she was protesting illegally so I guess she was legally shot! Point taken
At least she might have learnt her lesson and wont "disrupt any more shooters".