By Dennis DeMartins
It’s on for real. Straight after the furor over the attempted reclassification of lever action shotguns began with Aussie shooters flooding MP’s and the media with calls, emails and letters (with laughably bad media hit pieces in full swing), information has come to light that the entire National Firearms Agreement is up for review, a document that has not been modified at the federal level since 1996. In a letter to Sporting Shooters Australia CEO Tim Bannister, Federal Minister for (in)Justice Michael Keenan confirmed that a full review of the National Firearms Agreement was well underway as a result of the Inquiry into the Sydney Siege . . .
The Australian shooting community had been plagued the last few months by rumours of Prime Minister Tony Abbott continuing John Howard’s gun grab agenda; this letter confirms those rumours. But wait, it gets better.
Flying under the radar, but hidden in plain sight is the report from the Australian Attorney-General’s department, headed by George Brandis – the same guy who has passed an internet filter, data retention, citizenship revocation and is attempting to pass obscene civil forfeiture laws. The same guy that the Australian left scream incessantly about being fascist, but also want to assist by calling for more gun control.
The “AG’s report into the ability of Australian law enforcement authorities to eliminate gun-related violence in the community,” which came in response to the findings of the Senate Inquiry earlier this year, outlines the agenda and, as usual with Australian gun grabbing, it’s fantastic reading. The report recommends the following changes:
- “Address State differences in ‘different lengths of licences and different requirements that need to be met to own and possess Category D firearms.’
- Address inconsistencies “in areas not covered by the NFA, such as in relation to firearm parts, accessories, magazines and firearm dealers.”
- “the accountability of deactivation standards and agreed firearm descriptors.”
- “take into account the changes in technology and the legal firearms market that have occurred since 1996.”
- “regulation of magazines, firearm parts and accessories”
- “principles for dealing with interstate transactions, particularly dealers operating in more than one State or Territory”
- “the classification of new technology with regards to:
– ballistic performance (noting that this can have as much to do with the ammunition as the firearm)
– rate of fire (including magazine capacity); and appearance”
- “more explicit guidance on the NFA’s genuine reasons for owning, possessing or using a firearm (the genuine reasons), and
- “technological changes with respect to the issuing of licences and permits to acquire.”
- “There is no basis to recommend any update of the remaining elements of the NFA to expand the list of genuine reasons or changing the requirements for licensing.”
And the punchline: “the recommended changes will be developed WITHOUT CONSULTATION and in closed session by the Firearm and Weapons Policy Working Group (FWPWG), chaired by the Attorney General’s Department”
Translated: Because a guy in Sydney who already had a charge sheet as long as your arm who we let out on bail for attempted murder; who also got an illegal shotgun without a license and held up a café where two people died, (one of them thanks to incompetent police marksmanship) we think it’s logical and reasonable to punish every single gun owner in the country who had nothing to do with it, just like 1996. Even though those same laws we brought didn’t prevent this or the eight other massacres since 1996, despite years of boasting to America.
And hey, we’ll say this gun looks scary so we need to ban it, like we did in Western Australia with pistol grip stocks and the Savage. Or it “fires too fast” in a demo video, even though it’s 128 year old technology and a Police Commissioner thinks so (even though that Police Commissioner can’t correctly identify said rifle). And that you don’t need more than one shot for hunting. Because Roland Browne said so.
So yeh, we won’t be asking you guys for your input, although we’ll bs and say we are consulting just to give you the appearance of appeasement. And if you push back enough we’ll trot out the terrorism, public safety and fear cards because we know the Australian public are ignorant, and hell we’ll get the media to even throw in a distraction or two when it comes to vote. ISIS threat of attack? The Dress? Bruce Jenner?
And that is just the beginning:
Leaked police documents this week revealed that the Calabrian Mafia, who has long had a foothold in Australia, have been buying firearms off of the Australian Army. This comes as no surprise given their past history and Australian police’s record of doing exactly the same thing. The Army is also about sign off on a purchase of 30,000 EF88 Austeyr rifles. We wonder just how many of those will end up on the streets. Or indeed, stolen from their armouries as has happened over and over again.
This aside, the emotional reflex headline of the week was that of a Victorian Policeman who was shot in the head (and survived) while attempting to pull over a vehicle in Melbourne. Although the gunman and firearm remain on the loose, the media amazingly knew it was a 12 gauge shotgun before a ballistics investigation had been conducted, even though ABC News swore it was a flintlock pistol-shotgun (yes, that report is actually real).
There has been a notably increasing number of anti-gun stories in the Australian media in the last six weeks. Couple this with the above revelations, and it’s not hard to see why: Australia is being neurolinguistically prepared for a sales pitch for another gun grab.
The most interesting thing to note in the Australian media is that every time there is a story around firearms, both “sides” of the media (Fairfax and the ABC on the left and Murdoch on the right) come out in a full court press against anything remotely positive about firearms. Notice how Murdoch isn’t so brave with this in the USA?
His latest effort was a futile attempt to pick a fight with the NRA (also a favourite acronym used in Australia to try and shut down firearms debate) after their questioning of Australia’s known gun law failures. Murdoch was only outdone by this laughably bad effort from Fairfax “firearms expert” Nick O’Malley. O’Malley made sure that he used as much emotive reference to Port Arthur as possible, while leaving out the six hour police response time and fact that Bryant got his gun illegally and without a license, as well as quoting Australia’s favourite nanny statist Simon Chapman, whose only ‘retort’ to the fact that homicides were going well down since the 80’s was that the buyback tenuously accelerated this a’ whopping’ 4%. Only to be let down that the AIC announced last week that arson homicides in Australia have jumped 44% in the last decade and that the homicide rate in the Northern Territory is five times the national average. But don’t tell Simon that as he’ll get upset and play the public health card, like he usually does on Twitter, with fellow grabber Bernard Keane.
O’Malley also kind of forgets that it was his own paper that broke the story that the buyback was useless in slowing the murder rate, 9 years ago. But hey, there’s a narrative to sell. O’Malley was almost trumped by this late effort from the Daily Telegraph, who announced Colt are apparently issuing 1911’s in full auto and that antique replica .22 SMLE’s are considered “sniper” rifles.
After all, when recently:
an 88 year old is bashed senseless
three men carjack another man at gunpoint
A report showed that Domestic Violence Orders had been breached 26,000 times in the last twelve months
a man gets stabbed to death
another man has his throat cut in a hotel room
a 10 year old attempts a hold up with a cap gun
a Queensland police officer lost his handgun and found it after it had been used in a robbery
a teen was abducted and bludgeoned to death
the coach of the Adelaide Crows is stabbed to death in his home
sex offenders running rampant
it’s getting hard out here for a journalist to sell another buyback.
#96neveragain