Firearms Act—Impact
Statement
Hon Philip Scott (5:34 pm): I rise to read out some correspondence I have from a constituent I have known for four years and who had to medically retire 20 years early. It is about the ripple effect of the firearms laws. The email, which is a short one, states:
Unfortunately my son and I have had to give up a hobby we have enjoyed and shared together for years. Both of us are ex military so we're no strangers around firearms.
The main purpose of firearm ownership for us was recreational. We were a member of the Perth Rifle Metallic Silhouette Club at Pinjar and competed regularly in what is called the Practical Hunting Rifle (PHR) competition.
This is a fairly difficult competition where profiles of various animals are placed at various distances up to 400 metres away and had to be fired upon within a time limit and from different positions, standing, prone, sitting, kneeling, supported etc. Half the task was to estimate distance and wind and adjust your shot or scope accordingly.
High scores are achieved for hitting kill shots to the head or heart, whereas negative scores are achieved if you only make a wound shot.
For anyone who wonders why anyone would want to do that, I could ask the same of golfers trying to get a ball into a hole.
To be good at either takes practice and skill, and when you are focussed on that you become unstressed.
For me to share the hobby with my son was a great pleasure and privilege.
When my younger son visited on leave from the army, he would join us. We also had the opportunity to invite family and friends to join us after they had a full, strict, safety briefing.
Club members who had met certain standards were given access to the range to go and practice at anytime there wasn't a competition on.
We could also invite family and friends to come and enjoy a couple of supervised hours at the range.
Any first time shooter I ever took to the range thoroughly enjoyed the experience including women and teenagers.
Before these new gun regulations there were already significant regulations covering licenced gun ownership. This included the need for a gun safe and separate locked storage for ammunition.
My son and I also had permission to shoot feral animals on a couple of country properties.
Under the new regulations my property down south did not meet the minimum size to justify gun ownership.
The new regulations put such a huge burden on property owners who were prepared to let friends shoot on their larger properties, including keeping a register of who has permission, and when they have been, which can be audited by police at any time, most property owners have just said it's too hard.
Instead, most of those property owners will use bait to control feral animals. Unfortunately that will undoubtedly lead not only to long suffering death of the baited animal, but also to any native animals and birds of prey or carrion eaters which come across the baited animals.
The buyback was an absolute joke. Take just one of my firearms, I received the maximum $938 because it was under 6 years old. This was less than one third of what I paid for it less than 3 years ago, but that's only the base cost of the rifle. We were offered nothing for all the equipment and accessories which usually go with precision shooters. The telescopic site was just over $2700 …
He lists further costs and continues:
So for an investment of about $12,000 I received $938 in compensation. That's hardly fair, and unfortunately there's no secondhand market …
Of course I haven't even addressed the requirement to get an annual GP clearance to prove you are suitable to own firearms.
How many GP's will be prepared to give that? What impact will it have on their practice insurance? If a person is on, or has ever been on anti-depressants will that disqualify them?
I wonder how many police officers have mental health issues, including PTSD or have taken or are currently taking antidepressants? Will they now be disarmed?
Who knows what the added cost and burden on the health system the new regulations will cause.
I'm sure that the Labor party have calculated that for most people like me, and my son, who owned firearms for recreational purposes, we will have calculated that the new requirements make it impossible to continue with the hobby.
Our annual licence fees will be lost to the state, our annual membership and insurance fees of over $200 will be lost to the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, and our annual membership fees to the Perth Rifle Metallic Silhouette Club, will be lost.
No doubt many sports shooting clubs will become unviable, and I'd be surprised if half the firearms shops remain open.
I shoot left handed so I had an imported gun, but my son used Australian made firearms and we both used Australian made ammunition.
When other states follow with similar regulations, will the manufacture of rifles and ammunition no longer be cost efficient in Australia?
The most frustrating aspect of these regulations is that Labor have not shown any evidence that increased legal gun ownership in WA has lead to increased per capita gun crime, not that any such crime is significantly carried out by licenced gun owners.
This is a stunt by a government that has presided over rising crime in WA to appear to be tackling it.
Sadly, it has stopped myself and my family enjoying a sport together, one where we regularly had three generations of the family competing in a safe, supervised manner.
