Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2017 04:14 PM

To: GN EDITOR
Subject: Gun Laws

Hi David Codrea,

I was reading your column Rights Watch in the May 2017 issue regarding the Turkish Bloodbath
and your comments about the "draconian regulatory schemes".
I'm a sporting shooter living in Perth, Western Australia and my story of beginning in this sport
required my to locate a club willing to let my son and myself try shooting. Because he was
under 12 years old, a number of clubs automatically excluded us. We then completed 4 air
pistol shoots and a safety assessment before we could pick up a live fire gun. After 6 more
shoots under strict supervision with the clubs rimfire pistols, we were permitted to join the
club. On completion of the minimum six months membership, the club provided support to
purchase one air pistol and either one rimfiire or one centrefire pistol. This commenced the
process of obtaining a license which required me to purchase a gun, which remained stored at
the gun shop, and present the gun's safety certificate to my club for approval, then the SSAA
branch (Sporting Shooters Association Australia), and finally to the firearms licensing section of
the WA Police Dept. I then received provisional support from the Police for my licence pending
provision of a statutory declaration containing photographic evidence that my safe complied
with legislative requirements. With bureaucratic snails pace processing and the
mandatory minimum time frames, the process took just over a year from when I first walked
into that gun club to walking out of the gun shop a proud gun owner.

Maintaining the right to keep that gun requires continued membership at my sponsoring club
and SSAA, completing in a minimum of 6 competitive shoots a year with one every two months
and compliance with very strict handling and storage laws. The process is difficult and
constantly maligned in the local media but it is effective.

The issue that just shits me to tears is that over 95% of gun crime in Australia involves illegally
imported guns. We continue to legislate and complicate legitimate gun ownership when we
aren't the cause of the problem and the penalty for people with illegal guns is typically
insignificant to that being applied to any associated crime they may have committed. If no
other crime is committed, the penalty is limited to a fine and criminal record which would
preclude them from ever legitimately owning a firearm in the future which is sheer lunacy
considering they don't need that to purchase another illegal import.

Our problem is those that comply with law are not the problem but we bear the impact of
those that don't. Being an island state, we have an advantage on our border control in
comparison to places like Turkey who share land borders and close association with states at
war but the evidence stands that draconian laws would be effective in the absence of
an external source of supply for illegal imports.
I'm in favor of the right to bear arms, even though they don't apply in Australia, but when
making the argument against gun control being ineffective you must consider that the countries
in this world aren't completely isolated entities and the freedom one allows for firearm
ownership can impact the ability for another to enforce a stricter control.

In a perfect world, I believe we would all be best served with an international standard
minimum level of registration , with ownership restriction that only applies to convicted
criminals / radicals, with the relaxation of the more draconian laws like we endure here.
Unfortunately, I fear this happy medium could never be realised with the vast political
differences and social attitudes in today's societies and this fever dream of mine is nothing
more than lament for what could have been. I hope that sensible argument endures with
respect to gun laws but we should also focus on what impacts our own actions will have on
others when it comes to regulation.

Apologies for the long rant.

Kind Regards,
.