Betrayal or Ignorance.
Betrayal or Ignorance.
When will our representatives, begin to govern instead of spending our money and their time solely in manufacturing legislation, making chains for our backs? Governance is leadership, example, inspiration, ideas, not just control.
In Queensland parliament, on 8 September 2011 Mr Chris FOLEY (Independent Member for Maryborough) (our neighbouring town) at 4.10 pm said.
“I rise to participate and make a short contribution to the debate on the Weapons Amendment Bill. Obviously, it makes good sense to restrict the use of lasers………… The statistics show that violent crimes involving knives are nine times that of guns. They are not only carrying them but when someone pulls out a knife they all pull out a knife and then what in the past would have been a good old-fashioned brawl becomes a knife fight. Young people are losing their lives in incredibly horrific numbers……. They are not only losing their lives but are being inflicted with significant slashing and stabbing injuries…… I certainly have a Swiss army knife that carry around with me and I have used it on all sorts of occasions.
Mr Schwarten: Can you open it with one hand?
Mr FOLEY: No, I cannot.
Mr Schwarten: Well, therefore it is not illegal.
I am a target shooter and am a member of the Sporting Shooters Association. I am a handgun owner and I own rifles. I store them within all of the legal requirements.
With those reservations about the sporting shooters and the participation cards and a couple of other things like that, I will support the bill. I am not happy with those couple of things that will need to be changed.”
THIS MAKES THE LICENCED SHOOTER, THE HUNTED.
We are the prey, of the police, their ticket to promotion.
So when Chris or another licenced shooter is handed a piece of history, an ancient single barrel .22 as a gift to put on his licence by a WW II vet pensioner and is apprehended as he is driving to the police station to hand it in. He will lose his career, his licence, his self esteem, and will receive 120 penalty points instead of 60
Clause 9 50A (Possession of unregistered firearms) Section 50A(1).
For having his Swiss Army pocket knife in a public place on the way to parliament he and the all other good citizens under the new s 51 (Possession of a knife in a public place) instead of 20 penalty units or 6 months imprisonment’— 40 penalty units or 1 year’s imprisonment’.
Unless he has a religious purpose
‘(3A) Also, it is a reasonable excuse for subsection (1), to the extent the subsection relates to a public place, to physically possess a knife for genuine religious purposes.
Example—
A Sikh may possess, in a public place, a knife known as a kirpan to comply with the person’s religious faith.
Of course that does not help a Farmer that forgets to take his pocket knife of his belt when he goes to town. It’s happening already.
Then under the new s 58 (Dangerous conduct with weapon prohibited generally)
(1) Section 58(1), definition weapon insert— when his children decide to play out side with his (f) laser pointer from the white board
‘(f) a laser pointer.’ instead of 100 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment’—
omit, insert— 200 penalty units or 4 years imprisonment’. For him or for the Kids?
A keen target shooter like Chris may want to free float the barrel or bed the action in epoxy bond, drill and tap some holes in the receiver for attaching scope bases, or as he may have two Model 2 Brno’s mix up the bolts and have them in un-matching rifles. The nice policeman that stops him for a check on the way to the range does not care if it was just a mistake. So Chris has just voted in parliament to double the penalty under
s 62 (Modifying construction or action of firearms) instead of 100 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment’—‘200 penalty units or 4 years imprisonment’.
Say it quick it doesn’t mean much. Until the legitimate shooter has to defend himself in court with expert witnesses.
Then as Chris is a shooter, and say he has succeeded in getting that old ancient .22 on his licence waited 11 months for his PTA while he was paying storage fees at his local gun shop in Maryborough and finally gets it home. He notices that it has not got a serial number on it so with the best intentions he phones Weapons licencing and the lady tells him to stamp a number on it and take it into the police station for verification, they ask him who changed it, he tells them so he is charged. It has all happened already in Queensland, Chris has just agreed to double the penalty for the innocent shooter again. s 63 (Altering identification marks of weapons) ‘100 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment 200 penalty units or 4 years imprisonment’.
Chris finally gets to the range with all his other charges pending and as he has a lot on his mind he forget to fill in the range register, or put the flag up, of forgets to chalk his name as a range officer on the black board, The police arrive do a check and he is again charged as in breach of ‘Responsibilities of person attending an approved range’
(1) Section 110(1) and (2), and instead of ‘20 penalty units to face he now faces 40 penalty units’.
Chris also has another problem as when he was picked up for a random check on the way to the rifle range, as firearms and the weapons act is involved, under the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act of 2000, Chris can be searched, not just his house, his car and but his person as well an what do you know the kind police man finds his Swiss Army pocket knife, that he had slipped into his pocket as the little screwdrivers were handy to adjust his telescopic sight with, well the spring had broken which holds the blade closed Now the blade will just open with gravity, just a flick of the wrist, no locked blade but the law does not insist on that, just that it can be opened without the use of two hands. Chris has now more charges to face. As the new law says,
“any knife so designed or constructed so as to be used as a weapon that while the knife is held in 1 hand, the blade may be released by that hand;” Oh a fair man would say but the Swiss Army pocket knife is not designed that way, but the policeman in court says that Chris broke the spring on purpose so he could operate the knife with one hand so constructed the breach. The Policeman gets promotion and a raise, Chris faces higher penalties as he has an illegal weapon and is looking at another 4 years in the Penitentiary. That’s not all as that would apply, if he was found to have a Stanley knife, or a box paper cutter, or an old fashioned razor, or a pair of scissors as they can be opened exposing the blade with one hand.
It gets worse as the new 68CA Prohibition on possession of particular magazines -category B weapons
‘(1) This section applies to the holder of a firearms licence who is the registered owner of a category B weapon under the licence.
‘(2) The holder must not possess a magazine—
(a) if the category B weapon has a lever or pump action—with a maximum capacity of more than 10 rounds for the weapon; or
(b) if the category B weapon is a repeating centre fire rifle—with a maximum capacity of more than 15 rounds for the weapon.
Maximum penalty—10 penalty units.
So hyper thetically Chris is keen on Lever Action competition at the Sporting Shooter and has some very nice Marlins, Winchesters, Commemoratives, worth two or three thousand dollars each so he has to hand in ten of them to the police for no compensation, $30,000 dollars worth as in .38 special he can get 11 in the magazine or more. What’s worse after he hand them in he is given a random police search and they find a few spare magazine tubes, and a 20 shot .223 magazine for his pump action Remington that he had sold and just kept the magazine. That’s 10 penalty points each and more legal costs.
They also found a spare magazine that he had not sold when he disposed of this Beretta Model 92 , 9mm in 2003 and now gets charged for being in possession of that as well due to the new section 68D (Prohibition on possession of magazine with more than 10 rounds) 68D Prohibition on possession of particular magazines—category H weapons’. More penalty point, wow the magistrates going to throw away the key. Paedophiles, cannot have their names in the newspaper but politicians can. He will spend more time in jail than a bank robber. I know a man named Frank, a pawn broker, who was charged with innocent, no victim, weapons act charges like these, he made the mistake of trying to defend himself, because he could not afford it and got 13 year, he is still in prison. When will Chris or you, or me, get out?
Chris also supports the new Clause 47 Amendment of s 73, “Modifying firearm to make it permanently in-operaberable”, not that anything ever is permanently in operable, every part could be butchered but someone can rectify it. That is not the point with this as, as this new section changes the requirements to how it has been achieved and the process of the way it has been done. Chris has a few wall hangers welded up on his wall at home, an old 12 gauge shotgun and a old 1866 lever action, both as dangerous as a boat anchor. When he has the search of his house, Chris dashes for his office desk and pulls out his list of firearms and the two certificates Police Forms 31 for the Permanently Inoperable firearms, the smart Policeman looking for another feather in his hat, says sorry they do not comply with the current legislation, you should have had them done again and re-certified as per the amendments of 2011.
He will be up for 50 A ‘Possession of unregistered firearms’, another 120 penalty points each, as Chris has supported and will vote for these amendments to the Weapons Act.
Chris feels good about banning knifes as he says they are used nine times more in violent crime than a firearm, but blunt instruments are used in ten times as many murders, does that justify banning bricks, beer bottles, boots, and ornaments. Britain went through this sham of banning even the kitchen knifes and still it is the murder capital of Europe. The only way to reduce personal attacks is to issue licences ‘to carry’ handguns. This has occurred in the USA which is the only countyr in the world that has reducing statistics in personal attacks.
Nothing in these amendments, will save a life or protect anyone from being stabbed, in fact the reverse, Crims bent on Murder, Mayhem, House invasions will not be put off with any of the provisions in any of these Acts of legislation, they will just feel more comfortable in the knowledge that ordinary good citizens are totally disarmed. How can Chris believe that any delinquent, even if he does not intend to murder others, and only wants to protect his life will take any notice either way. Its like asking the truck bomber, to fill up the parking meteor, before he leaves and sets off the bomb.
Say, instead of banning our tools they legislated to amputate every persons right hand, would they still not kill the same amount with the left.
The whole design of this legislation is aimed at the innocent, the people who do not know they have done anything wrong, it is designed to impose more threats and impositions on licensed shooters, with the aim of reducing the fast growing number of licenced shooter as the police weapons branch cannot cope.
Why is Chris helping Police, who wrote the legislation for the Labour politicians to put through parliament?
Has he not read it? Is he unaware of how it steals legally owned property from licenced shooters, without offering any compensation?
A. Has he had a pay off? I doubt it, I tend to think the best of people and I do not think he would do that.
B. Is Maryborough promised a new wing to it public hospital? Well that would be immoral, and reprehensible to exploit one section of the community to aid another, even if it was a deserving one. Also, do Labour politicians ever keep their promises? Surely Chris would not fall for that one?
C. Does Chris think, like many in the shooting fraternity. ‘Well, I do not have semi-auto, it does not affect me’, or ‘I do not have a Hand Gun, so it does not affect me’, or I do not have a pump action shotguns so it does not affect me? While they are picking on him, they might leave me alone. These people can never see, that we all have to hang together or they will hang us all together.
“In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
–Martin Niemöller, 1945
THE ENEMY WITHIN.
I have been observing, ‘the enemy within’, for 49 years of struggle against deceptive, misconstrued, power grabbing legislation. Each time I feel, disappointed, in people and betrayed. Every main political party has betrayed the shooters, now it is a local independent. Worse than that, he is one of our own, a competitive shooter, that is supporting this ‘bill’ this draconian legislation which it’s only purpose is to prop up a tyranny against us. If we cannot convince our own fraternity that Gun Control is just People Control, it is the end of all hope.
Chris Foley Speech is recorded in full on http://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/Bills/53PDF/2011/WeaponsAmB11.pdf
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