Owen Guns Bulletin April 2015 Edition 103

As the last National -Liberal Government decided to commit suicide and hand over to an even more socialist government, there has been a delay in the response back to parliament concerning our Parliamentary E- Petition. Well that is the excuse, many have mentioned that the report will have to be either a lie, or assent, both breeding reluctance by the staff to make report at all. I have made enquiries and been promised that the response to Parliament will be handed down on the 27^th April by the Honourable  Jo-Ann Miller, the  Current Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services Prisons and funny walks. Then the 2272 of the nearly 9000 shooters who get this Bulletin will receive an email copy. Yes, I know that 2272 is a piddley amount in comparison to the affected 600,000 licenced shooters who have suffered the imposition of it for 15 years, but most of these E-Petitions that parliament takes notice of do not even make 200 see other in the list https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-assembly/petitions/closed-e-petitions

Yes, I know that most of our representatives will not even bother reading the 200 words in the petition, nor the response to it, but whose fault it that? Besides the politicians arrogance and ignorance the fault lies with us the 600,000 licenced shooter in the State of Queensland who suffer in silence and complacently put up with it. So, again please, when those 2272 people receive a lie by email they should immediately respond back to Hon Jo-Ann Miller Photo

Phone: (07) 3288 3737 Fax: (07) 3818 1613 Email: Bundamba@parliament.qld.gov.au

And her supposedly superior Hon Annastacia Palaszczuk Phone: (07) 3719 7000

Email: thepremier@premiers.qld.gov.au.
If each had 2000, or so complaints and many more are possible when we include family and friends the work load would be quadrupled by the staff the mainstream media would know about it and respond. We then have an issue that will hopefully involve a response from the lost 600,000 who do nothing for our common cause.

APATHY
Their inactivity, their apathy forms the chains and bars that imprison us all. Their only excuse is that they cannot remember how great the taste of freedom was. The choice is within us all to either protest, or huddle down and hope your not noticed by the evil empire that has set itself over us all. I suppose I am frustrated, not just because of the imposed tyranny which the double imposition of a licence and PTAs is just one small example of, but for our tyrants to ignore all the logic and fact that proves that their ghastly bureaucratic nightmare is just an expensive waste of government and citizens resources, they still cling to the chains of control and Parkinson Law of perpetuating increases in government staff. Control at any cost, your cost, you and I pay for our own jailors, chains and bars. As they build their glass and steel Skyscrapers, the modern equivalent to the Pyramids, filled with floors of minions making decisions, forming opinions, defining legislation, making determinations that control our lives. They sit about thinking of more ways to create obstructions to our civil rights, our industry, our sport and hobbies.

Light, Hope From The Heart Of Darkness.
Just recently there has been some light that has entered the darkened tyranny. Strangely enough, it was initiated by one of the central cores at the Heart of Darkness, the Greens, but they did not enjoy the fruit from the Green tree. The Greens initiated the Commission in the Senate and Green Senator Penny Wright Chaired the ‘The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee’ who had to return a finding on the,
‘Ability of Australian law enforcement authorities to eliminate gun-related violence in the community’
The Full Report. http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/Committees/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/Illicit_firearms/report.pdf
(My Brief of the Report http://www.foaa.com.au/ammunition-to-send-to-politicans/brief-on-the-senatelegal-and-constitutional-affairs-report-on-australian-gun-laws/   )

My submission on behalf of The Firearm Owners Association of Australia.
I entered two submissions both 68 pages, the Committee, or maybe the staff or the Chair decided to accept only one of them from the Queensland Indoor Air Rifle Association. http://www.foaa.com.au/general/an-un-submissive-submission-on/

The findings of the Committee comprised of two separate Reports with two separate recommendation, one set from the Chair Penny Wright who do not get confused is not related to Penny Wrong, and one from the Majority of the Committee Members who accepted facts and logic instead of hate and emotion.

The Majority findings were highly critical of the recommendations of the chair and found that there was a lack of evidence to support those recommendations, they issued a new set of Recommendations which as they are the majority replace the first set which are now eternally condemned as a falsehood.

Instead they made recommendations such as Recommendation 5

“1.225 The majority of Senators attending the inquiry recommend State and territory governments investigate avenues to deregulate the firearm industry to ease the economic burden on governments, industry and legal firearm users.”

That and the information that was accepted by them to come to that conclusion is the best break through in Australia since Chief Inspector Newgreen issued the Newgreen Report which led to the removal of Firearm Registration in Victoria during the 1980s
In the report, he described the registration of all firearms as a waste of public money and time.
“Probably, and with the best of intentions, it may have been thought that if it were known what firearms each individual owned, some form of control may be exercised. “… and those who were guilty of criminal mis-use could be readily identified. “This is a fallacy, and has been proven not to be the case.” “In my view (firearms registration) does not repress or control the criminal mis-use of, or irresponsible use of, firearms,” he said. Asked yesterday if he regretted taking such a strong stand, Chief Inspector Newgreen said: “How can you ever regret speaking the truth? I told the Government what I believed to be true and correct.” http://www.foaa.com.au/?s=Newgreen

This finding by the  SENATE is a landmark breakthrough.
Every Australian State and Territory, Attorney Generals Department and Police put in submissions, so did the Greens and Gun Control Australia, of course this was countered by about 400 pro-gun submissions, but this Senate Inquiry (Really the same as Royal Commission) was open to all Licensed Shooters in Australia, where was the million other submissions why again is so much owed by so many, to so few.

When any State Police again refer to the National Firearm Agreement (The NFA) as some godlike power as its from the mouth of the Commonwealth, just past decisions by our politicians, we can rightly say but ‘that has been replaced by the Commonwealth Inquiry that all Police States had made there submissions and the Committee had a majority agreement that the States should ‘DEREGULATE’ and ask when are they going to follow its RECOMMENDATIONS.

We All Should Ask Our Local Politicians When Will ‘DEREGULATION Begin? 
Last week when I was a delegate to a meeting with the QPS Weapons Department on behalf of the Firearm Designers Theamic Collectors Association Inc. when I suggested that Licensed Collectors who have to run a register of their collections should not have to apply for PTAs as well, that they could in the same way as Dealers or Armourers just record the acquisition in there register and send a Form 10 to Weapons Licencing with a duplicate of the information. I was bellowed and told to be silent on the matter of PTAs as it had nothing to do with Historical Associations, I would not be silenced and I pointed out that the impositions on Firearm Collectors were similar to all licensed holder in the State, I told by a Police Sergeant and an Inspector that I was wrong that collectors were happy with their lot, that this meeting with the Collector associations was just to round off the procedures, to improve communication between the Weapons Licencing and Collectors Associations. The Sergeant followed up with his idea that government would never give away the millions it was annually taking in due to the $34.00 PTA application fee. I firstly pointed out that two years ago a Parliamentary Standing Committee had found that it cost $64. for any government department to receive, receipt and send a response to any amount of money paid to it. (That finding persuaded the last government offer ten year licences to shooters) so the government was already out of pocket. That figure does not include the cost of all the mistakes in the Weapons Register, that besides making it totally useless, cost the taxpayer and shooters millions.
Ditch Registration! As the Senate Inquiry Found Successful In New Zealand, and Canada. (Before The System Breaks Anyway)
The Police strongest response was since the new computer system they received very few complaints about PTAs and that they had a role under the Act for Community Protection. I replied that before they entered the role of Community Protection that they had to identify that Licenced Shooters were a threat to the Community, and as the finding of the Senate Committee was that the licensed shooters were not in anyway a threat and that the States should deregulate due to the cost on government, industry and the law abiding shooters.
I informed them that they had a responsibility to inform the Government that it has to decide to either persist in the futility of registration and make it easier for licensed shooters to add all of the thousands of ‘Off the Book’ firearms to the Police register, By removing PTAs and Permanently Inoperable requirements as they are huge blocks in the way of shooters who want to have their firearms lawfully. I also added that ‘Blind Freddy’ could see that the amount of imports and increases in numbers of licensed shooters would eventually make the Police Firearm register impossible to sustain, already it was cracking at the seams with at least one in four pieces of information needing correction. Surely, it would be better to at least get the shooter address right and concentrate on licencing the shooters and keeping the Gun Shop registers as that was the source information that they had to ultimately rely on as theirs was so flawed. 

Rule by Police Decree.
I had, had my say, the HAC, The Guild, the Military Collectors, the Light Horse and the Shooters Union, all listed their problems that they suffered under the Police impositions. The Police answered with words such as that is ‘Police Policy’, We have ‘determined’ that is the meaning in the Act, or that is the ‘meaning’ of the NFA, or that is our ‘in opinion’ on that section, or our decision ‘looking at the Act as a whole’, or our ‘definition’ of the Act and if you don’t like it take it to QCAT (court) at your expense. I pointed out that these points qualified my initial statement, that it was not just me, or our Associations that felt that way, all of the Associations present felt these impositions. Most caused by Police procedure, but nearly all could be solved by eliminating large sections of the Weapons Act 1990 and the Police Procedure Manual.
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Your Shooting Prices.
The Australian Dollar continues to decline last night it was .77 cents. .23 cents from last October but by the time the increased freight cost in USD and percentage factor increases in bank costs, wholesalers cost and GST cost eventually the prices on imported goods will equate to a 30 to 40 % increase on current prices. Owen Guns, due to advanced purchasing should be able to hold most prices until June and due to those large quantity purchases some lines may be even cheaper, but it is all temporary. Prices have began to go up elsewhere and they will eventually affect Owen Guns but unless the dollar recovers over 95% of the shooting goods you normally buy will vastly increase.

Ron Owen