Owen Guns Bulletin Edition 81 June 2013

 
This is a copy of my third letter to the Minister of Police.
To Hon Jack Dempsey MP, Member for Bundaberg,
Minister for Police and Community Safety,
GPO Box 15195, City East QLD,
4002 Brisbane  QLD 4000.
tel: 323 90199  fax: 3221 9987
Police@ministerial.qld.gov.au 
From Ron Owen, Firearm Owners Association,
24 Mc Mahon Road Gympie, 4570.  Phone 54 82 5070 
Submission. Please Remove the QPS Imposed  $32.20 Fee and Application Form.
Dear Sir.
This is the third time I have written to you 26/04/13 and 12/05/13 on this subject, the first two communications even though they have been polite and used the word ‘please’, have not been answered.
With no information from you or your department, the licenced shooters of Queensland can only assume that the latest Firearm Amnesty that allowed unregistered firearms to be registered to shooters licences by Licenced Dealers was lawfully conducted under:- Weapons Act 1990.Part 3 Acquisition, sale and disposal of weapons. Current as at 8 April 2013 Page 65
36 Sale or disposal of weapons
(1) A person must not sell or otherwise dispose of a weapon unless—
(a) the person sells or otherwise disposes of the weapon to a licensed dealer; or
(i) through a licensed dealer; or
(c) the person sells or otherwise disposes of the weapon under other lawful authority, justification or excuse.
(2) If the sale or disposal happens under subsection (1)(c), the person must give to an authorised officer the information prescribed under a regulation in the way and within the time prescribed under the regulation.
That the ‘other lawful authority’, under (1) c, was the persons licence for the category of weapon that was disposed to them by the licensed dealer, and the “information prescribed under a regulation” is the Form 10.
As you are aware, we have had no changes to the Weapons Act 1990 since April 2013 when over 10,000 firearms were registered by licenced Dealers to correctly licensed shooters, so why cannot this process continue?  This is a precedent which must be acceptable to the Queensland Police Service as they advertised it State wide and included the results in State Wide Press Releases.
As I am a Queensland licenced dealer, (for 33 years) Could you please write back and inform me of any legislative prohibition which would prevent me from supplying a registered firearm to a licenced shooter who has the correct category license ‘lawful authority’, and  give to an authorised officer the information prescribed under a regulation in the way and within the time prescribed under the regulation, a Form 10. In the same manner of the precedent was conducted during the Firearms Amnesty. Could you please supply this information within 15 days, as you can appreciate if you cannot find any prohibition to this above process under the current legislation, Licensed Dealers within the State of Queensland will be able to lawfully supply firearms to Licensed Shooters.
When your government was elected to office, it was done on a general promise that 20 % of the useless ‘red tape’ and bureaucratic time wasting would be removed. The hundreds of thousand of licensed shooters in Queensland have yet to see or feel any benefit from this promise. A simple acknowledgement to the above process would be a late, but welcome start on that 20%.
Yours Ron Owen
President Firearm Owners Association of Australia. 

Well I hope the 7000 plus shooters who receive this Bulletin have all by now written at least once, a little submission to the Minister of Police in Queensland Jack Dempsey asking him to acknowledge that there is no requirement for a Permit to Acquire, as the precedent during the 3 month amnesty of Dealers registering firearms on the spot has been made with out any legislative changes. The imposition of the PTA should be removed and will be IF enough shooters go to the sleight trouble to send a quick email to the Police Minister. Just a few minutes of your time and no expense. I can approximately say that the Minister would have received a few hundred emails on the subject, as many hundreds of shooters emailed me a copy of their emails.
I also know that our local member here in Gympie has received enough copies on the subject to motivate him to seek an appointment with the Police Minister to ask him the above  question. “Why is he still imposing the PTA system on the shooters of Queensland, who have already complied with the Weapons Act 90, who have paid money for a licence to have and use firearms in those categories, have waited the 28 day cooling off period and have that licence in their possession ?”
To limit licenced shooters again by enforcing further waiting periods, further expense, further impositions is in contradiction to the Weapons Act which purportedly gives licence holders the right they have paid for already, to own firearms of the category on the licence. (‘purportedly gives’ as I believe any law abiding citizen is born with that right) The PTA system is an extra requirement required only by the Queensland Police, and as it has been now exposed as superfluous and is only a whim and a fund raiser of the Queensland Police.

We may have not won this battle YET, but already we have won some small things, we have shown shooters how as a group they are being heavily discriminated against. They have found out, that when they write submissions to there government, asking for there rights, when the government has no legislative foundation, and are embarrassed, the Minister’s will not answer the correspondence as they should do.
Also those shooters who took my advice and wrote to there own shooting organisations asking for copies of the Shooting Clubs submissions to the Police Minister asking him to remove the PTA imposition have had no answers. These Associations have neglected to support there own members. Mostly, their only contribution of supporting the rights of their members will be, (if we are lucky), to send a delegate to the Ministers Advisory Panel meeting. A meeting dominated by the Queensland Police Union delegates working with Robert Nioa, who represents the Queensland Dealers Association but who really has to represent his biggest customer the Queensland Police Service. A conflict of interest that we suffer under.
So those of you, who have had a go at changing and improving our sport, our hobby, our way of life, our rights. “Thank You”, on behalf of the shooters of Queensland and myself. Now you know that we, our group of workers, are all together, but on our own. No one else is going to change things for us, if change and improvement is ever made in the future it will be up to us. We the do’ers, our time, our life time, our expense and any future victory is due to our efforts alone. I hope we are all there to claim the glory and hope it is not a silent glory, I hope all your friends, who knew that some small thing needed doing and never actually made the effort to do it, know that you did take the time, and that the future benefits that your friends get will be due to your efforts.  I only heard of one shooter getting an answer, he sent a copy of his submission to a Police Inspector that he knew and received a reply. Which went like this, “ The Queensland Police Service has no intention of disposing of the Permit to Acquire system.”  Well its good to know what they think, but fortunately we do not live in a Police State, we are not governed by the Queensland Police Service, in fact we are supposed to be governed for the people, by the people. Our Commonwealth Constitution like the American Constitution starts with the words “WHEREAS the people,” we the people have agreed(ed) to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth. We the people employ our Members of Parliament to represent us, to follow our instructions, we are there employers our taxes pay their wages. We have a government that historically works under a system of the separation of power, where the legislature that makes laws is separate from the Courts and separate from the Police the enforcement of those laws. Our system of government is not working at all if the ‘enforcement’, the Police, are making the decisions, who are also dominating our representatives and legislating for the interests of the Queensland Police Service instead of the interests of ‘we the people’ or Queensland. 

So now that we now know its up to us, or nothing will ever change, are you willing to do something else for the firearm “Rights” If you have sent a submission like the one above please send again to him asking for a reply as you have been patiently waiting for a month with no acknowledgement and forward a copy of this to your local member of parliament asking him to ask the Minister of Police for an answer on your behalf.  You can find his email, fax mail address in this list, http://www.qgd.qld.gov.au/legislative_assembly.html#addresses, in fact if you feel disposed send them all one, ask them all why your not getting any answers from the Police Minister ask them who is running the government the Queensland Police or the people? Send the same copy to and all your local papers as a letter to the editor.  http://www.rdatanwq.org.au/media/regional-media  Go on have a go its easy, become a voice for justice, a voice for freedom, lets seize the day, we have nothing to lose but our chains.

Ron Owen  

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