By Dennis DeMartins
The ongoing battle over the Adler shotgun in Australia has taken a new plot twist. PM Tony Abbott who last week personally intervened to ban the Adler, pulled another fast one over firearms owners heads. Staying true to form, in the early hours of Friday morning Abbott moved the goalposts and changed the Customs Act to prohibit the importation of lever action shotguns over 5 round capacity. Not really surprising, particularly when one reads Tony Abbott’s pre-election promise to firearm owners.
Naturally, during the week the poorly written hit pieces continued and infuriated firearms owners duly responded. The pick of the bunch had to be this attempt by the ABC, claiming that the Liberal Party had traded away migration rights for a shotgun while casually omitting the fact the shotgun was already legal prior to the illegal actions of Abbott.
Later in the week, Liberal Democrats Senator David Leyonhjelm was able to earn a reprieve for firearms owners and after a meeting with Justice Minister Michael Keenan, the Adler will become available to firearms owners after 12 months.
Leyonhjelm also hosted Canadian MP Gary Breitkreuz, who was instrumental in getting the firearms registry in Canada removed in 2012.
Not to undermine the great work of Senator Leyonhjelm continuing to represent firearm owners, but it is difficult to see this as any kind of “win” for firearm owners and is essentially more of the incrementalist approach of the grabbers we all know. Further, one immediately asks the question: Why is a lever action shotgun that has never been illegal in 128 years and that only took a day to ban, is now going to take 12 months to repeal and become legal?
The answer to that is simple, and threefold:
1) Australian Federal Election will occur in the next twelve months, with the ruling Liberal/National Coalition albeit guaranteed to get kicked out (they’ve lost a million firearm owners votes just for a start among the rest of Australia they’ve pissed off)
2) The National Firearms Agreement review findings will be released, and of course;
3) 20th anniversary of the Port Arthur Massacre and, combined with point 2), the amount of emotional leverage the anti-gun crowd hope to exploit to pass further restrictions
More leaked documents surfaced this week from a National Firearms and Weapons Policy Working Group meeting from 2005 which showed that all pump, lever and even bolt action firearms were due to be banned. This just goes to show how much the NFWPWG, led by Catherine Smith (the usual faceless self appointed bureaucrat with no firearms, criminology or law enforcement experience and bigotry towards firearms owners), can be believed when the NFA review is only going to “update the technical elements of the NFA.”
It also shows you how incredibly hypocritical Michael Keenan is, when one reads his maiden speech when being elected to parliament in 2004, most notably the part about less government interference in one’s life.
Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, a firearm owner and instrumental in destroying the handgun grab earlier in the year, met with Keenan in Perth earlier in the week and was able to create a consultation group and get firearm owners a seat at the negotiating table. This is especially pertinent, considering firearm owners were not going to be consulted at all prior to the Adler ban.
Again, not to undermine the fantastic work of Senator McKenzie at all, but whether this group actually has some teeth and will stand up for the firearms community or becomes the usual case of “here, let’s allow them to put this group together to say we consulted them as a PR move and as an out clause, but we’ll do our own thing anyway and ban what we want,” remains to be seen.
Earlier this week, the architect of the previous gun grab, PM John Howard, announced he will be speaking at a function for gun control. As discussed previously, this is essentially the commencement of the “stand on the graves of the Port Arthur victims tour” until April 2016. This event is billed as a “non-profit fundraiser”, because nothing screams non-profit like a $400 a head.
The most notable part of the announcement had to be this zinger from the other public half of Gun Control Australia, Sam Lee, (who was destroyed this week on ABC Radio by SSAA President Geoff Davis), stated that “any disruption on the part of gun lobby groups will not be tolerated”. Ah, where would we be without the usual threat of violence and intimidation from the peace-loving anti-gun crowd? It’s also interesting to note that expressions of free speech only apply to those speaking and not those protesting, given that the current Liberal government has attempted everything it could to get speech laws relaxed. This is even more comically hypocritically, given Australian “comedian” Andrew Denton, who made a nearly three decade career on Australian television ridiculing whoever he wanted and saying whatever he wanted, will be the token celebrity, unqualified, emotive anti-gun opinion at the event.
Howard will also no doubt be doing his best to conjure up as much emotion as he can, while ignoring the fact that the buyback didn’t work, buyback guns ended up in the hands of criminals and will continue sidestepping requests for a coronial inquiry into what actually happened at Port Arthur, as he has done for the last 19 years.
Howard more than likely will also be avoiding the issue of Australia’s grossly inadequate victimhood-perpetuating self defense laws, as highlighted by TTAG earlier this week, where a Perth man was going to be charged with assault for protecting his family against a home invader until public outcry put an end to that.
Perhaps find solace in the fact WA Police’s average response time to critical incidents is now at 20 minutes.
Tar, feathers, politician. Some assembly required.
Works in all nations, you just have to do it.
Roo fritters…..
The post refers to both Tony Abbott and John Howard as PM. Howard, of course, is a former seventy-term PM. And the current PM, Tony Abbott, seems to have a lot in common with Bud Abbott.
So what is it about AUS that makes people stay? It can’t just be the women’s accents. That hardly offsets cane toads, a gaggle of venomous snakes, spiders, other insects, AND crap gun laws.
Don’t the NZ peeps live a better gun life and it’s just a short boat ride away?
Can’t we just import the gun loving Aussies and give them our gun hating liberals and illegals?
Weather, wine, women and beaches. It’s like California, only much less people per square mile (even in the inhabitable areas).
Very high standard of living. Relatively safe.(not counting how all the wildlife is poisonous and wants to murder you) good climate (on the coasts where everyone lives)
Bob if you can secure me a job in NZ i will be there as soon as my uni degree is finished (its the currant plan anyway) even better would be the US
Am I the only one struck by the irony that in the land down under, a Liberal Democrat is advancing the cause of gun rights??
It’s funny but in the UK and AU the most leftist leftist are the social/labor/green parties. The liberal Democrats (not to be confused with the American socialist democrat party) are actually more centrist in those nations while the real conservatives are nowhere on the political radar screen. The “conservative” Torries are in charge in the UK but it’s still headed full steam ahead with global warming and mass Islamic immigration with no reprieve from the domestic surveillance and gun control policies of the Labor party.
In most of the world, ‘liberal’ actually means ‘libertarian’. We’re the weird ones.
To be more precise, “liberal” just means “economic liberal” (i.e. less market regulation, lower taxes etc), without any particular implications as to other issues. A “Liberal” party can be libertarian, or it can be conservative.
The word “liberal” was hijacked in the US by an ideology antithetical to it.
It really IS upside down!
David L of the lib Dems is a gun owners rights activist, a competitive target shooter (we were in the same club at one time), and did a very good job on the Greens Senate Inquiry into firearms.
He is one of the few local politicians I have any respect for. As for Tony Abbot, he did have a colleague named Tim Costello, and he runs the country like a sports team at a private school with his “captain’s picks” overruling parliament, the liberal party, and his own cabinet.
Austrailia sounds like fun. I used to admire the country years ago. Now, not so much.
It’s been nearly 20 years since I set foot in Oz. Wonderful place, chock full ‘o…let’s just say “female companionship”.
So, do the Aussie politicians just randomly decide to ban some gun now and then? “Today it’s Tuesday, lets ban XYZ!”
It appears that there is no cost benefit analysis, no actual quantifiable public good required to just up and ban something. Sorta like NY, NJ, and CA.
God help us, I live in Western Australia and it is a backwards state I’ll tell you, if I had the time I would tell you what it takes to get a firearm and how much it cost for the the cops to think about approving one.
Help us, the media is so bias and loaded with bullshit, get onto our forums and let these idiots know the truth, I try but I’m not the brightest tool in the shed.
Love your site, keep up the good work.
Tumbles.
I am Australian.
Me too! We should hang out… And shoot some stuff… And be legally responsible unlike the criminal element that this proposed law is supposedly meant to curb…
Hey RF, any word on that Australian girls school paper?
WOW! I have a couple of friends living “down under” and they told me it was bad, but I had no idea just how bad. And I’m perplexed because the Aussies I know are not short in the brass balls dept. so why have these anti-gun politicians not been kicked out of the country for being treasonous pigs?
As an Aussie all I can say is this: propaganda! A few douche canoes seem to have a louder voice than the law abiding firearms owners and there is no watchdog for these dick faces! The yuppie skinny jean wearing hipsters who pay $50 for a fricken’ latte and have no idea about the difference between javing their eyebrows waxed and their anuses bleached vote for the protection of the cute and fluffies because they don’t understand the impact of these pest! They also like and follow PETA so you know you can’t trust them!
I have to live in this socialist joke of a country… Our politicians are complete fuckwits who don’t understand the concept of “democracy”, “freedom”, or “tolerance”. Seriously I hate these fucking idiots………
Gawd, what a bunch of wannabe NRA gun nut jobs. Why do any of you really need a repeat action gun? If you are target shooters you will have a far more specialised weapon. If you are a farmer you are unlikely to need one of these and animals don’t really hunt in packs here. Serious dick waving seems to be what you guys are about and there is no decent reason for it other than ego. Farmers that need a rifle can get one, competitive target shooters can get licences. No one else actually needs a gun and as can be seen by our gun death record in comparison to the woeful US one the restrictions are better than their stupid and dangerous misreading of their amendment rights.
Troll! There’s a troll in the dungeon! -promptly collapses to floor-
Might as well ban cars knifes smokes these kill more people than a gun .
The registered owners that have licenses for firearms are not the one’s you should be looking at. The focus should be getting rid of the black market one’s that the criminal’s are using in robberies , murders and so on , but there the to hard basket it’s easier to pick on the Law abiding citizens that have there firearms registered and they know where they are .
Wake up, stand up and fight for your rights as responsible gun owners dont be railroaded, make it count Election time and letters to your local mp, federal member and your fellow man , ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
Perth man was going to be charged? What a total misrepresentation of the truth. This makes me question anything you write on this page – is it all just a pathetic a manipulation full of lies and hype?
Comments are closed.