Here is the article from which this Press Release was issued.
https://thepoint.com.au/explainers/260317-the-gaping-hole-in-australias-gun-laws-explained
Note that the only reliable data available to the author is from the NSW Firearms Registry and the article cherry picks from this resource to hammer home the point that gun laws in Autralia, generally, are too permissive. And I agree with that.
I do not know where the Australian Sports Commission get their data from, presumably from olympic discipline feeder parts of gun clubs, but I suggest that this data is limited and not representative of all club membership and their activities.
The author also relies on information from the QLD SSAA which in no longer a Branch of the National SSAA, a point glossed over by the author, and hence does not represent the rest of the country in terms of rifle shooters within the national SSAA’s ambit. QLD have long been unrepresentative of the rest of Australia in many ways, especially in terms of gun ownership which is seen as a right up there (I’m generalising here as well due to lack of data).
What seems to emerge from this article, is that the author commits the same errors our NSW govt committed, a lack of complete and open minded consultations with all affected parties before making up their minds as to what needs to be done. Had the author spoken with the National SSAA, the article would have a different tone and different conclusions, and gone some ways to strenghten Australia’s gun laws rathr than ‘thrashing’ them outright.
To get a gun licence in Australia, an applicant must have a “genuine reason” to use a gun. You can’t just have a gun because you want one -- firearm ownership is a privilege in Australia, not the sort of right that United States gun owners never tire of talking about.
@SeanHawley
Hmmmm… the Australia Institute should get their ‘sports’ shooter licence data from firearms registries, not sports associations. That data will show that there are strict reporting compliance levied on firearms licences one of which is that a number of gun club competition participation per reporting season is required to maintain that licence.
The author also fails to identify the source of the data used to support his arguments beyond the nebulous ‘official sports participation’ data. Heck, the author isn’t even identified. Disappointed in Australia Institute for releasing this headline-like vacuous ‘Press Release’.
Prove me wrong and I’ll apologise. Remember…there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Having said that, I will agree that there are a lot of things which ought to be done to make gun ownership safer, the obvious one is to legislate a single set of national gun laws and regulations and establish a single national firearms registry properly staffed and funded. One law, one registry, one set of compliance orders. I’ll be dead before that happens I’ll bet.
Disclosure: I am a licensed sports shooter (target shooting).
#GunLaws #AusPol
NSW gun licence loophole allows non-hunters to claim firearms access
It seems to me that the public discussion on #firearm control would better be served if govts released the documents or transcripts of meetings and the information they have gathered to help them come to their decisions — there’s something going on, otherwise all States would come out with the same data that would inform pretty uniform decisions nationally. Instead we, yet again, have different #gunlaws in different jurisdictions. Oh…and guess what, the #NationalFirearmsRegistry Howard legislated for, well we’re still waiting for that and likely to wait a long while yet, if we ever get one.
So, either govts did not consult widely nor gathered the facts and acted on politcal gut feel, or there’s power (aka money) behind the decisions and nothing to do with keeping guns out of the hands of #Crims and #NutCases.
T
For the sake of full disclosure, I am an active member of a gun club.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-15/tas-chief-of-police-on-firearms-ownership-limits/106456894
In the push for gun law reform in the wake of the Bondi attack, Tasmania's Police Commissioner urged the state government to limit the number of firearms a person can own, citing the murder of an officer the year before in her plea — but to no avail, documents show.
There is no good reason, in the 21st century, for anyone to own a firearm. They are killing-tools, nothing more. Let's stop the killing and ban them?
Are "vermin" really a good reason to own one??? No!
Liam O'Mara IV, PhD
RaymondPierreL3
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