By MICHAEL SLOVANOS
PRIME Minister Anthony Albanese has done the predictable – he is proposing tougher gun laws that could include limits to the number of guns someone can possess legally and a review of existing licences.
This sounds alarmingly like a national version of the recent gun grab in Western Australia, in which police confiscated firearms from registered owners purely on the basis of them being suspected of holding “sovereign citizen” beliefs.
If Albanese and company are planning something similar, what will be their excuse for confiscation? Holding radical Islamic ideology? Albanese and company wouldn’t dare offend their immigrant Sydney voting base – it’s the middle class, rural and suburban white Australians whose firearms they want.
WA’s Labor Party has already, brazenly demonstrated this totalitarian intention. SA and NSW Labor will do the same along with the Victorian Bolsheviks – although the latter will be reluctant to do anything “too radical” with an election due next year.
But don’t count on Victorian Liberals like Senator James Paterson to defend firearm ownership rights. Paterson was on the ABC this week in the wake of the Bondi shooting mouthing off about how the Bondi Beach attack was “a moment that will change our country”.
“This will forever change our country in the same way that Port Arthur changed our country … And frankly it has to change our country because we can’t go on like this,’ the senator told Sky News. “We can’t allow antisemitism to fester as it has over the last two years.”
Asked if there was anything the government could’ve done to prevent this attack, Paterson told the ABC – in sharp contrast to every Israeli mouthpiece – “it wouldn’t be fair to prescribe blame at this stage”.
However, Paterson, the shadow Finance Minister, said he would be happy to “consider changes to gun laws, as being proposed by the PM at national cabinet”. So the Liberals, it appears, will be nodding in approval when the hammer comes down on Australian firearm owners.
The social media page of the WA Firearms Community Alliance notes that rifle clubs were an important component of Australian Defence Policy, enabling the acquisition of a useful military skill at no direct cost to the defence budget. By the early 1900’s civilian rifle clubs were being established as successors to the colonial era Volunteer Corps.
The National Rifle Association of West Australian (NRAWA) was formed in 1901 to guide and coordinate the growing sport. Its first “Kings” prize meeting was held in 1902 at the Karrakatta Rifle Range. A parallel “Kings” prize meeting was held by the Goldfields Rifle Association until the competitions were merged in 1911.
A detailed review of defence in Australia by Lord Kitchener recommended a continuation of support to rifle clubs as well as the introduction of Universal Service. The NRAWA had a name change in 1965, to the West Australian Rifle Association (WARA).