Worried Victorian shooters have begun a parliamentary epetition to stop further changes to gun laws, while the two NSW epetitions have quickly become the biggest in the state, surging beyond 20,000 signatures each overnight.
The NSW petitions are currently by far the most supported of all those listed on the NSW parliament website, despite starting only a day or so earlier.
Of the 36 petitions to the Legislative Assembly (house of representatives), only seven exceed four figures and second-largest only just surpasses 7000, while the gun-law petition had passed 22,000 by early Saturday morning and entered the list of the 10 largest epetitions ever presented there. Sign it here.
The petition to the Legislative Council had exceeded 22,000 early on Saturday and was already the fourth-largest on record there. Sign this petition here.
This is not to say the others may not have merit but it does illustrate the depth of concern being expressed by shooters, who have been unfairly targeted in what is widely recognised as a distraction from the real issues of antisemitism, extremism and failures of security.
The petitions remain open and shooters are being urged by all their representative organisers to sign them both as a matter of urgency before NSW parliament debates and votes on the government’s legislation on Monday and Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Victoria epetition recognises the flawed premise of the proposed NSW laws, saying the “proposed changes to gun legislation has been a knee-jerk reaction to a terrorist event in New South Wales”.
Sign the Victorian parliamentary petition here.
It goes on: “The current gun legislation is already sufficient and was not used to prevent this tragedy due to the gunmen already being on the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s watch list. The proposed changes will only further penalise our legally licensed firearm owners and will not in any way stop terrorist attacks in the near future.
“The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Council call on the Government to halt the proposed changes to gun legislation and push for tougher measures against non-Australian citizens who do not have the same opinion as Australian citizens and do not want to participate in the country’s values and freedoms.”
Since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese championed tougher gun laws even before the dust had settled following the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, support from state governments has been split down party lines, with Labor states falling into line, led by NSW, and Liberal/National governments showing less willingness to be dragged into diversionary law-making.
While the Victorian government has recently shown good support for hunting in the state after enormous public pressure to prevent the annual duck season from being shut down, there is no guarantee it will not follow NSW down the path of draconian new firearm restrictions.
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