The Australian gun control lobby has been buoyed by the victory handed to it under Western Austalia’s new gun laws, and it is ramping up its rhetoric in an apparent effort to get similar laws enacted across the country.
As James Walsh points out, the anti-gun lobby’s ideology was taken as gospel by the committee that was supposed to inquire into the failures of WA’s firearms legislation.
But the fact is the anti-gunners’ case is hollow.
The bottom line is that gun crime in Australia is so low as to be statistically irrelevant; that firearms ownership has climbed roughly in line with population growth; that while the numbers of firearms in our community has grown, the misuse of firearms has continued to fall.
Australia does not have a problem with guns.
So the anti-gun lobby resorts to repeating two things: that we are “complacent” about gun control; and that the public wants to “feel” safe. An unfounded accusation of complacency is a pretty poor grounding for any lobby, but resorting to the elevation of feelings over facts is pathetic.
Rod Campbell, a researcher from the Australia Institute, says it’s all about the feels: Australians “want to feel safe, and to feel safe they want [fewer] guns around,” he told the ABC recently. With comments like that, Campbell comes across more as an advocate than a researcher. We should remember that the Australia Institute has demonstrated itself to be an organisation with anti-gun ideologies despite presenting itself as a legitimate think tank.
“Complacency” and “complacent” seem to have become the favourite words of Gun Control Australia’s president Tim Quinn. You can find them in just about any article or report he is quoted in.
The words almost invariably accompany a call for increased restrictions of gun ownership and use. But again, the statistics simply do not support any need for more restrictive gun laws. Australia does not have a problem with its legally owned firearms.
It makes me wonder were the likes of Campbell and Quinn were when a person without a gun licence, using an unregistered rifle that was banned 30-odd years ago, fired shots in Croydon, NSW, a few weeks ago. I suspect that kind of shooter doesn’t suit the anti-gun agenda.
Instead, the anti-gunners spew fake outrage about public safety and lawful owners of firearm. If they want to help Australians feel safe, they should simply shut up.
Australians have far greater concerns than firearms owned and used by licensed citizens. Australians are certainly not in any danger from us.
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