The Australia Institute’s biased, anti-gun reports are a damaging attack on the community, further eroding trust and hindering honest debate in a country that’s suffering a growing lack of cohesion.
The institute’s latest report, The Hole In Australia’s Gun Laws, is another in a series of blatantly anti-gun reports, and it goes so far to accuse 86% of legal Australian shooters of fraudulently obtaining their licences.
The institute claims to be “fiercely non-partisan” but its research director, Rod Campbell, is aligned with anti-gun campaigners and has published research that simply backs the agenda of gun-control organisations.
It is extremely disheartening to see rampant partisanship getting airplay and being heard in the corridors of power, but it is also important for us shooters to recognise it if we are to counter the growing attacks on our sport and culture.
Campbell spruiks the Australian Gun Safety Alliance’s 10-point plan for firearm ‘reform’, saying, “We know how to reduce gun numbers in Australia and we know it works. It’s time for state and federal governments to prioritise public safety, reduce the number of guns in Australia and reform our gun laws.”
He is listed as being available for interviews about it.
Remember that the Gun Safety Alliance is not only made up of the usual gun haters such as Gun Control Australia, GunPolicy.org and the Alanna and Madeline Foundation, but groups such as the Australian Injury Prevention Network, Unicef, the Centre for Excellent in Child and Family Welfare, the Australian Health Promotion Association and many, many more who, I can only imagine, have absolutely no idea about the reality of Australian firearm ownership.
They are all lined up to hear the propaganda pedalled by the Australia Institute.
Meanwhile, the institute claims that its “activities are governed by the highest standards of reporting, based on exhaustively researched topics and constructive and unbiased conclusions”.
“With no formal political or commercial ties, the Institute is in a position to maintain its independence while advancing a vision for a fairer Australia,” its website claims.
Formal ties? Perhaps not, but the informal ones and the political leanings of the think-tank are clear and go a long way back.
When I asked its directors to respond to specific criticism about the ‘Hole’ report, they left it to their PR person to reply: “We stand by our research.”
They refused to share the methodology behind the research, and certainly didn’t respond to suggestions that the AusPlay data and firearms licensing data they compared where incompatible data sets — in other words, that the research was deeply flawed.
The Shooting Industry Foundation of Australia (SIFA) condemned the Hole report as “false, misrepresented, and inaccurate” — as “anti-shooting rhetoric [that] has highlighted the battle legal shooters and lawful shooting business operators face”.
“This misinformation has a real impact on the lives of people conducting legal shooting for recreation, sport and primary production,” SIFA CEO James Walsh said.
Meanwhile, we have a federal Labor Government surveying shooters with questions about whether we support reducing violence against women. Yes, the underlying assumption is that gun ownership is tied to violent misogyny.
That same government, as well as the NSW Labor Government, have enacted new gun laws under the guise of anti-terrorism laws, and then tell us that we’re wrong to feel like we’re being treated as terrorists.
It all adds up and the impact on us is real.
It is vital we all become aware of the methods, tactics and ploys of the anti-gun lobby and have measured, accurate responses to them that we can use in everything from lobbying to conversions with friends.
Silence is not an option.
0 Comments