To all licensed shooters in NSW, this is the text of an email I have just sent to my local State MP, Bruce Notley-Smith, Member for Coogee.
If you can think of another good reason to make your local State Lower House member seriously think about how he or she will vote next Tuesday on this bill, then google their email address and send them a polite email to attempt to change their minds.
Hello Bruce,
Hopefully you recall our recent correspondence on this bill, which is yet to be passed in the Lower House but due for Tuesday next week. While I fear it is a done deal, I’d like to present you with a scenario that may chill your bones, but that will be well within the realms of possibility if this bill goes through unamended.
Scenario: A licensed and ethical firearms dealer, in response to the imminent bill being passed, creates a computerised database to record ammunition sales to licensed shooters. By the legislation, he will have to take their details from the shooter’s firearm registration form and he will have to record the shooter’s address, the amount of ammunition purchased and the calibre/chambering of that firearm, for which the ammunition was purchased. That information then joins similar records from hundreds of other licensed ammunition purchasers.
Some months down the track a bikie gang (or similar criminal organisation) employs a computer hacker to break into those records and record them.
That gang then has the address records of every licensed shooter who has purchased ammunition from that business and proceeds to conduct a series of armed home invasions, with the express purpose of forcing the owners to open their safes and surrender their firearms and ammunition. In the process, the licensed firearm owner cannot offer armed resistance, because by law, his firearms are locked up and ammunition is stored in a separate locked container, so he and his family have every chance of being killed or brutalised by the thieves.
As a final insult, the police could then charge the licensed firearm owner with failure to adequately secure his firearms and ammunition, until he could prove otherwise and his license would most likely be suspended. Don’t laugh – it has happened.
I question whether that licensed and seriously aggrieved firearms owner would have any chance of claiming compensation against the government for facilitating this violent and criminal act. It only needs to happen once and the precedent is established. Please think very seriously about how you will vote on this bill, because I and all my licensed friends and acquaintances in the Eastern Suburbs are watching the outcome with great interest and concern.
Regards,
Marcus O’Dean
Editor, Sporting Shooter Magazine
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