The Trojan Horse revisited

By Marcus O’Dean

Australian law-abiding shooters are being lined up as the primary targets for punishment by their political masters and the pollies are getting the faceless, but oh-so willing bureacrats to do their dirty work for them.

Your Federal government is lining all its ducks up on the wall in order to justify future confiscation of your currently legitimately owned and registered firearms by reclassification through regulation. How can this occur in a democracy, you ask? Well, they justify it by saying there is a heightened threat environment while incidentally wallowing in crocodile tears over an event that happened 20 years ago. The 20^th Anniversary of Port Arthur is such an event and the occurrence of the Martin Place siege was the recent, dubiously-fortuitous catalyst to restrict the importation and classification of the Adler shotgun.

So what is the difference between legislation and regulation? Well, prospective legislation has to be tabled in parliament, in full public view, be debated by the lower house and approved by the upper house (Senate in the Federal sphere). As such, aggrieved constituents/voters can exert legitimate pressure on their members of parliament to discard or alter legislation that is more in line with public sentiment of that of particular powerful interest groups who have the ear of pollies eg the Greens or Firearms owners, for example. Regulation, however, does not. With firearms regulations, the police, in consultation with their minister, can alter regulations without reference to parliament.

Now generally pollies and public servants actually really don’t like being real servants of the people, rather they like to make excessive, sometimes unenforceable and sometimes all-too enforceable and undemocratic laws to make it look like they are worth their pay grade and to keep us, their subjects preoccupied, submissive and compliant. With rare exceptions, pollies and senior public servants want to stay where they are and regulate us into early graves while they drink at the public teat. Think of the entitlements scandal unfolding currently.

Now laws as they are tabled in parliament often appear on the surface to be the result of good policy direction upon first looks by the ignorant and uninitiated. Where citizens get screwed is in the regulations implemented under that legislation. The devil is in the detail – the regulations. And the regulations under all the states’ firearms legistlation are what will be changed if all the states agree to implement the direction of the NFA Firearms Policy Working Group (NPWG).

Now what I referred to as the Trojan Horse in a previous article is a classic example of this. A customs regulation, introduced on the PM’s whim a few weeks ago has at the stroke of a pen prohibited the importation of the seven-shot Adler lever-action shotgun, while the NPWG of faceless bureacrats works feverishly to reclassify these Adlers (and other rifles and guns that fall into a similar proposed category) so that people who legally own such firearms will be criminalised instantly in their relevant state jurisdictions. Word is that the Adlers will be permitted for AB-licensed LAFOs with five-shot mags only. But what about the old IAC and Chiappa lever-action shotguns in circulation already with integral magazines that hold in excess of five rounds?

The sting in the tail of all this is that the Commonwealth is in debt, wants to raise taxes by GST or Medicare levy for purposes other than buybacks – it has no money for those. So AB Licensed firearm owners could have their 50-year-old Browning pump-action .22s confiscated (not compensated for) under new regulation. Magazine capacity and the integral nature of those mags appear to be ongoing bug bears with the bureacrats, so let’s see what transpires.

Now if you think that this has all come about because of “Man” Monis and terrorism threats since last December, think again. The faceless bureacrats have been working on this from at least 2005, as this FPWG Special Meeting record shows. They have been secretly beavering away on depriving you and me of our beloved antique, old-technology rifles and shotguns for years and they have just been salivating at the opportunity of the advent of the Port Arthur 20^th Anniversary to publically justify the morally unjustifiable.

Just watch the swelling sentiment in the complicit mainstream media reach frenzied pitch, while “Cecil the lion” and similar isolated incidents the world over get front-page coverage to get the non gun-owning public into an emotional state where they feel they could justifiably gaol us all or lynch us just for being licensed firearm owners.

At that point, a few simple regulation changes will appear to be the most reasonable and justified measures that “don’t go far enough”. The ducks are falling one by one and we are those sitting ducks.

And governments worldwide will rub their collective hands with glee that we are one step closer to total civilian disarmament.

Oh! Unless you’re a crim, that is. For them it is business as usual.

PS Have a look at the attached pdfs 1, 2 and 3 to get the background on all this and then get writing to your state and federal “representatives” and keep writing to them when a staffer sends you back a non-committal form letter. Then ask to meet with them with a list of questions that skewer them into giving genuine answers to your concerns.

Further Note: Courtesy of Steve Larsson (Robert Borsak’s office).  Please email a request to: foi@ag.gov.au, subject can be “FOI 15/040 request”.

Copy and paste the following:

Quote

Freedom of Information and Privacy Section
Office of Corporate Counsel
Attorney-General’s Department
3-5 National Circuit
BARTON ACT 2600

http://www.ag.gov.au//RightsAndProtections/FOI/Pages/FreedomOfInformationDisclosureLog/Documents-released-in-response-to-Freedom-of-Information-Request-FOI15040-documents-about-the-National-Firearms-Agreement.aspx

Could you please supply the documents as pdf files.