One Nation are one of the few political parties that don't vilify licensed firearm owners because of one nutjob.
Mr Speaker,
Australians have always had reasonable access to firearms, and law abiding citizens have always had an understandable expectation that individual ownership would continue as indeed would the facility for them to pursue their sporting pastime.
The uniform gun laws were ill conceived and rushed through without thought or consultation. Any proposed need has no basis in fact and is an affront to anyone who is even slightly informed of the facts and figures.
Dr Adam Graycar, from the Australian Institute of Criminology, has stated that banning semi-automatic firearms will do nothing to prevent the majority of Australia's gun deaths.
While I would certainly not advocate illegitimate ownership of such firearms, we cannot escape the fact that even just in the case of centre fire semi-automatic rifles, the majority of which are military style, there are in excess of a million such firearms in Australia and yet this style accounts for less than
2% of Australian firearm deaths.
Despite the free access to millions of firearms in Australia, the available data shows the number of murders committed with firearms since 1979 has been in a steady downward trend despite the rise in murders generally over the same period.
It should also be acknowledged that this period of general decline covered the peak years of importation for the so called military style semi-automatic firearms.
Considering the current removal of firearms from private ownership was largely targeted at centre fire semi-automatics, and less than 2%, or 10 firearms related deaths a year are attributable to this style of firearm, is the 500 million dollar buy back coupled with the unaccountable costs, justifiable in the context of the variety of weapons used to commit murder and the many causes of accidental deaths?
There was no Gun Debate as such, there was no consultation or concern for the facts, merely misinformation shoved down the throats of an understandably emotional public.
Mr Speaker,
I stand by my belief that,
Australians have the right to defend themselves and their families in their own homes.
Shooting is a legitimate sport and pastime and participants should be treated accordingly.
Disarming law abiding Australians is not in the national interest and will do nothing to reduce crime. Be assured, the firearm owners of Australia are tired of unwarranted and unjustified interference, they are tired of being used as political scapegoats and the victims of United Nations treaties.
http://gwb.com.au/onenation/speeches/sept97b.html