An open letter to Channel 7 Sunrise program

Attention: David Koch, Melissa Doyle and Producers of Sunrise
October 16, 2007

Dear Sunrise,

We wish to bring to your attention some of the many factual errors purported by National Coalition for Gun Control’s spokesperson Samantha Lee in your program aired today.

Ms Lee states that semi-automatic weapons ‘propel a number of bullets in a number of minutes’ simply by pulling the trigger. This is quite wrong. In fact, Ms Lee is describing a machine-gun, which has never been accessible to the civilian Australian recreational and club shooter.

Australia has always had stringent handgun ownership regulations and continues to do so.

Ms Lee states that semi-automatic firearms are the ‘most powerful’. A semi-automatic refers to the type of action and has nothing to do with the power of a cartridge. In fact, there are far more .22 rimfire semi-automatic firearms in Australia - the most ‘powerless’ cartridge.

Ms Lee also states that sporting shooters do not need semi-automatic firearms for their sport such as the Olympic and Commonwealth Games. Again, quite wrong. Semi-automatic handguns are used at the Commonwealth Games and numerous other elite international sporting events. In fact, the United Kingdom’s champion shooter Mick Gault, the most successful Commonwealth Games athlete of all time, now has to train in Switzerland due to the UK’s 1998 ban on handguns. According to recent figures handgun misuse in crime in the UK has increased by 40 per cent, despite the ban.

Another point in regard to farmers requiring firearms: little comment has been made about feral animal control on farms and in our parks and forests. Currently, many recreational shooters volunteer their time to assist both private landowners and government departments is assisting the eradication of feral goats, cats, foxes, rabbits, deer and other introduced species that are a threat to our Country’s economy and our native wildlife and flora. The reality is that should the ‘city’ population be stripped of firearm ownership, it would cost billions of dollars to replicate current feral animal control programs. Recreational hunting plays a vital role in sustaining our native fauna and flora.

The current call by the anti-gun lobby to ban firearm ownership and in particular the call to ban semi-automatic firearms has stemmed from South Australia’s Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Pallaras to stamp out firearm ‘problems’ after a shooting incident in Adelaide these past few days. SA Police have indicated that the shooting was related to ‘some rivalry or issues between certain groups of people’ and was not a random shooting. The sad reality is most criminal shootings are carried out by criminal gangs, thieves and outlaw motorcycle members who obviously pay no attention to the law of the land or ‘bans’.

This fact is supported by the Australian Government’s own Institute of Criminology research that found that more than 90 per cent of all criminal misuse of a gun was carried out by persons without a firearms license or had an unregistered gun.

We concur with SA Police Assistant Commissioner Madeleine Glynn who has said that the issue is one of illegal gun use and the conduct of criminal gangs.

I would welcome the opportunity to further clarify the positive role of recreational shooting and hunting in Australia.

Bob Green
SSAA National President representing 120,000 members