Research archive

The source and directions of gun control in Australia

by John Bradbury
21 June 1997

The following is the transcript text of a speech given by John Bradbury to a forum held under the auspices of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, New South Wales, Penrith NSW on 21 June 1997.

We meet today close to an historic site, for it was in Sydney NSW where the Sporting Shooters Association was born in 1948.

With a ban on Sunday shooting, a ban on duck hunting and a ban on ownership of rifles of any military calibre of the world, past or present, shooters felt they were being treated as second class citizens. In a mood of desperation and with great vision, the pioneers of this great organisation decided to do something positive. They formed the SSAA.

Bill Shelton answered the call to attend that very first meeting; and he remains just as enthusiastic today, as he was then, to better shooters lawful rights.

The SSAA, born out of oppression has never varied its mission to get a better deal for responsible hunters, shooters and gun owners. Only the difficulties have increased.

While a few people have suspected for a long time that anti-gun activism originates in a deeper source than the often superficial reasons given by governments, recent increased activity is at last sufficient to convince the almost unconvincible that the United Nations is the basic engine driving worldwide gun control. The evidence we have is overwhelming.

My 1988 report to SSAA national contained a section titled "The Real Reason for Anti-Gun Legislation". It said "The Australian Government has ratified and signed the United Nations Convention on Human and Political Rights". Buried in that "treaty" under the sub heading "Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women" is "general and complete disarmament". My report warned: "Make no mistake, the gun debate is not yet finalised and it is now a Federal issue aimed at complete disarmament". What clearer warning could I have given, nearly ten years ago? Few if any took it seriously?

The history of weapon control contains some lessons useful to understanding the how and why of the new gun laws. It is therefore appropriate that we take a brief historical tour, going back decades in Australia and further back again for a mention of the 1689 English Bill of Rights.

Gun control is not new. When the political "isms" emerged early in the 20th century, both fascist and communist governments used strict gun control as a defence against their own citizens.

Democracy was effectively dead in Germany and Japan pre World War II. In its place emerged a kind of slavery and a fertile ground for genocide. The defenceless Auschwitz and Belsen victims were thus denied any opportunity to fight for their lives. Gun control empowered the perpetrators and facilitated the starvation, torture and death of the victims. On what basis can a gun free society guarantee democracy to its citizens?

In an over reaction to the successful 1917 Russian revolution both the United Kingdom and Australia introduced strict handgun laws in the 1920s. Remarkably, they believed that handgun control would deter revolution; thus strict handgun laws were born in Australia.

Just over two hundred years earlier arms control was a significant issue in the 1688 bloodless, so called "Glorious Revolution" which overthrew King James II in favour of William of Orange - but only on the condition that William agree to the now famous Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights restored the right of all the people to bear arms according to law. The condition, "according to law" quite clearly reserved to parliament the power to make laws for arms control. That is a very different proposition to granting the right to bear arms, in the manner of the USA constitution.

The Bill of Rights restricted the powers of the Monarch but not the parliament. The Bill of Rights has not saved UK gun owners from savage confiscatory gun laws.

It is indeed a sleepy shooter who has not heard it said that the British Bill of Rights guarantees the right of individuals to bear arms. However no individual has yet been game enough to put their money up for a serious legal challenge. Indeed it would be a very brave person who did.

Perhaps the most unusual feature of the Bill of Rights is that it restored arms to the majority of the population of the day. Why could people be trusted then, but not now?

Moving on to the modern era:

Perhaps it is time for Australia to have a bloodless "Glorious Revolution" of its own, to entrench the right of responsible citizens to own firearms for shooting, hunting and home protection.

A strong peaceful society needs to have fiercely loyal strong responsible citizens.

Weakness is no pathway to peace - look at "peace in our time" Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister conned by Hitler at Munich - look at the Soviet Union which collapsed in the face of USA strength. Peace requires strength; weakness leads to war - two powerful fundamental truths.

Fascism, communism and slavery cannot survive where citizens, in a practical sense, are powerful enough to exercise democratic rights. The converse is equally true. Democracy cannot be guaranteed to serve powerless citizens.

When the United Nations flexed its general and complete disarmament muscle to interfere in the domestic affairs of nations, it clearly showed its aim is to take power from citizens; thus exposing ordinary people to the inevitable consequences writ large in history.

Peace is not a free commodity. The question is how we go about paying for it, if we want it.

Let us look for a moment at some noteworthy milestones:
King James II disarmed the Protestants and lost his crown.
Germany and Japan disarmed their citizens and lost the war.
USA and Britain, with private gun ownership, won the war.
Democracy critically depends on ordinary citizens having the power to resist oppression.
Fear of revolution spawned modern gun control in Britain and Australia.
Fear of citizen power caused Germany and Japan to disarm their citizens.
The United Nations is the source and active advocate of worldwide gun control.

Why are we now on the path to being disarmed? - Because influential member nations have conspired to fast track the UN objective of "general and complete disarmament".

Taking a leaf from the book of former King James II, the UN has embarked on a crusade of disarmament, not just of armies or countries but of all the world's people.

Let us move on to tread the pathway which led to Australia's new gun laws. How were politicians, who say we must dance to their tune or give up our guns, able to shoot down our personal pride and sense of responsibility and to soil the honorable name of our sport?

For over 40 years the Australian public has been pressured, cajoled and hoodwinked into fearing guns. Governments were able to overpower shooters because at the time the new gun laws were passed they had overwhelming public support;

something shooters did not enjoy. Shooters had let democracy work against them by allowing well funded militant organisations create a public fear of guns; examples being the AMA and Coalition for gun control anti-gun campaigns.

On 9th May 1996, Australia's day of infamy, the Police Ministers took a giant leap towards one of the United Nations most precious objectives "general and complete disarmament".

How could it happen? There are four main causes:
1.Shooters' learning curves failed to keep pace with our opponent's strategy.
2.Shooters tried to deal with politicians instead of the people direct.
3.The source of the danger was not recognised in time, despite warnings.
4.Foreign Affairs covert dealings with the United Nations went unnoticed until too late.

The consequence was that Gun Control Advocates were allowed a fairly clear go - for over 40 years. Those of us who saw the plot early have had a hard job convincing others that marching and politicking are not enough. Useful as those activities were in a variety of ways, the stark reality is that they did not win the legislation battle. The only way out now is to win the hearts and minds of the people to the point where they accept our legitimacy. Then the politicians will follow.

While the seat of the anti-gun fire remains untouched, the fire grows bigger and ever hotter. Now we know that the source of the fire is the UN, our job is to get UN interference out of Australia. At a very minimum the United Nations must be made to turn the heat off ordinary gun owners. The UN has no legitimacy in Australia's internal affairs and our government has no mandate to bow down to UN interference.

How did the UN get its way with Australian gun laws? Who was primarily responsible and where are they now? How was a gigantic fraud perpetrated on the Australian public? We will look now at a mosaic of conspiratorial mischief.

Mr Daryl Smeaton of the Commonwealth Law Enforcement Board, is reported as stating that he had the new gun law proposals prepared and ready well before Port Arthur. Mr Smeaton's proposals, which were put to the Police Minister's Council, have their basis in the 1990 National Committee on Violence Report, "Violence: Directions for Australia".

The enormous significance of the NCV Report's firearm control recommendations cannot be over-stated. Remarkably they came solely from two police members of the Committee and were approved by UN devotee Professor Duncan Chappell.

Chappell was then both Chairman of the National Committee on Violence (NCV) and Director of the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC). If any one person were to be crowned as the agent provocateur of gun control in Australia, Chappell is well qualified for such a title.

Simon Fraser University, Canada, where Chappell, an Australian, worked before he returned to Australia, enjoys close links with the UN. In 1987 Chappell took up the position of Director of the AIC, replacing Professor Richard Harding author of "Firearms and Violence in Australian Life". The AIC has a long history of anti-gun activism.

In 1994 following a degree of controversy over the direction the AIC was taking, Dr. Adam Graycar the present incumbent replaced Chappell.

Chappell took part in the UN monitoring of the South Africa elections and later spent time in a European UN post. He then returned to Australia where he is currently a Deputy President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, an influential position which determines complaints against government administrative decisions; not inconceivably involving the gun issue.

Under Professor Chappell's chairmanship 100% of the NCV gun recommendations came solely from two police members of the Committee despite the Report claiming that the Committee had consulted widely and sought expert advice from world recognised experts. The NCV Report deceptively failed to say that it had totally ignored every gun submission it had received and allowed only its own police members' wish lists. The SSAA submission was ignored.

The NCV firearm recommendations were conceived and born in deception.

The NCV Report grossly misrepresented the source of its firearm recommendations by not declaring its overwhelming police origins and consequent one-eyed view of gun control. The new "uniform" gun laws basically came from the NCV Report via the following path. Chappell approved the wish lists of Mick Palmer, now AFP Commissioner and Bob Page of the Police Federation of Australia & New Zealand; Chappell gave the NCV Report to the UN, following which they went through the Smeaton grinder and on to the Police Ministers.

Amazingly we discovered in 1990 that the NCV had failed to formally approve its Report. At the time, this fact had the potential to blow Prime Minister Hawke's call for government acceptance of the NCV gun recommendations right out of the water.

Had we done that in 1991 subsequent events would likely have been very different indeed. I have never been able to understand why that opportunity was missed.

With the Report's validity unchallenged, both the Australian authorities and the United Nations could treat the NCV gun recommendations seriously. That they did in the form of the new gun laws. They were taken very seriously indeed and don't shooters know about it.

One should not cry over spilt milk, but I have told the NCV story to highlight to just how important it is to quickly identify big issues and to take immediate strong counter actions. On this occasion the anti-gun activists received a gigantic free kick.

Professor Chappell smugly announced later that the NCV Report had been well received by the United Nations. Who could have supervised the writing of it better than Chappell?

Ominously, many of the NCV gun recommendations appeared in the report of the Ninth United Nations Congress on The Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders held in Cairo Egypt 29 April - 8 May 1995. No need to wonder how they got it, Chappell gave it to the UN in 1990.

For those of us who have been around for some time the warning signs were clear. I feel sure Bill Shelton will remember our discussing the matter early in 1995; but no one then could have anticipated an event as devastating as Port Arthur.

As for Port Arthur I am sure we all lived every moment of the tragedy and its aftermath with dismay and compassion, as has every Australian. Adding to the tragedy is the lack of an open inquiry which suppresses facts to which the public is entitled. For example: The possibility of there being an accessory competent in psychology has not been addressed.

I have said in effect that gun control, as we know it today, started with the advent of the United Nations. Clearly the UN has been obsessed with banning guns ever since its inception; at first somewhat covertly, now more visibly.

In one of its very first mission statements, UNESCO said how it expected to achieve peace. It said, "because war has its origin in the human mind, it is in the human mind, that the defence of peace must be built".

Deceptively simple and honorable as it seems UNESCO's aim when you think about it amounts to nothing less than mind engineering for worldwide social and political control.

If UNESCO achieves its declared aim it will destroy that which Australians hold most dear, our independence of mind and expression (thought and speech; freedom of the press).

Should UNESCO succeed in its declared aim, the entire world's men and women will become the human equivalent of worker bees. Where do journalists stand on this?

Then there may be no more wars, no more conflicts, and no interpersonal violence - Peace at last; perhaps! But at what price? The destruction of individual pride, dignity and free-will. Democracy will be only a distant memory, with no means accessible to retrieve it.

That is the United Nations way - Peace at any price. Nothing it seems is worth fighting for.

In 1995 the UN Crime Commission ominously escalated its interest in private gun ownership. Most of our evidence of that comes directly from published UN documents.

We can easily prove the United Nations is involved in gun control but how did the Australian Labor Party get involved; keeping in mind Labor's historical antagonism to guns?

The ALP is the original Australian gun control party. Close links exist between the ALP, the United Nations and gun control, which is probably best understood by recalling certain events.

The ALP's H.V.(Bert) Evatt became a significant political figure during and after World War II. Evatt was the Australian representative at the newly formed UN where he rose quickly to become President of the United Nations' Third General Assembly. There can be no greater indicator than that of Evatt's enormous influence within the United Nations.

ALP philosophy in many respects mirrors that of the United Nations. Now that the UN has wrestled the Liberals and Nationals into a headlock, the UN is in a position to wield great influence over the parliament of Australia.

After World War II there were many nations with leftist policies similar to those of the ALP; for example Great Britain, where the Labour Party ousted Churchill at war's end; in Washington where the Democrats reigned; in communist USSR. Many nations were strongly left, if not outright communist.

Is it any wonder then, immediately after World War II, that guns were seen by the self-styled champions of the poor and down-trodden as the primary cause of war and the tools of capitalism. The United Nations to this day owes its directions to such roots.

The UN was born out of the starkest of backgrounds. In three successive decades there were World War I, the Great Depression and World War II, with its 50 million dead, ending climactically with Atom Bombs. There was not much fun or joy for anyone anywhere in any of those events. Few if any nations escaped unscathed.

IF the first item of the preamble to the Charter of the United Nations commences, as it does, with "We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind", who would have disagreed? Who would have opposed then the UN adopting a strategy of "general and complete disarmament"?

No shooter then could in his wildest dreams, have imagined that "general and complete disarmament" meant all firearms - a total gun ban? No one outside the inner UN circle gave the slightest thought to a possibility that bans would apply to sporting firearms, harmless paintball projectors and include low power air guns; but that is Australia today.

For over 40 years the Fabian tactic of gradualism has been used to create public fear of private firearm ownership. Gun owners are being led, many unwittingly, towards a total ban on guns. Shooters have lost the support of the urban public and both sides of mainstream politics.

Attacks on guns have not abated since the new gun laws. For example: On the anniversary of Port Arthur, the 28th April, the Australian ran the headline "Anti-gun groups back safe houses for recreational weapons". To his credit, in response, the NSW Minister for Police said gun repositories would be dangerous.

New political parties have a long way to go to claw back gun owners recently lost rights. The Shooters Party (John Tingle), One Nation Party (Pauline Hanson), the ARP and One Australia, as I understand it all claim to be pro gun. However they have a long way to go before the next election. We hope they can make it and remember shooters in success.

Another big danger is the likelihood that the UN will make a Declaration on the Private Ownership of Firearms. On recent experience that's all it would take for the Australian government to roll over in submission.

Where the hell has democracy gone when a bunch of non-elected non-Australians at the UN can tell our politicians to tell you what you can or cannot do in your own country?

Contrary to its Charter the UN has gradually intruded into Member Nations' internal affairs, so that now it seems there is hardly a local law that is not influenced by or potentially subject to United Nations influence or force. The UN is proud of this achievement as you will see later.

Agenda item 6 of the Ninth Cairo Congress is headed "Firearms regulation for the purposes of crime prevention and public safety". Clearly, crime prevention and public safety are domestic issues, but the UN easily skirted around its Charter limitation while our weak-knee government bowed down in submissive awe to support the item.

There should be no surprise in noting that Rebecca "Gun Control" Peters' cries for tighter gun control fit in nicely with UN objectives.

Gun control extracts from UN documents are included with the conference papers. However I will now refer to a few quite clearexamples of UN involvement in gun control.

Quote:
"Member States (nations) were called upon to promote the adequate control of firearms and other high risk weapons by means of both regulations and law-enforcement with a view to reducing violent criminality."

(Firearms homicide in Australia is about 20% of total homicide)

"Concerned that the high incidence of crimes, accidents and suicides involving the use of firearms is closely related to the abundance of firearms in society .."

(not in Australia; see SSAA 2nd NCV paper) "no State is immune to the effects of lacking or lax legislative and administrative control of firearms in other States"

(This is Japan's main anti-gun complaint at the UN).

" (the UN) .. calls upon Member States to promote the adequate regulation of firearms ?"

" ? request the Secretary General to ? seek the views of Member States on the preparation of a declaration."

(about civilian use of firearms)

(Clear evidence that the UN is heading towards a Declaration about firearms regulation)

I think the foregoing should be enough to convince the most hardened sceptic that the UN is deeply and actively involved in gun control. We have so far only briefly mentioned Australia's active support for United Nations gun control initiatives. We shall now look at some damning evidence of Australia's involvement:

Quote from UN document:
"Australia reported that despite the federal jurisdiction of the ..." (bit missing here, TBA)

In summary, the United Nations is the main culprit in gun control.

We have a gigantic problem that must be met with gigantic efforts, but first we must win support from the Australian public by telling them just what UN interference means to them. We urgently need an efficient External Relations Department within SSAA; a team of competent professionals working full time to re-establish public esteem for shooting sports and in doing that achieve better laws for gun owners.

It is we who have to win hearts and minds, not the UN.

Our arguments are good and can withstand scrutiny. We should pro-actively set upon every identified source of\ gun control, sometimes with a velvet glove and at other times with a mailed fist. We have to become smarter and more sophisticated. We need the input of experts in the fields of public relations; advertising and media. We need to lobby politicians from a non-aligned position. We need to expand our branch coverage; we need to expand membership.

We need to do things that count and avoid committing resources where they do not count.

Figuratively speaking we are on the Dunkirk beach; we have seen the enemy; we have lost every recent battle; we are desperate to be saved. Like at Dunkirk the new gun laws will reduce our ranks, but many will escape to fight another day. Like the Dunkirk armies we face ever-increasing attacks and an uncertain future. The odds are stacked against us but will we surrender?

NO. - I will continue to fight on and I bet you will too!

The SSAA wants more members to add to our strength and members want places to shoot to comply with the new shooter's licence requirements. Satisfying those needs is the urgent challenge now facing SSAA, right throughout Australia.

Every branch is able to sponsor another branch in a nearby town. Go to it. Start next week. Keep as many shooters in the game as possible. Bill and Roy are behind you all the way.

Daily, the media fires anti-gun rockets and we fight back reactively. We must become pro-active. Our enemies must be made to fear our focus when they make bogus claims. Every anti-gun activist must be neutralised by truthful cogent argument "sold" to the voting public.

The anti-gun argument is weak; our case is strong. However, deeply entrenched prejudices are not easily changed. Such will not be an easy task, nor will results appear quickly.

In the meantime we must try and make the new laws work for us as best we can in a process I think of as manoeuvring; being quite distinct from blatant confrontation.

Both State and National SSAA should streamline the organisation, devise new wide ranging strategies, develop internal and external communication systems, and blow torch every anti-gun target in sight.

We are experiencing a low point now, but we should remember that all the bad laws that caused the SSAA to form in 1948 were later turned around and defeated.

SSAA regained Sunday shooting because that law made no sense; SSAA regained the use of military calibres because that law made no sense; SSAA regained the right to shoot ducks in season because that law made no sense; only to lose it again in recent times, and that law makes no sense either. Its only discernable benefit was to free the swamps of mindless protestors.

I believe it is possible to overturn laws that oppress sane responsible people.

No new laws were made for the Bryants of this world, but governments didn't hesitate to forced draconian laws onto decent people who did not do the crime. The innocent paid for the guilty. Where is the sense? Where are the golden rules of fair play and fair go? Not in Labor; not in Liberal; not in the National Party. There is good cause to criticise parliament for forcing such a new grotesque notion of justice into Australian law.

I believe we can overturn baseless ideologically laws conceived in the belly of the United Nations; laws that have little relevance to our traditional way of life.

We must work hard and smart, and never give our opponents a free kick.

We can save our shooting sport if we never give up. Like Churchill said at the low point of World War II: "It will be long and hard and there will be no withdrawal". We won that war, though it took a few years. Let us challenge our opponents with the same words,

"It will be long and hard and there will be no withdrawal"

We will fight for our rights forever.

LET'S DO IT. LET'S WIN THIS BATTLE TOGETHER.

About the author:
John Bradbury was one of the group that formed the SSAA Queensland in 1957. He became president of SSAA Qld in 1961 from which position he was instrumental in calling the 1962 meeting of representatives of SSAA NSW, SSAA Vic. and SSAA Qld. from which emerged the National Sporting Shooters Association of Australia. Bradbury was elected inaugural president of the national association. During his year as president (then constitutionally restricted to one year), Bradbury launched the Australian Shooters Journal. He then served as national secretary until 1966.

In employment Bradbury held management positions in Advertising & Sales Promotions; Marketing Services; Distribution and Gunsmithing. He has experience in primary production and light steel manufacturing. Bradbury retired in 1984 at the age of 55.

In retirement Bradbury was instrumental in forming the SSAA Fraser Coast Branch and obtaining access to a 500-hectare parcel of government land suitable for ranges for all shooting disciplines.

In 1988 Bradbury was appointed Hon. Researcher to investigate and report on the restructuring of SSAA Inc. (National). The "Bradbury Report" provided a foundation for the modern SSAA.

In 1989 Bradbury attended the National Conference on Violence and authored the SSAA submission to the Committee. He also attended and made submission to the Second National Committee on Violence titled "Gun Control - a Gross Obsession or Valid Concern". Bradbury researched the workings and firearm recommendations of the NCV.

Bradbury has lifelong experience in hunting and target shooting in Australia and overseas.

Bradbury was honoured in 1973 with a SSAA National Life Membership.

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