John Crook Gun Control Australia gives his opinion on handgun control
Lindy Byrne show
2NC radio
8 June 1999
PRESENTER - LINDY BYRNE....Police Ministers from around Australia are meeting in Sydney tomorrow for their annual conference, and a group called Gun Control Australia wants the issue of handgun control on the agenda.
It's written to all the Ministers, as well as Police Commissioners, to make that request. The group says that handguns are increasingly being used in crime because of the buyback of other types of firearms after the Port Arthur massacre.
The President of Gun Control Australia is John Crook, and he is my guest this afternoon.
G'day, John.
JOHN CROOK....G'day, Lindy.
BYRNE....Do you actually concede that the gun buyback then has been successful in some respects?
CROOK....Well, remember, the gun buyback was only one of three parameters which the new gun laws were on about. The others were quite important: uniform gun laws..
BYRNE....Uh-huh.
CROOK....and the national gun registration scheme. We mustn't overlook those.
BYRNE....So, between the three then, have they made an impact?
CROOK....The first two are long-term. I don't think we would expect to see any improvement until perhaps four years after the new gun laws became operative, which roughly was the middle of 1997. The buyback got back not all the guns, of course, and I might suggest that it certainly didn't succeed too well in New South Wales because there wasn't the gun registration scheme. Perhaps that's why it was probably more successful in Victoria. But the.. probably two-thirds of the category C and D, that is the semi-automatic guns, were bought [sic] in. Now, I think that's worth doing, but we've got to realise that it will take a few more years to see the value in these laws.
The Institute of Criminology recently put out a paper looking at the.. the gun statistics for 1997 and comparing that prior to Port Arthur. Now, it's ridiculous to do something like that. You cannot get any analyses of the success or otherwise of the post Port Arthur gun laws at this stage.
BYRNE....And, what, you.. you think four years, you are saying.
CROOK....I think we're going to have to wait a.. another two to three years before we can look. But can I.. having said that, I do want to make this clear, that when it comes to multiple shootings, that is, multiple deaths in a shooting, and, for the moment, I'll call those a massacre, there has been a significant improvement, and I say of course the jury's still out, but we are hopeful. Let's look at the massacres be.. before Port Arthur, and let's include Port Arthur, and then after the new gun laws started to bite.
In the decade up to Port Arthur, in that ten years there were twenty-eight gun massacres in Australia. Now, three things we can say about those. First, none of that twenty-eight were done with handguns.
BYRNE....Mmhm.
CROOK....Secondly, there.. about fifteen died each year from three per year massacres. Let's look what happened since Port Arthur. There's been six gun massacres in the three years since Port Arthur. That means it's gone down to two a year..
BYRNE....Mmhm.
CROOK....and also since there's only a total of fourteen deaths, it means that now instead of fifteen people dying in massacres it's gone down to five a year.
BYRNE....Have any of those involved handguns?
CROOK....Three of the six involved handguns. So isn't that a substantive change before Port Arthur and after Port Arthur?
BYRNE....So you are drawing a.. a.. a line there, John, saying that these massacres, albeit they are on the decrease..
CROOK....Mm.
BYRNE....but they are still going to happen because there are still weapons out there capable of doing it, such as handguns?
CROOK....Well, I mean, there's still, I would say, up to three hundred thousand illegal semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.
BYRNE....When you say handguns, d.. I.. I.. I think of pistols.
CROOK....Yes, that's right, it's pistols and revolvers. The.. the other thing w.. what we must draw attention to is that a lot of massacres, particularly since Port Arthur, the ones that've been done with handguns are essentially illegal handguns, whereas up to Port Arthur most of them were legal long guns. There is this subta.. substantive change. Now, the long.. the.. the handguns, if they are illegal, the big question is, well, how are.. how did they come in to our society? And our argument is that far too many handguns are being stolen from handgun collections. What we're saying is that pistols and revolvers kept in the hands of pistol collectors should be rendered permanently inoperable. Now..
BYRNE....What's been the response from the owners to that?
CROOK....Well, they won't like that. They never have.
BYRNE....Do they use them for any sorts of demonstrations at all?
CROOK....No. A collector.. I mean, a.. a [unclear].. I.. I mean, pistols come in by other means than collectors..
BYRNE....Mm.
CROOK....but collectors are not supposed to shoot their guns. Nevertheless, they see them.. you know, they like or respect the workmanship or some historical value of the gun and they don't like it being tampered with.
BYRNE....Mmhm.
CROOK....Well, fair enough.
BYRNE....So you're calling on changes to that regulation
[unclear]?
CROOK....We're.. yes, and what we're saying is that tomorrow and Thursday, during the Police Ministers' conference, we're saying, "Look, Police Ministers, please form a handgun subcommittee because we want to stop handguns being a problem". We're.. we're saying, "Look, we don't want handguns to become the problem that long guns did, and think of the trouble you had to go to back three years ago when you had to bring in all these, you know, strong new gun laws".
BYRNE....Well, just on that point, John, the gun lobby, as you're obviously well aware, is very powerful, and surely the opposition to this would be even greater than the controls on long barrelled weapons.
CROOK....Well, no, no. Remember, handguns are in a minority in Australia. We believe there's about four million total guns, all types, rifles, shotguns, handguns, air guns. Now, we believe about four hundred thousand of those are revolvers and pistols, i.e. handguns. That means only ten percent of shooters are involved with handguns. Most shooters are keen on long guns. So there's really no good reason why the bulk of the shooting fraternity shouldn't support us.
BYRNE....And what have they said so far? Do you know?
CROOK....They haven't said much at this stage, but we know that groups.. umbrella groups such as Pistol Australia, who look after the interests of pistol club members, they have strongly criticised our views for increasing constraints on pistol club membership.
BYRNE....What would you like to see with that? I mean, you've mentioned what you'd like to see with the collectors..
CROOK....Yeah.
BYRNE....the ones that they've got, but what about these people that have legitimate use for handguns in.. in that sort of operation?
CROOK....Well.. well, first of all, we.. we don't want what's called practical shooting to take place with handguns, and there is a strong tendency in recent years for pistol shooters to swing from what I'll simply call bullseye, you know bulls- eye shooting, into laundered.. well, laundered targets of human beings. These..
BYRNE....What do you mean by "laundered targets"?
CROOK....Well..
BYRNE....Sort of effigies or something or..
CROOK....Well..
BYRNE....like.. things like scarecrows?
CROOK....[ Laugh ] That.. perhaps not as obvious as that because the pistol fraternity know that that would be so blatant, but there is a group which has become quite large called IPSC, International Practical Shooting Confederation. Now, a significant proportion of these people shoot high- powered fast shooting handguns in what really is combat type of action. In other words, police shooting urban guerrillas, if you like. Now, there's a laundered version of that called the Bianci [ph sp] Cup. Indeed, amazingly enough, our Federal Government puts money into the Australian Bianci Cup team.
BYRNE....Do they?
CROOK....Mm. It's an outrage, but both our parties and even the Democrats have said it's OK. Be that as it may, the fact is that pistol shooters are becoming more and more associated with an ugly practice called combat shooting, but they don't call it combat shooting; they're cunning, they call it practical shooting.
BYRNE....So you'd like to see that outlawed. Is that what you put in the letters to the Police Ministers?
CROOK....That..
BYRNE....To the Police Commissioners, sorry.
CROOK....Oh, well, w.. we've been complaining about the Bianci Cup and practical shooting for five years, but there you are. I.. if you see, from a political point of view, it so happens that the Australian Bianci Cup team is the only team that has challenged the Americans in this particular.. well, whatever you call it, it's certainly not a sport but recreation. Now, probably because the Australian Bianci Cup combat pistol side has had some success, neither governments, Labor or Coalition, and for that matter even the Democrats, have shown no interest in stopping this outrageous form of shooting.
BYRNE....Is there any indication, though, John, that there's a link between people who take part in the Bianci Cup and those who are going to go out and do some sort of horrendous injury to people? I.. I can't see the link there. Are you concerned, s.. somewhat like the collectors' situation, that those guns could be stolen by others?
CROOK....Well, we.. our group is strongly anti-violence. We hate the glamorisation of killing weapons. Our group doesn't even believe that there should be gun events in the Olympic Games, but we would compromise and we've approached the SOCOG, we've approached the Olympic International Committee in Lausanne, and we've said, "For heaven's sake, recognise what.. that you are glamorising the most dangerous weapon of today, the handgun", and we say, "Please cut out handgun events from Olympic", and also we've made that appeal to the Commonwealth Games people, but they haven't done as much yet.
Let me go into the third aspect where handguns come into the community and that is the security industry. Now, in the.. the capital cities there's a lot of security agents and you see them with their guns. Now, we believe that nowhere near enough constraints are placed on the formation of private companies that want to get into the security business and, furthermore, we don't think there's sufficient c.. c.. credentialisation of people to be employed as security agents and, therefore, have the right to have a handgun.
BYRNE....Do they carry those handguns at all times, though, or is it only when they're on.. on duty?
CROOK....Well..
BYRNE....Do they have access to that gun, do you know, at normal times?
CROOK....Theor.. theoretically they're supposed to take it back to their place of employment and stay in the safe, but we know instances where that does not happen. You know, a lot of people come to our organisation and tell us about the inadequacies of our gun control.
BYRNE....But, John, what would you like as a bottom line here to see come out of this particular seminar, this annual conference the Police Ministers are having over the next couple of days? Would just any sort of step in what you would term the right direction be enough?
CROOK....Well, two things; I've gone into some detail about what we would hope from a handgun subcommittee. So our first point is: let's do something about handguns now, please form a handgun problem subcommittee so that that can, full-time, look at the issues. The other thing that the new gun laws, that is the new gun laws of 1996, did not address was a serious training and testing program. They.. and that is crucial. So what we're saying is let's make a proper disciplining system for all gun owners. In other words, before you get a gun you've got to get a shooter's licence. Before you get a shooter's licence you've got to do a twenty lesson.. t.. twenty times two hours TAFE course, and let's finish it up with two or three hours of written tests.
BYRNE....OK. We'll see what happens out of that, John, but I'm glad that you were able to talk to us this afternoon.
CROOK....OK.
BYRNE....Good luck. Bye-bye.
CROOK....Bye.
BYRNE....John Crook, who is the President of Gun Control Australia, having written.. the.. the group has, not John individually, the group has written to Police Commissioners and also the Police Ministers who are meeting in Sydney as of tomorrow for their annual conference, and we'll keep a.. a close eye and see if anything comes out of that over the next couple of days. It's twenty-eight past five.
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