Senator Vanstone on new gun laws
Leigh McClusky and Tony Pilkington program
5AA radio
18 August 2000
LEIGH McCLUSKY: The Federal Government has just moved to crack down on the importation of hand guns into the country, effective as of midnight last night.
TONY PILKINGTON: Hear, hear, what a good idea that is.
McCLUSKY: Yeah. So what's it all about? Senator Amanda Vanstone is of course the Federal Minister for Justice and Customs, and joins us now. Amanda, good morning.
AMANDA VANSTONE: Good morning.
McCLUSKY: So what's behind the crackdown, why the need for it?
VANSTONE: Well, there's been an increase in hand gun imports, that's the first thing. We believe they're being diverted to the black market, and we've certainly heard that from state police, especially in New South Wales and Queensland. There's been a rise in hand gun homicides.
While the number of homicides by firearm has dropped in the last few years, and we're pleased about that, the number committed with hand guns has in fact doubled.
McCLUSKY: Gee. So what does it mean, though, because there are.. I know there are people who are pistol shooters, I mean, there are people who have right and proper uses for.. or sporting uses for hand guns. How will it affect them?
VANSTONE: Oh, well, look, we're not worried about them. The research clearly shows that those sorts of people, you know, the target shooters, and sporting shooters, they aren't the problem. Only one registered gun was used in.. a hand gun in the last lot of statistics I looked at, and that gun was registered to the victim. So those people are good and proper people following a sporting pursuit.
That won't change. The right of anyone to have a gun, and to use it, and the type of hand gun, doesn't change. If they're entitled now, they'll be entitled after. All we're stopping is dealers importing thousands of guns and stockpiling them in their dealership.
McCLUSKY: So how will it now work? I mean, there's a limit, what, strictly on the number?
VANSTONE: Yes, they can import.. be given authority by the state police to import any number they like, and that's what they're given at the moment, you know, authority from state police to import thousands of hand guns. The difference is, we won't let them come through Customs, and will only release them from Customs when the dealer can give us what we call an end user certificate, and that is a certificate that shows that this gun, of this registration number, is going to this licence holder, who's entitled to be licensed under the state regulation.
McCLUSKY: So if I wanted to go out and buy a pistol, rather than going to somewhere that would have a stockpile in a back room, that stockpile, as such, will be now held by Customs, and the gun dealer will only be able to give it to me once he's proven to you that it's going straight to somebody.
VANSTONE: That's right. Now, we have.. we have listened to what gun dealers have said, as a consequence of the banning of category C rifles, you know, repeat action rifles. They haven't had display stock to be able to show people, you know, what the guns are they can order. So we've changed those regulations and we'll allow them to have five of those weapons in for display purposes only, display and testing. And that's important, because different.. people are of different height and size and weight, and everything, and they need to feel a gun and hold it before they decide which is the right one. There are good safety reasons for that.
And in terms of hand guns, we'll allow them to have up to ten, one of each different model, up to ten. So people won't have to order off catalogue, they'll be able to go and touch and feel and try. But the gun won't come through Customs until we've got that certificate that it's being given to someone who the state agrees is a legitimate gun owner.
PILKINGTON: How many.. roughly, how many of these guns were coming in before this legislation comes into effect?
VANSTONE: Well, we've had a big increase, it's now up about I think twelve or thirteen thousand coming in over the last year. That's a lot of hand guns.
McCLUSKY: Mm.
PILKINGTON: Gee whiz.
VANSTONE: And, you know, we had a robbery up in the Mid North, I think it was Port Augusta, it might have been Port Pirie, a dealership was broken into and three hundred and fifty hand guns were stolen, or three hundred and fifty guns.
McCLUSKY: God, you wonder where they end up.
VANSTONE: Well, I can guarantee you that they're not on the legitimate market going to the sporting shooters and the target shooters, they're out on the black market.
PILKINGTON: What do these guns cost? I'd have no idea. I've never been into a gun shop.
VANSTONE: Oh, look, no, they can be quite expensive. You know, hundreds of dollars.
McCLUSKY: Mm.
VANSTONE: Three or four, five or more hundred dollars.
McCLUSKY: Amanda, is there a problem, though, if Customs are now going to be the repository for these guns, I mean, does that set almost the Customs area up as a target, if all of a sudden the bad guys realise "Rather than going around and hitting individual firearm shops, we've now just got to crack Customs and they're all there".
VANSTONE: Well, of course we are.. had to build, you know, better facilities for the storage. But I expect with this limitation that people won't be so interested in having a thousand guns sitting around in Customs if they can't have them in the shop. You see, I've been told that in Sydney you can go into some gun dealers, and let me make this clear, I'm not talking about all gun dealers, just a few, but in Sydney you can go and lease a gun overnight.
McCLUSKY: Isn't that amazing?
PILKINGTON: You're kidding.
VANSTONE: So you don't have to chuck it in the rubbish bin, or in a river or something, you go back and put it in stock.
McCLUSKY: So you go back and hire it for a day.
VANSTONE: Hire.. or in effect, hire or lease a gun overnight. So it's in nobody's interest for gun dealers to have large stocks sitting around. It's actually not even in their interest, from a business point of view. The smaller stocks you can keep, the higher stock turnover you have, and the higher stock turnover you have, generally, the more money you can make.
McCLUSKY: All right. Nice to talk to you, thank you for that.
VANSTONE: Pleasure.
McCLUSKY: Senator Amanda Vanstone, the Minister for Justice and Customs. And I have to say that sort of makes sense to me, that idea.
**End**
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