SSAA grows despite negative antis

Welcome to the final SSAA Legislative Action (LA) e-newsletter for 2018. It has been a disjointed and untruthful run to the end of the year by the antis with an underwhelming and frankly odd and searching story by the ABC’s Four Corners on the firearms industry and recreational shooting just one example. The story jumped from topic to topic, displayed tank disabling rockets while talking about the illegal use of handguns and attempted to paint the industry as a threat to democracy. They say the fish rots from the head and with the recent forced departure of both the ABC’s Chairman and CEO the unprofessionalism seems to now have fouled their journalists and broadcast material. It was an embarrassment and unworthy of a taxpayer-funded broadcaster.

In Tasmania we’ve seen the continuation of the lie that the Liberal’s didn’t release their firearms policy until the election eve, despite us having corrected the record numerous times. Media outlets and those against our sport ignore the fact the policy announcements were on numerous websites including ours at least three weeks before the election. And now a glad-bag of local, ill-informed medicos are clambering to remove permits for children to shoot claiming they shouldn’t be able to own firearms. The reality is no children in Australia are allowed to own firearms but with a special permit they may shoot under adult supervision.

Next was The Guardian newspaper’s claim the gun lobby had hijacked Gun Control Australia’s Twitter account. The article was taken off their website when it was pointed out Gun Control Australia doesn’t actually have a Twitter account!

But in the past 12 months where anti-firearm academic Philip Alpers admitted firearms fatalities were dropping prior to 1996 and that there are as many legal firearms in Australia today as there were then it hasn’t been all bad. At the SSAA we will continue to positively promote the shooting sports and hunting and counter the misinformation spread about our chosen pastime whether it be by the media, biased politicians or ideological pseudo-academics.

We also launched our television ads and have had a tremendous response from members and non-members alike. This is just part of our campaign to build membership and march towards 200,000 strong. Despite the negative background static of the antis, your Association continues to grow and will be bigger, stronger and more influential. And the reality is we couldn’t do it without you. Merry Christmas to all our members.

Tim Bannister

SSAA National CEO

Read more from the December 2018 Legislative Action newsletter

PUBLIC HEALTH GROUP’S BIZARRE CLAIMS FOR FALL IN GUN DEATHS  

 PROFESSOR GUILTY OF VANDALISING NRA LOBBYIST’S HOME  

POSITIVE VIBES AS SSAA AIRS VIEWS WITH SENATOR REYNOLDS 

PRESS PIP POLLIES IN FESTIVE SHOWDOWN 

SENATE INQUIRY INTO THE IMPACT OF FERAL DEER 

SSAA NATIONAL SUBMISSION – REVIEW OF THE FAMILY LAW SYSTEM DISCUSSION PAPER

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