SSAA Rejects Greens claims

The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (Tasmania) Inc. announced today that Tasmanian Greens MHA Peg Putt's description of those calling for changes to the state's gun laws as “Rednecks” was in insult to thousands of law-abiding firearm owners across the country.

SSAA national spokesperson, Mr Gary Fleetwood, said that Putt's call for a ban on private handgun ownership had more to do with her party's ideology than sound public policy and ignored the latest Australian Institute of Criminology data which shows that licensed shooters and registered firearms are involved in less than 10 percent of homicides.

Mr Fleetwood went on to say that figures released in June by the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research indicated that 55 percent of all handgun related shootings in NSW take place within the Canterbury-Bankstown and Fairfield-Liverpool areas “When your talking about a state with six and a half million people and over half the handgun related crime takes place in two suburbs, clearly the problem has nothing to do with legitimate shooters” he said.

Mr Fleetwood said the Association supported calls for an overhaul of Tasmania's 28 day waiting period on subsequent firearms, pointing out that several states had already moved to change the law. He also said that changes to allow young people access to firearms under appropriate supervision would enable them to undertake suitable safety training.

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