The National Firearms Agreement (NFA) is a non-binding document that serves as a guideline for Australia’s state and territory governments on which to base their firearms laws. States and territories are ultimately responsible for firearm laws and always have been. This has always been the case.
The report commissioned by Gun Control Australia (GCA) and written by a known anti-gun author simply demonstrates that state and territory governments have adapted the NFA to suit the individual and unique circumstances of each jurisdiction. The state and territory governments have been entrusted with formulating firearm laws which best apply to their constituents. The circumstances in outback Queensland are vastly different from inner city Sydney.
The SSAA will always support measures that genuinely contribute to public safety. We will not, however, sit back while radical fringe groups dictate policy on the basis of fear and emotion, instead of scientific evidence and commonsense. GCA, with the support of the Australian Greens Party, which has a long-held ideological hatred of firearms, is again using fear to sensationalise the reality of Australia’s gun laws.
We condemn the opportunistic timing of the report’s release to coincide with the tragic events that occurred in the United States.
The SSAA will closely examine the report’s findings in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we encourage GCA and its friends to focus on the criminal misuse of illegal firearms rather than continuing to harass law-abiding firearm owners, for no public safety benefit.