The Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia (SSAA) has welcomed the life sentence handed down by Victoria’s Supreme Court to murderer bikie Christopher Wayne Hudson.
At the time of the shooting last year, the anti-gun lobby, supported by The Greens, was quick to make publicity out of the crime and call for the banning of handguns similar to that used by Hudson.
Hudson, a bikie and career criminal, was, of course, unlicensed for firearms and used an illegal handgun in a calibre already restricted after the 2003 Howard Government buy-back.
Once again, it has been shown that bikies, criminals and drug-dealing gangs are the perpetrators of crimes with firearms, not the sporting shooter or hunter. The Australian Institute of Criminology has produced countless reports stating that it is the unlicensed shooter with an unregistered firearm who carries out the vast majority of crimes with a firearm.
A recent Melbourne University paper has also found that firearm buy-backs have had no effect on death by murder or suicide in Australia since their introduction in 1996.
Serious policing intervention on state, national and international levels is the only way to stem the criminal activities of these people who harm our community, as unfortunately, criminals don’t obey laws or hand in their guns during buy-backs.