The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia Inc. announced today that it welcomed a recent New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research report which shows that over half of all handgun related shootings in NSW take place in the Canterbury-Bankstown and Fairfield-Liverpool areas.
SSAA researcher and WA state president Mr Paul Peake, said “The fact that in a state with six and a half million people, over half the shootings take place within two suburbs shows that the rise in handgun related crime in NSW has a lot more to do with social issues than legitimate gun ownership.”
Mr Peake said that once the large numbers of pistols imported into Australia to fill government contracts had been factored out, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed that the number of handguns imported legally for legitimate sporting purposes had fallen by about half over the past five years.
Mr Peake went on to say that the SSAA rejects the anti-gun lobby's call for more restrictions to be placed on licensed gun owners in the wake of the report. Mr Peake said “The government should have a good look at the growing problems in Sydney's western suburbs rather than putting more burdens on legitimate shooters. The situation in NSW is not a gun issue, it's an organised crime issue confined to a relatively small area.”