See SMH story here: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/permit-rise-triggers-push-for-a-gun-limit-20120122-1qc2o.html
The Australian Institute of Criminology has reported a 6 per cent rise in firearm theft nationally. However the figure for NSW has increased by 60 per cent from 371 stolen guns in 2004-05 to 592 guns being stolen in 2008-09. Three quarters are never recovered and remain in criminal hands.
At the same time the number of permits issued in NSW to acquire new weapons is skyrocketing. 111,792 permits to acquire a new firearm were issued in 2009 and 2010 up from just 65,997 in 2005 and 2006. 
Greens NSW MP and Firearms spokesperson David Shoebridge said:
“It is simply wrong that individuals can accumulate an unlimited number of deadly weapons, with next to no scrutiny of their need for these weapons.
“Some registered gun owners clearly own an excessive number of firearms, and their private arsenals are targets for organised crime whether they are properly secured or not.
“Less guns in society mean less opportunities for gun crime. Reducing the number of weapons held in private residences will work to limit the attractiveness of gun theft by organised crime.
“While there are legal and appropriate uses for firearms, there is no justification for people owning a private weapons stash.
“Under NSW law there is next to no scrutiny of the reasons people give for acquiring guns and this has lead to a real spike in the number of weapons in circulation in the State.
“If a person genuinely needs to have more than three weapons then they should have to satisfy a very stringent test focused on exceptional circumstances.
“This legislation will allow law-abiding gun owners to hold an appropriate number of firearms for legitimate use, but will prevent the accumulation of private arsenals,” Mr Shoebridge said.
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Why attack the Law Abiding Firearms owners again David?
Howard did it in 1996 and now your trying to do something to make your mark in politics thats about all. Guns come into this country illegally all the time, where are all the missing police service hand guns that were stolen David? I certainly dont have them… Corrupt police and bikie gangs do…
i own 17 firearms and i can tell you mine are all secured and locked away. Feel free to come and look at my “arsenal” and see just how secure they are… In a 2000kg bank safe… Have you taken time to actually see how the current legislation is… Have you looked at the “secure your sport campaign” the SSAA pushes to us all the time? Probably not… you are a one track mind and have a “ban all things that are not save the whale”.
For some people Guns are tools David, For some people shoting is a recreational past time, how can you humanely take game with 3 different calibers… how can you shoot for sport with 3. We use many different calibers for different things. 5 of my 17 are shotguns for the various diciplines in the sport! How about banning golf clubs, baseball bats, and cricket bats… your turning this country into a “David knows best for all” just like Gillard
People are starting to wake up to you David, and come election time i do feel you will be gone, along with brown, Samantha Lee and others.
No other greens party except yours is going down this path, and you will pay for it severly come election time.
also on the three caliber’s point, i’ve noticed that the green’s are supposed to be committed to controlling feral pest’s in the most humane possible way. with only three different caliber’s you cannot be perfectly humane to the specific pest your are targeting hence you are hindering the humane treatment of animal’s.
If firearms theft was related to firearms ownership, then a 60% rise in ownership, would have a correlating 60% rise in thefts.
Of course, this is not the case, but rather than push for more secure safe storage- the only credible response to a rise in thefts – you’d rather take them away. You dont take away knives for knife crimes. Hell you dont even demand they be secured!
So, David, lets see if you can – under your plan – resolve my situation. I participate in Service Rifle shooting, requiring me to have a service rifle (ie a 303). I also partake in recreational hunting. Now I could use a 303 for that, but it doesnt and can’t have a scope without ruining its historical value by drilling it. Without a scope, my shots may not be as clean and humane as I would like, as I participate in hunting down feral pigs and the like on private property, so I need a hunting rifle with a fairly large calibre (pigs can weigh well over 100kg). Problem is I also shoot hairs and rabbits. This large calibre isn’t exactly pretty when it hits a rabbit, and I am sure not something you’d advocate. So, I’d need a small calibre rifle too (meaning I now have your limit of 3 firearms).
I also partake in clay target shooting – an olympic and commonwealth sport. So I need a shotgun. Now we’re at 4. Then there is my pistol sports. Thanks to the National Firearm Agreement, I cannot use my metallic silhouette pistol for target shooting, nor is my target shooting pistol powerful enough to participate in metallic silhouette. So, there’s 2 more.
So David if you can tell me how I can work within your system, i’d be interested to hear what you come up with. Or, are you just saying that I should not get out and enjoy the outdoors, socialising and sports?
I have the solution that would work with your 3 gun limit, but it’d require some law changes. Maybe you can help out.
1. Simply permit semi-automatic centrefires. This would permit me to acquire an AR-15, which qualifies as a service rifle. I can fit a scope to it so I can shoot pigs with sufficient accuracy and power (remember your friend Samantha says they are more powerful than other ,223′s – even though that isnt true, as some of the cartridges power is used to cycle the action, leaving less for the projectile – but hey her logic works FOR me here). Its also small enough calibre that I can use it on rabbits and hares without it getting too messy.
2. Remove the calibre restrictions on handgun shooting sports. Then I only need one pistol to do it all.
That just leaves my shotgun, the third firearm.
Please let me know if you’re going to push for these laws and I will gladly consider your 3 firearm limit. Otherwise, I’m sorry, but its a byproduct of your own laws.
Cheers!
David, you really need to have a look at the real numbers, data and statistics pertaining to where criminals are getting there weapons from. They are not stolen from law abiding citizens, they are smuggled in to the country through our underfunded border controls. There are also sound reasons why hunters need a selection of firearms, mainly due to humane dispatch of feral animals of different sizes.Please stick to the facts, you are beginning to appear uneducated and out of touch and somewhat fanatical with your gun control fetish. There are bigger issues.
Why do law-abiding citizens need to “justify” anything to you? No matter how many firearms I own, so long as I use them lawfully, what has it got to do with you and the Greens? Or are you really ‘Watermelons’? Green on the outside, red on the inside.
Next, you’ll want to limit the number of kitchen kinives in peoples’ kitchens.
David do you honestly think that, even if the world was turned upside down and you had your way of completely banning firearms in Australia, the criminal’s will not still have access to firearm’s? drug’s are illegal in Australia yet criminal’s still manage to get their hand’s on them, likewise no matter how many restriction’s you put on the law abiding firearms community the criminal’s will still be able to import firearm’s and so your proposal will do more to harm to the liberty of Australia’s people than to protect them from criminal’s
I got into shooting through necessity, as a small acreage farmer I lost all my lambs for the first 3 years, that was with guardian dogs and Alpacas in place, until I became the owner of a firearm, I now Hunt, Protect my stock and Target Shoot and as other people have explained to you all longarm firearms have different calibers for different jobs, And as far as getting rid of the Game Council, WHY At least there is a government body in place to control the hunting of Game and Feral animals. Please note that the animals that are hunted are not indiginiuos to this country but introduced species
Nice one dave.
just picked up the newspaper and was wondering if you can supply the ballistically proven numbers of legitamily owned firearms that where stolen and included in your figures. I have reviewed all the previous comments and agree totally with them. i am a hunter, Clay target shooter and an R License holder. You specify minimum centre fire rifles that as an R Licence holder i have to use. have you reviewed them?
Thanks David this makes me want to buy more firearms! so thats exactly what I’m going to do.
Then I’m going to go hunting and sort out some ferals, afterall our State Forests are full of feral animals.
Thankyou for encouraging me to stand up for my rights! I’ll also let all my friends know what you want to do.
Now to domate $500 to the Shooters and Fishers Party so they can help fight for our rights.
My wife is also looking at getting her Shooters License after reading this dribble you wrote, I’ve also started training my kids in the art of firearms use. They too will become LAFO’s also.
Thankyou for encouraging our family to play together and to fight for our rights, they and I appreicate it David.
My wife was not sure about firearms at all until one day she had a shot at the range and found it exciting and was absolutely amazed just how much fine it is to shoot, ever since then she has been hooked, I can’t go to the range without her or my kids, thankyou David for helping to achieve that for me – I appreicate it, its made our family much stronger as a result, well done mate.
Relax everyone and take a back seat to the new world collective is what David is really saying.Lol David if any other minority in Australia was subjected to the venal attempts,illogical fear and untruths of the greens and anti lobby like the lafo’s do you would scream blue murder.You are irrelevant and so is your party
David,
Over on The St James Ethics Forum there’s a bloke having a go at you and the Greens.
He is quoting newspaper articles on your three gun policy and saying that your idea and methods are unethical.
He has invited you to come on that public forum and refute that which he has said.
I, for one, am looking forward to seeing you make him eat his words.
Ruari you won’t see a responce there, why i hear you ask. Because this man has no ethics and even looking at that forum will most likely result in him bursting into flame.
David posted a reply on the St James Ethics Forum today but it has not yet been approved by the Moderator. Thank you,
KC.
David,
All that you need to do is wait a bit and then tear that Samuel character to bits.
I don’t think that he has the stamina to stand up to an educated person who can argue logically, go for it, David.
“argue logically” – what absolute rubbish, the pot has really gone out calling the kettle black on that one. “Educated” – There are so many flaws and technical errors in every ‘policy’ article on this website it is almost amusing except for the fact that you obviously still have some followers. I am looking forward to watching the slaughter at the next election. What a massive mistake it was to move away from your core principles focused primarily on preserving the environment, to the absolute absurd ranging from attacking long-established, popular sporting groups to fanatically protesting outside of chocolate shops. This increasing extremism of the greens will be your downfall as your traditional voting base come to realise what a bunch of radical and narrow-minded crackpots you have become. Australians will never tolerate an authoritarian regime, what makes you think anything has changed?
David,
You live in fantasy land with your socialist ideals. Why should I or any other LAW ABIDING AND LICENSED firearms owner have to justify owning anything or be restricted in my past time by you or your ilk? A golfer has a dozen clubs for various ‘jobs’ there is not difference between firearms owners or golfers. Chef’s own various knives to do different jobs – are you going to ban or restrict the amount of knives they are allowed to own as well? How about registration of knives and requiring a permit to acquire for each knife and as 28 day colling off period for purchases of different categories of knives??? Do you realise how stupid you look for proposing such legislation? How about tackling criminals and leave honest law abiding people alone for a change? Or is that too hard?
David,
You live in fantasy land with your socialist ideals. Why should I or any other LAW ABIDING AND LICENSED firearms owner have to justify owning anything or be restricted in my past time by you or your ilk? A golfer has a dozen clubs for various ‘jobs’ there is no difference between firearms owners or golfers. Chef’s own various knives to do different jobs – are you going to ban or restrict the amount of knives they are allowed to own as well? How about registration of knives and requiring a permit to acquire for each knife and a 28 day cooling off period for purchases of different categories of knives??? Do you realise how stupid you look for proposing such legislation? How about tackling criminals and leave honest law abiding people alone for a change? Or is that too hard?
PUT LOCKS ON CRIMINALS, NOT GUNS.
David Shoebridge – Why do you insist on calling firearms, ‘Weapons’? This is slander, the word ‘weapon’ denotes the fact that it has been used to purposefully hurt somebody. You have no proof that law abiding firearm owners have used their firearms to commit a crime. This is a despicable ploy on your part to ‘demonise’ firearms in the eyes of the people who think you are a good man. Of which you are not.
Greg, January 24, 2012 at 5:34 pm
They are weapons, there are assault weapons and defensive weapons.
I’m with David on this firearms are weapons and no amount of special pleading will get around that fact.
David you are only pushing your own agenda without real evidence. Why dont you tell the truth and provide us with the stats that say where all the stolen guns come from, the milatary, the police force and are any of them comeing in to the country via the drug dealers or would that de-rail you personal attack on law abiding licenced firearm owners. We have all had security checks and your party wants humane controle of feral animals, your logic is flawed and l cant see that 3 firearms per licence is going to stop crims from comiting there crimes. I think it is easier for you to attack LAFO’s than it is for you to attack the crim’s that are at the root of your argument. And why on earth would a crim hand in his firearm, realy tell me, if it was used in a crime then distroying it under a buy back would be a crime, yes?
Greens have always been a bit out there but you take the cake.
PS. Watermelons, lol aint that the truth !!!
David,
Unfortunately Samuel’s posts that I mentioned have been deleted, this is unfortunate as I was looking forward in anticipation of your putting him in his place.
It does seem a bit unethical for an Ethics Forum to just delete posts though and to deny you the chance of reply.
David, after reading your unsubstantiated claims, your naive comments, I believe the only part you left out from your vented spleen was ‘once upon a time, in a land far far away, every body lived happily because the big bad hunters and shooting enthusiasts were not allowed to pursue their legitimate sport’.
We here in the natural world have legitimate reasons to own more than one firearm, it has to do with the shooting discipline.
David, for your information the only people that shoot with firearms in both hands are in movies, and movies aren’t real mate.
We can only use one firearm at a time. We are law abiding people, we have complied, why punish us? We have done nothing wrong. As matter of a fact, after re-reading your unsubstantiated crap again, I realized the real problem, NOT ENOUGH MONEY SPENT ON MENTAL HEALTH. David I’m sure there is a doctor close by who can help you, maybe you should go and see him.
During the period under discussion, I applied for and received 2 Permits to Acquire, in anticipation of adding a 3rd weapon to my arsenal. I failed to find one that suited my needs or my pocket. These two Permits, issued at different times over a 9-month period, and expiring after 3 months, added a total of zero extra firearms to the available stock in NSW. The statistic quoted by David is an increase in Permits issued, and is meaningless. If he wants to talk about the rates of increase in firearms numbers, let him get them and publish them, broken down by type : guns, longarms, pistols, collectors’ pieces, etc. Then maybe there could be some calm and intelligent discussion. At present, all we have is headline-grabbing.
come on ! limmiting law abiding licenced taxpaying voting citizens to only holding a maximum of 3 guns is ludicrus .. why to make australia a safer place ? will it realy ?? come on customs only check one in 3 containers which land here how many of thoes do you think may contain ilegal and untraceably guns intended only for criminal use being taken in with the sole intent of organized crime .. weapons alone dont kill people criminals with wepons kill people the spate of drivebuys in sydney is on an unheard parralel now and its CRIMINALS DOING IT NOT LAWFUL GUN OWNERSHIP
what next only 3 kitchen knives ??? 3 cars 3 pushbikes 3 skateboards ? more people die weekly with theese items than ever are injured by licenced firearms owners
why shoud i be restricted to holding 3 guns i do countless thousands of hours removing feral animals which your goverrnment cant seem to handle due to funding or draconian policies
i remove 100s of fox cats indian mynabirds etc to conserve what precious little populations of rare and eunice native wildlife in our region every year at my own cost
how will i efectiveley be able to do this under your new policy ?? the native quolls brown bandicoots and smokey mouse will become extinct because of your stupidity and lack of thinking keep the country policies to thoes who know about the countryside we DO NOT need this farcifull fancifull policy hurting australians and there way of life tax the CRIMINALS NOT HURT ORDINARY LAWABIDING CITIZENS AGAIN !!!!!
David
Why don’t the Greens do something practical about the environment as the name of the party implies. Instead the Greens seem to stand for hard left politics and unfortunately none of your pollies look or sound like they have done a hard days work in their lives or have any practical experience. The Greens lack credibility.
I’m a farmer. I happen to own 6 guns -2 shotguns and 4 rifles. They are all used for different purposes.I don’t use a 22 to shoot pigs or a 270 to shoot rabbits. Likewise when a big brown is sitting on the front door step I use the 410 rather than the 12 gauge to minimise damage to the stonework. Etc, etc So David which guns do you want me to surrender?
Take some advice … stick to the areas you know something about. You are making an idiot of yourself.
TussockBill
Knives are used in more attacks and assults then firearms. So, why do you need all those knives in the knife block? You only need 3. One for bread, one for vegies and one for butter. You want more than three knives, well I think you need to justify that. You are not a chef, sorry only three.
The reason why “the majority of firearms are sourced from legal users”, according to the AIC, is because they cannot provide statistics on illegal imports that have not been siezed – they refuse to provide even an estimate- so that statistic does not exist, even though it obviously happens.
So the greens and antis exploit the AICs integrity, by presenting statistics without their context, so to speak.
NSW is now nearly the only state to have differing gun laws and this is due to the shooters party having a hold here. We greens need to improve electorally to knock them off their perch and reverse some of these gun favoring laws we are seeing.
Go for these stupid gun fanatics.
Only this morning on one of their forums (i won’t name it as that would only encourage them) but they are posting about some old man who was knocked off his push bike and assaulted by three teenagers. He pulled a pistol, while lying on the ground, and shot one of the young lads dead and wounded another.
Being America the police haven’t charged him but have charged the third boy for the assault. Both of the surviving boys can now be charged with ,felony murder,
This sort of defensive reaction could not happen in Australia. The American court system may not look to the real needs of these unfortunate boys and just think about their families. One family has lost a son another has a son wounded and in hospital and facing criminal charges.
Where is the evidence that these lads meant the man any real harm?
What planet are you living on mate ? You should get your head checked, it’s because people like you and thought’s like that, that kid’s like that exist.
You should be ashamed.
Holy mother of god. 3 teenagers knock an old man off his push bike and assault him. Yet you weep for the 3 thugs he stopped?
David,
Once again you have shown how to make it look like you are actually doing something by targeting the easy victim – the licensed firearm owner instead of targeting the problem – the crims! Is it just too hard David? yes go for the easy option every time. Shame David shame……..
I see the Greens now want to tax and ban wood-burning fireplaces. Seems like you have only two words in your political vocabulary. “Tax” and if you can’t tax it, “Ban”. I look forward to the Watermelons going the same way as the Democrats.
Thanks to all the gun-types for the comments. A couple of simple points in response and then I will shortly close comments on this post.
First a couple of facts:
(a) NSW has seen a spike in gun thefts in the last 5 years with almost 600 licenced firearms now being stolen a year; and
(b) We know that many of these stolen weapons remain in criminal hands because every year more than 450 of these weapons are not recovered; and
(c) For the vast majority of gun owners 3 weapons should be sufficient. The control of feral pests can normally be undertaken with a shot gun for close range moving pests, a .22 for small pests such as rabbits and foxes and a high powered rifle for larger animals such as feral pigs, dogs and goats.
Now a logical conclusion:
(a) The simple fact is the more guns people own, the more at risk they become to gun theft, and ultimately the more at risk the community is to these weapons falling into the hands of criminals.
And some gratuitous comment:
It is hard to see any viable justification for large private arsenals here in NSW.
Currently there is no limitation on the number of weapons people can own in NSW and next to no scrutiny of the reasons people give for acquiring them.
If a person wants more than three weapons then they should face far closer scrutiny and the need to justify the additional weapons. Grounds would include participation in genuine competition shooting or as a licensed and registered gun collector.
Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.Have to love politicians! Bit like nappies really, both should be changed often and for the same reason.
There doesn’t seem to to be much support for your view’s on this site David , by your comments ( paragraph (C) ) it is obvious that you know very little about the uses of firearms.
You should know the fact’s before attacking the law abiding firearms user’s .
PS Your use of letters for paragraph’s go’s (a), (b), (c),(a) just proves to me that you really are just going around in circles and getting nowhere. The sooner you and your mob get kicked out the better.