Firearms Reform Coming Based on the Law Reform Commission Review

Firearms Owners are facing 2 sets of reforms.

One that is currently in the WA Legislative Council that are nearly passed. Yes the one that came out of nowhere and was put together by the Minister, Senior Bureaucrats and possibly one law firm. All behind closed doors, no stakeholder invovlement or consultation. No outside consultation at all.
You can find more detail here - Progress of Bills (parliament.wa.gov.au) 

The other that has now been mentioned coming sometime in the next 12 months & is based on the WA Law Reform Commission's report titled "REVIEW OF THE FIREARMS ACT 1973 (WA) PROJECT 105 FINAL REPORT OCTOBER 2016"

There's a lot of talk about the timing & what the sudden motivation really is. Good chance there's a good deal of ideology behind it & a good chance the current political landscape pushing it.

That aside, some of the recommendations are overdue. Some of the things within the report have been pushed by firearms owners, the firearms industry & other stakeholders...for years. 

You can find the report paper here... LRC-Project-105-Final-Report.pdf (www.wa.gov.au)

Yes it's 185 pages, yes it has 143 recommendations and yes, if you ignore it you're more likely to not end up where you'd like it to be. Lawful Firearms Owners will have to lodge submissions in the coming reforms. It isn't as difficult as you think. If you're unsure, jot down things you'd like changed and improved & then go through the recommendations and add what you think. Worried it'll take days and days? Its better if it does, better to chip away & have it set out before they call for submissions.

If you're a lawful firearms owner, a recreational hunter, competative sport shooter, pest controller, work in primary production with livestock you probably need to get onto this & invest in your future, your sport & your culture.

Yes, hunting, sport shooting is part of many people's long held family culture.

Will it be a big set of reforms? Probably yes. Reason being there was a lot of flak when the first reform came out of the blue November 2021 & hit the table of the Legislative Assembly with little or no warning. Unconfirmed but widely thought that most Labor MPs were not informed about the reforms & that most of Cabinet didn't now until it was publicly announced.

No this is not the first time. When the WA Government announced it was going to close School of the Air, no stakeholders were warned or consulted prior. Not staff, parents & guardians and scarily, not even the Members of Parliament from those affected areas within their own party. It was highly embarassing & blew everyone away.

Its likely that the Law & Order problems in Northbridge, Pilbara/Kimberley & elsewhere will see the embattled Police Minister ramp the urgency on promoting their actions for "Community Safety"
Lawful firearms owners are probably going to be victims of other people's political woes. They will probably be keen to stir the pot, get LAFOs stirred up, roused up, angered & fuming and hope there will be a Protest March, protestors hopefully clashing with Police. It will sell the reforms being harder that need be & play into the over reach that will release political pressure on the Cabinet.

So cool heads are required. Proper approach is the only pathway. We need good submissions to the Parliamentary Committee that will be coming & we need them to be plentiful. We need to support any reasonable reforms that make things safer for the community and make it far too risky for the criminals. I was told it's too much, too harsh to give a criminal using a gun in a crime 15-20 years just for criminal use of the firearm and/or 15-20 years for possessing an illegal firearm. I was told that possession of illegal firearms being 10-20 years jail PER ILLEGAL FIREARM was too harsh. Well either gun crime is serious or it isn't...I know many firearms owners who have never committed gun crime and have never used any firearm as a weapon. I haven't spoke to all of them but I don't think any of them will oppose massive penalties, potentially the biggest in Australia for criminals & having no effect on the legal firearm owners except perhaps lessening the chances of gun theft to some degree.

Stay tuned, more will unfold, stay calm, keep talking & helping others.