Just when you thought it was safe to come out, Victoria Police strike again. This week they had not one, but two articles in the Herald Sun lobbying for the state government to tighten up the way you store your firearms.
You know you’ve got a problem when a regulator becomes a taxpayer funded lobbyist. Let’s go through the offending articles. First here’s the story which appeared on Tuesday:
Sorry I cut parts of the story off. My photocopier is only so big! It’s pretty easy to work out who the mysterious source from within VicPol is!
Then the HS ran with this editorial the same day:
Then today, this story appeared!:
So there you have it. A sustained attack by Victoria Police on what we do and how we do it. You will note int he last article confirmation the Victoria Police will be lobby8ing the police minster directly. Robin Scott is new to the job so there is a risk he may be susceptible to being led astray.
However there is the possibility we will have the right of reply to these in the paper. It’s something we’re working on at the moment, so please stay tuned.
However if you wanted to put in your own letter to the editor, please don’t let us stop you. You can do that by clicking here. Remember, being short, calm and factual always works.
What do you expect when the Chief Commissioner’s chief of staff is the premier’s former chief of staff and a Labor hack.
When the politicians and the police become one it’s very dangerous for anyone who doesn’t tow the line.
Am i the only one that read that as them looking at tougher laws for illegal firarms and crimes with firewarms ??
Im more than happy for crimes with firearms to carry heavy consequences that will not effect law abiding gun owners.
And make someone thinking of using one for the wrong reason think twice..
As long as it stays as that tougher laws for criminals…..
Atleast they are finally making the distinction of illegal firearms and not just firearms.
I might also go against the trend and say as a gun owner it is your responsibility to make it as hard as possible for someone to steal your firewarms.
That can mean having a decent safe that does not take 1 min to get into.
If you want to own firewarms you have a responsibility to do what ever you can to ensure they are securely stored and put away.
This does not mean you have to spend thousands but if you can afford $2000-$5000 on a rifle or hand gun you can afford $1000 on a proper safe to keep your firearms safe.
You can even go the next step and get an alarm at your house. Little things like that could help prevent alot of thefts and take us out of the firing line.
Hi IMO
You are right in that 90% of the latest article is about illegal firearm users, which is fine. It’s the comments about targeting legal firearm owners and the fact the police have recommended changes to our laws without telling us what they are that is the problem. They’ve got form here and to be blunt, we can’t trust them. It’s a shame to say that but for whatever reason, they do not want to engage with the shooting community on such an important issue.
I’ll never understand why the police don’t let us LAFO join them against illegal firearms. Instead they want to link us into the same group. It really feels like the illegal gun trade is in the too-hard basket so they need to be ‘seen’ to be doing their job.
As a retired police officer here in the USA, I wonder as to what sort of sentences the shooters and possessors of illegal weapons are recieving in Austrailan courts. Are they playing “Let’s Make a Deal” as they do here in the States? How much of the sentence is actually being served in prison? How much time does a convicted home invader recieve? Even if a person had his guns secured in a $10,000 safe, being unarmed at the moment when confronted by a home invader (bandit) armed with a machette would surely result in the vault contents being surrendered. It also sounds (based on reading the articles) as if the screening process for immigants has not worked really well.