It’s been a busy year – and by the looks of it, we’re up for a busy 2016 as well.

Here’s a quick recap of what we saw during the year. Note how timely it was that we got our comms strategy up and running!

May – CFCV relaunches

2015 saw the activation by the CFCV of a new communication strategy in May. This strategy seeks to enable as many shooters as possible to receive the voting advice provided by Victoria’s major shooting organisations.

July – Adler

Less than two months later, the federal government was planning more restrictions after it mooted restricting the “fast and furious” lever actions. As you know, this went to the Police Minister’s conference later in the year, with the whole matter being put on hold until the next conference in April.

October – Great Forest National Park

In October we gave you a heads-up on a revamped proposal to create a new national park which would have taken in a significant chunk of deer hunting territory. We’re maintaining a watching brief on this, in consultation with shooting organisations, which will continue through to 2016.

October – IPSC joins CFCV

The International Practical Shooting Confederation joined the CFCV, bringing to 6 the number of major shooting organisations which form its membership.

November – Transportation

Last month, we exposed the move by the Victoria Police to rewrite the rules governing the transportation of firearms. Their proposal would mean Category A firearms (such as air rifles) in Victoria would be subjected to tighter requirements that Category D firearms (such as the AR-15) in NSW!

That drew a response from the Victoria Police which was disingenuous at best. They modified the wording of their guidelines but added a new ‘offence’ of speeding while transporting a firearm. Their guidelines are just that: guidelines which are not law. However it remains to be seen if we will see a new regulatory proposal in 2016.

November – Holiday and farm storage

Superintendent Craig Gillard, went to the media with a story suggesting firearm storage in premises such as holiday homes and farms was lax. He not only made outrageous claims such as being able to open up some of the safes ‘with his teeth’, but was later rebuked by his own command for speaking out of turn. The matter also caused Police Minister Wade Noonan to take the unusual step of any police minister we’ve had by addressing the Firearms Consultative Committee personally.

November – stats

In November we published encouraging results which showed the growth of shooting in Victoria. There are now 214,000 licensed shooters (up by 2.5%) and 767,000 registered firearms (up by 5.2%).

December – Liberal / Greens preference deal

Earlier this month we exposed a major preference deal concocted from deep within the Liberal Party that would have put the Greens ahead of Labor and come at a cost to the Nationals.

We asked shooters to send their message of disapproval to the Liberal’s leader, Matthew Guy, which we know was duly heard and understood. We only hope the deal is dead.

What 2016 will bring

We already know 2016 will be a big year for us. First, we’ve got the resumption of the fight over reclassification of our lever actions (and other repeating actions) in April.

This will coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Port Arthur shootings, which means the anti-gun lobby will use all their usual cheap tactics to fight their fight – which you can bet is not in the interests of the shooting sports or what you love to do.

Then we’ve got the federal election due in the second half of the year.

They’re just the things we know about. Add to that the likely array of other attacks which come our way and you will see why we’re gearing up to deal with those fights even before we know what they are.

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