Gun Control In Eastern Suburbs Firing Line

By Marcus Braid on October 1, 2015 in News

Local Greens MP David Shoebridge has expressed dismay at the degree of registered gun ownership in the Eastern Suburbs.

There are more than 850,000 guns in private hands in NSW, and across the Eastern Suburbs there are almost 10,000 registered firearms spread between 2,574 gun owners.

Matraville has 1,591 firearms in the area, while Randwick has 634, Coogee has 543 and Bondi Junction has 328.

“What we are seeing is a continuous build-up of firearms in the community so that we now have one gun for every nine residents in NSW,” Mr Shoebridge said.

“There’s not much that John Howard and I agree on, but when it comes to gun control he made a courageous and important set of reforms in 1996 in taking hundreds of thousands of highly lethal weapons off the streets and we are safer as a result.

“The problem is that those laws are under constant pressure from the gun lobby to water them down.”

Mr Shoebridge expressed particular concern for the increasing presence of Shooters and Fishers Party representatives in parliament.

“We now see Shooters MPs in the NSW parliament, in the Victorian parliament, in the West Australian parliament, and effectively Shooters MPs elected as federal senators,” he said.

“They shamelessly use their small numbers in upper house parliament to blackmail governments on gun control.

“These are small private arsenals that are scattered around our suburbs, each one of which is a significant security risk. Why does anyone living in suburban Randwick need 13 guns? Why do they need one, let alone 13?”

While shooting is a popular sport in the Eastern Suburbs largely due to the presence of the Anzac Rifle Range at Malabar, Mr Shoebridge said the main concern was where the weapons ended up.

“We know through material the AFP and Australian Crime Commission provides that the overwhelming source of weapons entering the illegal firearm market are stolen weapons from the legal market,” he said. “It just makes sense.”

Bruce Notley-Smith, NSW Member for Coogee, acknowledged that it only took one gun to find its way into the wrong hands for a tragedy to happen, but he questioned what would be a safe ratio.

“Is eight or nine guns for every gun owner safe?” he said.

“For the best part of a century, the only suburban firing range is in Matraville. Naturally it’s a sport that’s right on the door step of residents, and so it becomes an easier option to take up that sport.”

Federal Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm recently told www.abc.net.au that the figures were of no surprise to him, because there are 55,000 licensed firearm owners in the Sydney basin.

“According to the Bureau of Crime Statistics, gun crime in Sydney is down significantly over the last few years, which just goes to show that there’s no correlation between the increasing number of guns and rates of crime,” he said.

“I welcome these figures because they indicate our chances in international target shooting competitions are increasing, and an active hunting community will benefit the environment by eradicating feral animals.”