WA now has the 'toughest firearms laws' in the country. So who can keep their guns?
WA now has the 'toughest firearms laws' in the country. So who can keep their guns?
The WA government says its new firearms laws are the toughest in the country, “making explicit that the possession and use of a firearm is a privilege but not a right”, according to the police minister.
This specific image from the article has me cringing:
From his hand hold I think he is trying to hold it steady while he uses the scope as a spotting scope rather than to aim the gun, or he is an idiot that is about to give himself a black eye while also dropping the gun, depending on recoil.
Labor just lost 31,000 votes next election.
Might be water off a ducks back at the moment, but my experiences with gun owners to date, (apart from one gun owner), is they're uncomfortably fanatical about their guns. And belligerently oppose any demands they take higher precautions with the guns in their possession.
In short, they'll remember this, the laws are passed, but acceptance of them isn't.
Both main political parties have introduced sweeping gun reforms in my lifetime. Do they just flip back and forth over whoever introduced the latest set of laws?
There are very few people, even in a dyed in community like shooting, that are so one eyed as to wholly pivot their vote on a single issue.
But it has lead directly to minor parties and independents gaining traction in regional areas (places where gun owners per capita are higher).
This is why groups like Shooters Fishers and Farmers sprung up.This is a reason the Coalition have structured themselves in the way they have. As a mostly Liberal/National partnership, allied by a secret contract. It allows them to play to their respective bases, and as a unit, to constantly speak out of both sides of their mouth. Unfortunately the rise of the teals, and continuing denial of the climate reality have seriously damaged the Liberal/National electability in this area.
As @Mountaineer says, voter dissatisfaction on many specific points like this one is why a lot of minor parties have gained traction over the last quarter century.
Labor on the otherhand is supposed to represent workers, which is such a broad segment of society that they've never needed to form alliances to have the potential voter numbers to have a real chance of forming government before an election.