PA Bill Number: SB99
Title: In county boards of elections, further providing for expenses of county boards and of primaries and elections to be paid by county, expenses of ...
Description: In county boards of elections, further providing for expenses of county boards and of primaries and elections to be paid by county, expenses of ... ...
Last Action: Re-referred to APPROPRIATIONS
Last Action Date: May 8, 2024
Australia-Narooma HuntFest: battleground over gun culture :: 11/28/2014
The gun culture debate ignited again this week with the Eurobodalla Shire Council voting to allow the sale of firearms at next year's Narooma HuntFest. Hunters say they are responsible people engaged in a sport that's highly regulated. They say a Green agenda is driving opposition to HuntFest. Opponents of HuntFest say they are concerned about the growth of a gun culture in Australia.
The first HuntFest, held over the June long weekend this year, had been approved to operate as a showcase for firearms, information on hunting, and a photographic event.
Huntfest organisers had since applied to Council to support an amendment to the festival's Firearms Permit that would allow the sale of firearms the next festival.
The application was passed this week (25 November) by a majority of five to two.
Eurobodalla Shire Council Deputy Mayor Rob Pollock told ABC Local Radio that "The five [Councillors] that voted for it I think feel very strongly that it was a Council facility involved in legal activity and all the safeguards and necessary permits had been retained and regarded."
Cr Pollack pointed to regulations that control the sale and purchase of firearms in New South Wales.
"It's not like you just roll up with your Bankcard or your Mastercard and say 'look I'll have that rifle over there' and then you walk out with it in a brown paper bag under your arm," he said.
"There are strict procedures regarding licensing, regarding sale, regarding when that particular delivery etc can take place. None of the retail sales if they do occur will actually happen within the opening hours of the HuntFest situation."
HuntFest organisers estimate the festival to have attracted about 2300 people and $900,000.
A talkback caller to ABC Local Radio, Peter, who said he had been at the Council meeting, said, "What Council has now done is it has enabled the increase of the availability of guns into the community. It's quite extraordinary."
"There's a particular section of the Local Government ACT, Section 89, which requires them to consider in detail the public interest, and the report to Council makes no reference to that", he said.
"Imagine this sort of thing happening after the Port Arthur massacre for heaven's sake."
The South Coast Hunting Club
The battle between the gun lobby and the anti-gun lobby began in 1996 following the killing of 35 people and wounding of 23 at Port Arthur, Tasmania.
The then Howard government enacted new gun laws to reduce the number of firearms in the community.
The South Coast Hunting Club was established following the introduction of those gun laws.
Writing on the Huntfest web site the club's vice president, Rod McLure, says that the club was established in response to the Port Arthur massacre as "the media and politicians (especially former Prime Minister John Howard) were quick to beat it up into an anti-gun ownership crusade, which included strident demands for the complete disarmament of the Australian population."
As the new legislation required firearms owners to have a valid reason the new club reasoned that "Target shooting or being a member of a hunting club seemed the only options available for law abiding citizens who wished to continue to practice responsibly, the sport they loved."
Huntfest organiser Dan Field , from the South Coast Hunting Club, told WIN TV earlier this year, "We only hunt feral animals. We're all conservation hunters down here. It is illegal to hunt native animals anywhere in Australia."
Hunting clubs have a focus on teaching safe firearms practices and getting the message out that hunters are responsible, have a role to play in feral animal control, and have the right to pursue their sport.
Rod McLure says, "The South Coast Hunters' Club has, at its core, the objective of ensuring that members have access to education via courses, special speakers and articles that will make them safety conscious, politically aware, skilful and intelligent hunters.
"The club is also vigilant regarding changes to firearms legislation. However, the club will nonetheless seek a fair balance between the rights of hunters and the demands of an often ignorant and poorly informed anti gun lobby."
Links with GameCon and the Fishers and Shooters Party
The South Coast Hunting Club is affiliated with GameCon which provides what the Huntfest web sites says is 'significant financial support to Huntfest'.
GameCon (Game Management Council of New South Wales) is also a political lobby group.
Rod McLure writes that "Dan [Field] and Jeff Garrad - another member of the [South Coast Hunting] club - would regularly attended GameCon meetings in Sydney and help to develop strategies to fight the more extreme aspects of the anti-gun lobby's plans to restrict the rights of law-abiding hunters and gun owners. Many members became associated with the NSW Shooters Party, led by John Tingle."
Policy alignment with the NRA
The Australian gun lobby says that anti-gun groups have no basis in attempts to link them with the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the United States, and the Sporting Shooters Association has specifically challenged allegations of receiving funding from the NRA.
However, they do share similar activities and views.
Both are active in teaching safe hunting practices and ethics, and in representing the community of hunters who are pursuing their sport with responsibility.
The NRA is actively involved in HuntFests in the United States, as is the Australian gun lobby in Narooma's HuntFest.
The NRA and the Australian gun lobbys both have similar views on gun control.
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right to own firearms: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
In 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess a firearm in the home for self-defense.
In Australia the situation is the polar opposite, where home or personal defense is specifically denied as a reason for possessing a firearm, as a result of Howard's gun control laws.
The NRA lobbies to prevent gun control while the Australian gun lobby aims to roll back Howard's gun control legislation.
