PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
Australia: Tasmanian Government rejects call to limit access to Adler lever-action shotgun :: 05/02/2016
The Tasmanian Government has rejected calls from the state Greens to severely restrict access to a brand of lever-action shotgun.
Gun control advocates have backed calls from the Tasmanian Greens to prevent the shotgun remaining listed as a category A firearm, rather than in categories C and D for semi-automatic or self-loading firearms.
The Adler A-110, which operates by pushing a lever forward and back to reload after each shot is fired, has been purchased by about 7,000 shooters in Australia.
Police Minister Rene Hidding has now ruled out changing the laws, saying it was a matter for the Commonwealth and states to decide together.
"What the Greens are proposing is that we actually break the National Firearms Agreement," he said.
"A feature of the national agreement is that no state should get out in front of any of the others or lag behind any of the others."
Opponents of the shotgun claim the lever-action firearm is capable of rapid fire and has a large magazine capacity.
Gun Control Australia's Roland Browne said national laws were a minimum requirement, and could be amended locally.
"The state of Tasmania can legislate to bring in whatever bans and limitations it likes," he said.
"They [Adler A110 shotguns] represent a major risk. If [Man Haron] Monis had had a gun like that in the Martin Place siege three years ago, the results may have been even worse."
He said the gun should not be banned, but should be unavailable for A and B category gun users, the least restrictive.
"We would like to see every state move now, not waiting for a national movement, to put these guns into category C or D, so they're not in the hands of the average shooter," Mr Browne said.
The Greens said they would raise their proposed amendments to the Firearms Act in Parliament this week.
