ONE OF THE PROBLEMS with politics in shooting is that it’s us older blokes who are going on about it which doesn’t represent the broader population of shooters, especially the booming number of shooters in their 20s and 30s.
However every now and again, we come those who we think will help carry the flag forward. It’s those shooters we need to carry the fight forward.
Meet Lawson
LAWSON HARPER might be one of them. He’s 22, a bloke from the land who knows his guns, and someone we reckon has what it takes.
In this article, we’ll show you an article he wrote that delves into the political problems we have, from the perspective of a younger shooter who will definately be affected by what the WA government is doing.
We know politics bores a lot of people, but the problems shooters out west have are well documented and going to get worse if they aren’t tacked. It’s also something shooters in others states / territories need to read, so that we don’t have this cancer spread through the National Firearms Agreement.
Below what Lawson sent us – that we knew we had to publish.
Lawson Harper
HAVING GROWN UP ON A FARM as a primary producer, taking part in sports shooting, pest and vermin control, and now as a professional shooter, firearms have been an essential part of my life.
From growing up seeing my father euthanise sick stock on the farm, entering rifle competitions, clay target shooting with friends and my job professionally shooting vermin, I can comfortably say one size does not fit all with firearms use!
I utilise multiple different firearms and calibres for my occupation, where I predominantly shoot and harvest wild kangaroo professionally for pet meat, saving costly damage to the agricultural industry whilst providing a sustainable source of meat for pet owners.
Aside from shooting kangaroos, I also use firearms to control wild pig, dog, fox and rabbit populations.
Since graduating from Muresk with a degree in agribusiness, I worked around multiple farming enterprises across the state before choosing this work path to fund further university studies.
It’s not everyone’s preferred job, with extended hours, vast distances needed to be covered, and working remotely and early into the following morning.
It’s a skilled profession requiring consistent marksmanship to achieve humane culls. However, it is a job that I enjoy and has allowed me to own my own business and provide a product and service.
I AM STRUGGLING TO UNDERSTAND why our police minister appears to be targeting law-abiding licensed firearms ownership at the taxpayer’s expense.
Why do the already strictest laws in the country need to be overhauled? Tweaking is always necessary, but hardly the costly and unrealistic remodelling being proposed.
Changing and modification of laws are inevitable. Why the secrecy about what the new regulations will change? Why not use the valuable feedback of the Firearms Review conducted recently as a starting point for policies?
As opposed to the snippets of information that are gradually leaking out that imply the new laws will restrict legal firearm ownership to an impractical level which will likely just encourage more illegal and secretive ownership.
I think the proposed firearm number limits for recreational shooters are poorly thought out. Even as a professional shooter, most of my firearms are on a recreational licence, which allows me (under the current laws) to use them most flexibly.
MY WORK takes me hundreds of kilometres throughout the Wheatbelt, South-West, Gascoyne, Pilbara and beyond. Thus, I often find the need to travel with multiple calibres of firearms for differing situations.
A shotgun for culling birds is hardly appropriate for euthanising a sheep, nor is a .22LR suitable for shooting a feral scrub bull. And my primary rifle, though very accurately sighted, sees far too much wear and tear in its day-to-day job for me to use it in long-range rifle competitions.
I believe our police minister is unaware of the dramatic consequences of these amendments; restricting recreational hunters who do a large majority of pest control for farmers will only lead to plague proportions of vermin.
Relying on professional shooters such as myself is an issue because although I will often endeavour to shoot foxes, cats or dogs for farmers, my income is solely focused on shooting kangaroos, as every time I shoot a fox, I absorb the cost of the bullet and the opportunity cost of a kangaroo hearing the shot and dispersing.
I fear that professional shooters and recreational hunters such as myself will not have a correct category for legitimate ownership or be hamstrung in our choices and ability to shoot as a sport.
The very little information that we licensed firearms owners are receiving from an array of sources does not provide any certainty that the new amendments benefit our community or the law-abiding citizens directly affected by said amendments.
As of writing, there has been no confirmation that being a professional shooter will be a legitimate, genuine need to own a firearm.
THE POLICE MINISTER has made his personal opinion on private firearm ownership clear. Still, these amendments will have consequences far-reaching for those being used to justify the change.
I ask that all farmers, recreational shooters, and professional shooters unite together because this affects all of us. The attacks will not stop at this, and if we do not make noise on this issue together, they will pass legislation disregarding the impacts beyond the Perth Metro area.
Will the state government use their powers of acquisition to seize current lawfully licensed firearms? Will they also provide reimbursement for the seized firearms? How will this be funded?
Onya' Lawson
We thought Lawson’s letter was a great read. If you thought it was as well, please send this to shooters you know. No matter where they are.
If you’re not a member of the NSC, then jump on board today. We’re taking the fight up for shooters and will be more effective, the more shooters we have behind us. For starters, we’ll be showing this page to some key politicians so they know exactly what the real sentiment among the shooting voting demographic is.
Full support.
What an exceptional bit of fact writing.As Lawson Harper stated that many shooters use different calibers to shoot different species of feral animals that are ravaging this country.I mainly shoot feral cats & rabbits/hares,depending on the night & hunting conditions I have 3 calibers to choose from.Also every fox I shoot I don’t even bother collecting the $10.00 bounty per scalp as I consider I am doing the farmer & environment a favour in getting rid of these destructive feral,also why should the tax payer fund a bounty to rid the country of foxes & wild dogs.I also consider it a privilege to be allowed & asked to hunt different farm properties. I am a law abiding citizen who has held a firearm licence for close to thirty years without breaking any rules.Remember criminals do not follow the rules of society so they don’t register the firearm or even obtain a licence to own a firearm.
This WA proposal is an an ill thought out peice of legislation with almost zero facts.Paul Pailapia just seems anti gun & is willing to spin any BS to put the fear of God into the citizens of WA.Just look at all the scare & fear mongering over Covid 19 which is a respiratory disease ( FLU ) that McGowan & other politicians pushed around the world.It is all about control & power.
You really have to wonder why McGowan quit all of a sudden? WA needs to look at the socialist Labour Government on its failings,health system in crisis,ambulance ramping,forced jab mandates for no reason,metro rail system $10B over budget & years behind.Wake up the majority have been fooled by Government & will not accept it or refuse to say they were taken for a ride.All the Covid 19 truths & scare campaigns are slowly comming to light & citizens are waking up that the Government Australia wide took them for fools.
Staying away from unrelated politics, let’s stick with the subject at hand. It can’t be said that the battle to get rid of McGowan has been won, as he quit the game, but a win is a win and gone is gone. Now how do you get rid of Papalia. This is a man on a mission and it would seem to be unstoppable. We all need to act as One, shooters young and old need to come together as a united front against this man and HIS policies. Unless we, with the valuable help of the NSC, challenge this total miss use of power, We Will Loss.
Well Done Lawson……. fantastic read and well put. Governments need to have a good look before they leap……..
NSC does service to all shooters regardless of what their chosen activity is, notice how quiet the major shooting groups are, SSAA all hot air, NRA don’t get involved, ACTA ???? APA and so on, all to stupid to unite, one may be more important than the other. there needs to be some serious tree rattling .
WA farms are classified as work places. Being on a work place for a recreational activity is fraught with Workcover issues. The new WA firearm laws are going to be in sync with Workcover regs. Only legal way to shot upon WA farm land is as an employee of the farm covered by Workcover or as a contracted professional shooter with their own insurance. That’s why all WA property letters shall be cancelled for recreational shooters. And that is what’s happening in WA … to then be rolled out throughout Australia.
That is a disturbing insight into the WA agenda and makes sense of the rumour concerning potential cancellation of property owner letters
The cancelation of 70,000 property letters is happening. New property letters must be registered with WA Police and only issued for non-primary production land. And WA Police shall limit the number of letters each property can issue. WA shooting clubs or organisations holding non-primary production land and selling property letters shall no longer be an option. In the future, there shall be a majority of firearm owners in WA with no genuine hunting reason and shall need to revert to joining target shooting organisations or need to exit the sport.
These fascists can try it on, but getting WA shooters to meekly acquiesce to their agenda might be another issue
Well worded story Lawson, they say the pen is mightier than the sword. However, if the community does not read these words, so as to be educated rather than frightened, then we are in trouble. Its got to a point in WA and getting there elsewhere in Australia where politicians see scare mongering as a way to increase their votes or to validate their position. All shooting organisations and firearm owners need to work together to dismay any concerns of the general public. I said this before, but nobody listened :(, all shooting organisation should have open days at rangers at “break even cost” and invite the general pubic to try the sport. I would bet they would be overwhelmed with people attending, enjoying and understand the sport so much they would join us. More people on our side equals more voting power. The elephant in the room is cost, some rifle rangers are expensive and deter more people / families from attending. Well that’s me anyhow.
Time for LFOs to stick together, join the NSA
I hate to be the one who says it but… smell the communist New World Order agenda here to disarm West Aussies? They want to remove your ability to resist bureaucratic tyranny. Yes, I said it. Better now than when the UN ‘peace keepers’ are banging on your front door at 2am
This is an excellent letter.
Of course, even if it does makes it to the hands of a “responsible” minister, it will be completely ignored.
Why?
Because politicians are fed information from bureaucrats – and ministers confer information from outside sources with said bureaucrats. This means that ANY information that enters the possession of an MP, gets put through a blender and dumbed down to the point where even the most useless of simpleton (POTUS?) is able to regurgitate it without too much problem.
This is why politicians still fight loud and hard for suppressors to remain illegal … because the bad guys in a few movies had them and they all go “pfft! pfft!” and since the movies come from different directors and studios, that MUST be the truth. When a bureaucrat, who doesn’t want to stand out by contravening the opinion of an elected moron, is asked – they will reassure them of this opinion being utterly correct.
So, trying to get sense out of a government of narcissistic morons (and failed lawyers who are taught that they can NEVER be wrong) is like pushing diarrhea up a brick wall with a star picket. The pointy end.
Papalia will ignore this in the firm belief that he knows better than anyone who criticises his performance as Police Minister and would promptly label it as some form of terrorism (as would the retarded sycophants in his department).
I gave up my Ruger semi-auto to the short-sighted Prime Minister John Howard, whose whole agenda since he entered parliament was to disarm this vast great country. He tricked the population into doing this by calling it a buyback. I know several people that never fell for this trick and still have their semi-automatics. It was a big con job and the people fell for it. Hitler did the same thing and the Gestapo was born. My father spent 3 months in a concentration camp and then did four and a half years of forced labour. What will happen if we are invaded, the army has 3 weeks of ammunition. The English had the home army. The Americans had freedom fighters during the revolution. We aren’t even allowed slingshots .Watch out gun owners we could end up with A Gestapo
A mini-14 you say? Imagine the heart break giving up both an AR10A2 and HKG43 during the buyback. Even hearing the story hurts.
We the people are constantly being told . not asked how to live how behave how when and where we can use our legally acquired firearms .play the game.but they keep changing the rules without consulting the greater community .I’ve been a member of the shooting community for over forty years. Starting with a.22 going to a small bore rifle club to learn how to shoot accurately and effectively take game with a humane kill since then I’ve owned various different types of firearms in various different calibres I spent time in the military I also spent time working on large properties in Queensland . New South Wales Victoria I have never been in any trouble with the police. I’m 60 years old and last September my neighbour who owes me a considerable amount of money refused to give me the money.went to the police and they gave him anA.V.O because he concocted a story about me threatening to shoot him.I had all of my rifles seized . My licence suspended pending an investigation of my character my rights to ownership of the firearms it took 4 appearances in court cost $ 5000 approximately to get my license back and my firearms back . And the clincher was that the guy who made the complaint was a known criminal.and had already been convicted for shooting a man with an illegally obtained handgun.so you don’t have to tell me that the police and the government don’t have an agenda to take legal firearms away from law abiding citizens that’s a clear example of who they are really protecting. When they take our weapons away only the criminals will have guns Im sure this guy would still have access to illegal firearms so if you want to get to enjoy the sport of hunting target shooting or working with firearms then you need to join the fight for the freedom to do so join the national shooting council and help save our sport I guarantee that I’m not the first and won’t be the last to go through this stand up for the rights to enjoy recreational shooting . Thank you