A SHOOTER from Western Australia has forced WA Police to back down on a new storage requirement it tried to impose on him.
Brian's passion
Brian is no stranger to the shooting scene in WA. He is a founding member of a key shooting organisation in WA.
He’s passionate about the future of shooting and is keen for the NSC to push back against what is the darkening political culture that Western Australia Police have towards shooters. That’s why he fights.
All over an air rifle
Brian purchased an air rifle from a friend for $150 which he needed to get ‘licensed’.
In WA, each gun is licensed separately while shooters in other states get ‘permits-to-acquire’. The licensing process in WA means shooters there need to go through a licensing process every time they get a gun, which also means the licences need to be renewed each year.
The application must be accompanied with a statutory declaration and photographs of the storage they are proposing.
Brian provided both.
The threats from WA Police
Brian was already using his original safe for other guns when WA Pol advised him that his existing safe was non-compliant (without saying why), and they would not licence his gun.
This is despite his safe having been deemed compliant in the past.
Brian had a second safe that was given to him by an old friend and bolted in place, which he decided to use. It was that safe that he sent photographs of to WA Police.
The response from a Sgt at WA Police Licensing told Brian that his second safe was also non-compliant, which he says is not correct.
Importantly the letter he received from WAPol not only failed to explain why his safe was non-compliant, but said that the method of anchoring (bolting down) is also non-compliant – again, without saying why.
The letter also carried a threat that if Brian did not provide new evidence of compliance within 28 days, his application to licence the gun would lapse, he would lose his payment of $256, and the registry would review his existing shooters licence.
The letter also took 10 days to reach Brian, which meant that the 28-day period had already started ticking before he knew about it.
taking up the fight
Schedule 4 of the WA Firearms Regulations 1974 set out the storage requirements for WA shooters.
From our reading, they are clear and have not changed in recent times.
Yet WAPol failed in its basic duty to explain why it considered the safe to be non-compliant. So Brian wrote to WAPol and his local MP.
To their credit, his local MP and his electorate officer, were proactive in helping Brian, which he is obviously grateful for.
That’s why going to your local MP is often a good idea.
The backflip: Brian's licence gets approved
Following this approach, the registry wrote back to Brian to advise him that his safe was now compliant.
However, like it’s earlier correspondence, there is no explanation in its correspondence of what the registry was looking for in relation to the compliance – or why – which shows that the original decision simply lacked merit.
In other words, WAPol’s position on storage was “policy on the run”.
WAPol backs down. Again.
This is not the first time WA Police have made up policies that are not supported by the WA Firearms Act 1973. Yet its Police Minister lets them get away with it. What a good minister would do is set a Statement of Expectations, which covers the professionalism of how the registry should work. To our knowledge, no such document exists.
Readers will recall the NSC had a series of wins over reclassification, and there is another story that might come your way soon on yet another legal win for shooters out west.
What this means is that it always worth challenging bad regulatory decisions, particularly in WA. The fact WAPol previously complained that it was losing fights in the State Administrative Tribunal because of shoddy arguments or evidence is less than surprising: We’ve seen why first hand.
What is good for me, is good for you
In the spirit of open and transparency of good governance, we asked WAPol if we can inspect the firearm storage at any one of their stations.
Specifically, we would like to check to see what they have in place in case as it complies with WA laws – and WAPol’s own, cloudy, policy.
On 7 January, we wrote to them asking “we are wondering if we can send someone to a police station to check the storage that is used there? Please let me know if that can be arranged.”
We are yet to receive a response – but if we do get an invitation, we’ll be there.
Ruling by intimidation
The NSC has a copy of all correspondence, documentation and Photos relating to Brian’s experience with WAPol.
However, we have been asked not to print any of them, for fear of retribution.
It’s a fear which seems to come up a fair bit in WA – and why shooters who live out west need to back the NSC so we can continue fighting how the conditions they live in.
In WA we are being told to resubmit our storage information, photos, stat Dec when we submit an additional firearm application despite no changes to any information or address change and all the information already being on file with WAPOL
. The request is being delivered via Australia post mail, not email, further stalling the application process. 8 to 9 week wait for a simple additional firearm is not uncommon
Police have lost my paperwork now I have to do it again . Police don’t seam to want to look for i
‘For fear of retribution’… Such a telling statement, and such an accurate position as well. There is something very sinister about this country when a citizen cannot be transparent about dealings with Police for well founded fear of retribution by them. Police earn their hate every day. Why do they do this to us?
Don’t vote for the majors.
join our email list does not work, filled it out, said click on recaptcha and then everything disappears
Thanks – am looking at it now.
They are incompetent as well.
I lived on a large rural property and needed a shotgun for pest control.
I already had a license for a .223 so I thought it would not be a problem.
Really. It took quite a while to sort it out. Bought shotgun, licensed, done.
Next licence renewal no shotgun on my license.
I went into my local police station and produced my paperwork. No problem I was told, we will sort it.
Next year same again, no shotgun on my license. I was assured that this time they would fix it.
No! Third year still no shotgun on my license.
Luckily I was then talking to a mate who told me to phone his old childhood mate who happened to be a sergeant of police in the firearms department.
He was very helpful, said most of the Fwitts in the police department had no idea, sorted it out for me and that was it.
However in those three years according to our wonderful firearms department of our police here in WA I had an unlicensed firearm and could have been prosecuted and lost both my shotgun and rifle.
Absolutely disgusting by WAPOL. Licensed for each gun? Equally as disgusting. Eventually over regulation may (MAY) cause some to decided it’s just too hard going through all the nonsense and may (again, may) just decide it’s more hassle-free to bypass the system. If the police & WA government over in Commie-land want to keep everything above board and the majority of law abiding shooters happy, there has to be a better method than slugging shootings with over-regulatory red tape. It benefits noone.
No doubt they probably read these articles and stick those commenting on a watch list. Again, poor form WAPOL. Shooters aren’t happy being treated like criminals.
this over-regulation for no useful purpose has to stop. It is costly and wasteful of police resources. Once a person is licenced in a given category any registration requirements could easily be handled by the dealer including fees, it should be so simple. On acquisition of a new firearm the registered dealer updates the registry and processes the fee as they do now for GST. This cost on the dealers time would be factored into his overheads and passed on but would still be cheaper than having a whole police branch to bankroll. Don’t even get me started on whether a registry has any value though.
WA is nothing short of a vile police state. I will NEVER visit that state until the government stops their persecution of LAFOs there. Any government that hates guns despises democracy and freedom in my opinion.
I now live in Victoria which is not perfect but not bad for a firearms owner. I used to live in WA in my younger years but left because the police control over firearms was incompetent, arbitrary and unpleasant.
I once received my firearms licence that had a shotgun missing from it, I rang firearms on a friday to point this out only to be told they had no record of it. I had made a point of keeping all my old licences and told the person I was dealing with that it was on my previous 4 licences and to look it up on my old licences, I was told that they couldnt do that. I was then told to hand it in, as I was not licenced for it when; I tried to discuss that the failure was on their part not mine I was threatened with the TRG would attend and smash my door in and seize the shotgun and probably all my other guns as well. I made a quick call to my local police station which used to do firearms licencing and spoke to a very helpful officer I explained the situation to him. He told me to bring in the shotgun barrels as the whole gun wasn’t needed, also to bring in my previous licenses with the shotgun recorded on them and he arranged to meet me on a sunday morning at the station as he was working that morning. So on the sunday morning he searched for my shottie on their system and said it wasnt their. he checked my previous 4 yrs of licences and noted it was on the licence. he then did another search and found it in their system. He told me that letter S in the serial number had been changed to a 5 in the system. I asked how could this happen when for the past 4 yrs it was ok. His answer was shocking – it could only be changed manually someone had to go in the system and physically change the character. so a deliberate act of sabotage.
The system and rules here in WA are a joke. Especially the fit and proper person rule.
you can have someone take a VRO out on you with no evidence, prove you innocent and they still won’t remove the VRO… and then when it does expire after two years, be found unfit for a further 5yrs…. even though you did nothing wrong to begin with.
This is a comment from someone who didn’t want their name included:
“yes ive had every thing on this page happen to me airrifles one just dissapered of my licence many calls letters email to fix had to attend a station with the unlicened air gun to prove that i still had same gun for 5 years i could under stand if i said it dissapeared but no just from my licence 2 years of going to club every week case 2 pled guilty to me second safe being insucure during a move stupidly pled gulity S1000 in fines from magistrate the a month later revocation base on police descression if there not happy with the courts finding they have the descression to go above and beyond the courts yes of to state appeal tribunal with lawer 5 months $6000 later licenece back with unbelable conditions no other act of parlment or regulation of law dose i invidual cop able to over ride the judge without reason”