1. Promote responsible firearm ownership.
While firearm ownership should continue to be subject to a licence, all adults over 18 years of age (and from age 12 under adult supervision) should have the right to obtain a licence unless it has been denied or removed because of serious criminal history, credible threats of violence, or genuine prospect of coercion or misuse.
2. Focus on self defence.
Ensure those wishing to carry a concealed firearm for property or self-defence should have the opportunity to apply for a police commissioner’s permit, which should ordinarily be granted, subject to the qualifiers listed above and appropriate training.
3. Legalise pepper spray.
Personal self-defence equipment such as pepper spray and tasers should be legalised and should not be subject to a license.
4. Leave recreational activities alone.
Non-lethal recreational devices like airsoft, gel blasters and paintball equipment should be legal and should not be subject to a licence.
5. Allow instructors, collectors, and manufacturers to thrive.
Individuals and organisations should be able to establish facilities that involve the use of firearms, such as shooting ranges, hunting reserves, museums, and licit manufacturing facilities.
6. Devolve registration to the states.
The National Firearms Agreement should be abolished, and registration remain state based. It should be illegal for state or federal government agencies to publish the contents of firearms registries.
Discussion
The initiation of violence against others is always wrong. A society is only free if people are able to defend their freedom from those who would use violence to coerce and control. Without the right to self defence, all other rights are meaningless. People may delegate the provision of defence services to governments or security firms, but only if those rights originate with each individual. You cannot delegate a right you don’t have. So the right to self defence is inherent.
Families need to be able to protect themselves in their own homes, as government police are unable to defend everybody all the time. When seconds count, the police are minutes away. The inefficiency of government necessitates that citizens be able to protect themselves and their communities, and can acquire the training and equipment to do so. Violent offenders seek to exploit weakness, but if the weak have the ability to defend themselves, the criminals will reconsider their actions. A robust and sensible self defence policy reduces the crime rate, particularly violent crime.
Non-lethal personal protection devices such as pepper spray and taser guns can play an important role in combating gender based violence, as they enable women, the elderly, or people with smaller physical stature to defend themselves against a stronger aggressor, giving them a chance to escape. These products should be legal without requiring a license.
In Switzerland, it is estimated that 75% of households have a firearm, and are trained to use it. Switzerland also has one of the lowest arms related violent crimes rates in the world. In the USA, the states that are the most friendly to bearing arms have the lowest crime rates, while violent crime rates are highest in cities with the strictest restrictions. As firearm ownership has increased over time, murder rates have fallen. Countries like Switzerland prove that an armed society is a polite society.
Firearms have been around for over 500 years and are used in sport, hunting, collecting, and self-defence. Firearm ownership in Australia grew out of the need for training by the military for the Boer War, and First and Second World Wars. It was common for Cadets (13 to 18 year olds) to be seen on public buses with their .303 Lee Enfield rifles going to the Rifle Range for practice. Farmers keeping firearms in their vehicles for pest and stock control was commonplace.
Shooting is one of the original sports of the modern Olympic Games, commencing in 1896, and is featured in a wide range of regional, national and international events. Many thousands of firearms owners compete each week in club, district, state, regional and national competitions without incident. Young people who take up the sport learn the value of discipline and self development, character building and respect for the law, which ultimately makes for a better person, a better citizen.
Professional and recreational hunters contribute to positive environmental outcomes by reducing populations of pest animals such as foxes, pigs, goats, wild dogs and feral cats. Feral animals have been responsible for enormous destruction of Australian native flora and fauna, with some native species going extinct as a result, and they also pose a threat to agriculture in many areas.
Regulation of firearms by Governments should focus on removing firearms from real criminals - meaning those who would seek to use weapons to threaten or harm other people. Government should not be criminalising firearm ownership by peaceful, responsible citizens. The responsibility of those who own firearms is to only use them for noncoercive purposes or to protect themselves or others from coercion. Those who use firearms for coercive purposes, including actual harm or threats, should forfeit their right to own them. Laws already demand that any physical force should be used for defence purposes only, and those laws should continue to apply.
Firearm registries create a bureaucratic burden for police and for law abiding citizens, but are ineffective at deterring crime. Criminals will never register their weapons anyway. Combining state and territory gun registries into a National Firearms Agreement (NFA) only exacerbates this problem, creating a national system of mismatched records and error prone data, ripe for cyber attack by criminals.