December 14, 2016
The State Government is making “emotional decisions” about weapons in Queensland when it doesn’t even know how many licence holders there are, says Member for Gympie Tony Perrett.
Mr Perrett said the State Government body in control of weapons licensing did not know how many weapons licence holders existed in Queensland and in each regional area.
“I asked the government for a breakdown of the figures and have been told they don’t even know,” Mr Perrett said.
“In a Question On Notice I asked the Minister for Police Mark Ryan how many weapons licence holders there are by category in the Gympie Electorate and in Queensland (broken down by postcode)?
“Astonishingly, the Minister could not answer.
“He said that the body in charge of all our weapons licensing, the Queensland Police Service Weapons Licensing, had advised that the numbers were imprecise as multiple categories may be registered to one licence and multiple licences may be registered to one person.
“In other words they have absolutely no idea of how many weapons holders are in each region in Queensland.
“Considering the amount of administration and hoops that licence holders have to jump through, it is an appalling admission.
“I receive more complaints about weapons licences than any other single issue.
“I naturally expected that a licence holder could have a number of weapons in different categories.
“But the government expects us to believe it has absolutely no way of knowing how many weapons licence holders there are out there.
“It stretches credulity.
“You would think that in the age of computers and cross referencing the government could produce those numbers. This is not rocket science.
“This news means that the government is making decisions about reclassification of weapons and weapons licences when it doesn’t have any adequate knowledge and data on the use of weapons in Queensland.
“It is obviously jumping to conclusions based on innuendo and speculation.
“I would back data and facts against that any day.
“The decision to categorise the Adler lever action shotgun means that it is being based on other reasons than hard facts.
“As a weapons licence holder, gun owner and primary producer I support practical, evidence-based gun classification.
“I’ve seen no evidence by any authority which supports the reclassification of the Adler.
“I support the rights of law-abiding gun owners and not those who use emotional grandstanding to demonise guns and their users.”
