Legislative Council
FIREARMS (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL
Adjourned debate on second reading. (Continued from November 25 1998. Page 316.)The Hon. IAN GILFILLAN: Last year I sought leave to conclude, and these will be my concluding remarks on the Bill. I allowed the Bill to sit on the Notice Paper over the summer months and received community and parliamentary reaction to it. I have received a lot of reaction most of which has come from people concerned about the provisions that would ban paintball, and I shall address that issue presently. The other provisions in the Bill attracted very little opposition and a great deal of support.
I received a letter from the President of the South Australian branch of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Rodney Pearce, in which he states: Your Bill was considered by the SA branch executive at its meeting on 10 November, and they all agreed to support it. I also received a letter from the Victim Support Service Executive Director, Michael Dawson, which states: Please accept my full support for your proposed legislative reforms [in] the Firearms (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill on behalf of the Victim Support Service. If you wish to publicise our support to help show the community is behind you, please feel free to do so. I received some very detailed comments from the international gun control advocate, Rebecca Peters, whom I quoted in this place on 25 November. Ms Peters is generally supportive but has some criticism that this Bill does not go far enough in a number of areas. Ms Peters points out that if my amendments are accepted it will still be legal to buy or sell 20 guns or 50 000 rounds of ammunition a year without being classed as a dealer. Ms Peters also has doubts about the composition of the Firearms Consultative Committee: she feels that it should contain members recommended by the AMA or from the domestic violence area rather than the present emphasis on shooters groups. She has other valid points that I intend to raise when the Bill is dealt with in Committee. Suffice it to say that my amendments do not go far enough to satisfy all of the gun control lobby. As I have said previously, they are merely designed to implement the agreement reached in 1996 by Australia's Police Ministers. So much for my supporters. I was surprised to receive no formal response from the shooters groups. In some informal discussions I managed to reassure one or two officials from sports shooting organisations who had formed a false impression that this Bill would prevent those under 18 from engaging in shooting competitions. This Bill does not change the status quo which allows underage shooters to take part in competitions under the supervision of properly licensed adults. It merely prevents those under 18 from obtaining a firearm's licence. I think I can say, in summary, that the organised shooters groups have not opposed this Bill. They may not have supported it, but in response to my request for feedback I have received no formal comment from shooters groups about these proposed amendments. So, I assume that they are neither supporters nor opponents of the legislation. I did, however, receive a significant number of submissions from individual shooters. Many of them assumed that I am part of a worldwide conspiracy to disarm and thereby weaken the population, and to allow Governments to better control, if not exterminate, sections of the population. The Hon. M.J. Elliott: The worldwide Jewish bankers' conspiracy! The Hon. IAN GILFILLAN: That's it, the worldwide Jewish bankers' conspiracy under another guise. I assure the Council that I definitely am not part of that conspiracy and that this legislation will in no way be part of that move. The more rational of my correspondents put forward a superficially relevant argument, which I summarise as follows: The gun buy-back hasn't worked. Firearm crime is still occurring—or even rising. Around the world the facts prove that, if people are allowed to arm themselves, the crime rate falls. Therefore, attempts to regulate or control access to guns is counter-productive. That is a summary of the argument critical of my move. In essence, it relies on statistics. I can respond to this in two ways, and the first is by quoting different statistics. There can be no doubt that the rate of firearm ownership in the United States is one of the highest in the world, certainly much higher than in Australia, and the rate of firearm deaths in the United States is much greater than the rate of firearm deaths in Australia. That fact alone should speak for itself. The US gun culture equals more gun deaths: that is an irrefutable statistic. I do not accept, nor do I think that anyone who looks dispassionately at the issue could accept, the argument that tighter gun control will, in the end, produce more crime. That has not ever been proved and runs counter to commonsense. Of course, violent crime against people is not the only issue of relevance. We must not forget that most firearm deaths are not murder but suicide. Australia has some shocking statistics on suicide, and firearms are involved all too often. Irrespective of the statistics on firearm-related crime or firearm deaths the Democrats' long-term aim is to prevent Australia from developing a `gun culture' similar to that of the United States. The gun culture of the United States has taken centuries to develop. Reducing the number of firearms in circulation or even slowing the growth in firearms might not have immediate short-term effects but it will, I believe, have long-term effects which will be measurable by statistics.However, statistics are not everything. They cannot measure the culture of our hearts and minds. Statistics will never measure the fear felt by someone who knows that they are at risk of harm some day by a close associate or spouse who they know is armed or has access to a firearm.
As I said on 25 November, in many domestic incidents a gun needs only to be brandished or taken out and cleaned to achieve the aim of intimidating another person. Merely the presence of a firearm in a house is a risk and may constitute a threat. Statistics do not measure intimidation or threats. Statistics also cannot reveal how many crimes, accidental shootings, suicides and so on have been prevented, or how many more might have been committed if a gun had been readily available. So although statistics are relevant they will never tell the whole story about the need for firearm control. I turn now to paintball. I have received a great many letters, faxes and e-mails from people trying to persuade me that the move to ban paintball is a mistake. The resolutions adopted by the 1996 Police Ministers Conference in Canberra did not specifically mention paintball. Instead, the Police Ministers agreed to the proposition that, unlike the gun culture of the United States, owning or using a firearm in Australia is a privilege and not a right. The Police Ministers agreed that the privilege of owning or using a firearm would be available only to people who could demonstrate a legitimate need. Playing paintball requires a firearm, as defined by the Firearms Act. In the Police Ministers' resolutions, playing paintball was not defined as one of the legitimate needs recognised by that conference for owning or using a firearm. The letters and e-mails that I have received on this issue range from the simply abusive—I have been called a `two-bob dictator', a `killjoy', a `parasitical, unproductive, value destroying politician' and so on—to the helpful. However, I do not suppose I am the only one who has attracted those epithets. They were sent to me in response to the paintball initiative, and those people received a short, though polite, response. Of much more help were the comments made by quite a few people to the effect that they perceive paintball as being an anti-violence sport. They say it helps one to realise `how dangerous a real gun can be, and also just how terrifying it would be to be a soldier in a war'. Another correspondent, the operator of a paintball field, wrote to me, saying: Paintball is a team sport, promoting decision-making, group cooperation and initiative. It's safe and just plain fun. As a team you put your skill and ingenuity against that of others. It has been suggested to me that women make good paintball players because a man's larger size and strength is a disadvantage. Nevertheless, it is overwhelmingly a male pastime. As one person wrote to me: It removes all that excessive stress and lets us blokes bond. I have been asked whether I also want to ban archery, recreations of medieval jousting or certain computer games because, according to the writers, they have the same characteristics as paintball. A couple of people asked me to look at safety regulations for the sport, such as insisting on full face helmets, or ensuring that only `the right people are running the camps'. But two letters in particular captured the essence of the issue. In defence of paintball, one person wrote that it `could almost be considered a form of pre Army Reserve training'. And a 14 year old boy told me that he cannot wait to turn 16 so that he can play paintball because `paintballing is a way to shoot someone legally'. For me, that is the bottom line. In a book titled Warrior Dreams—Paramilitary Culture in Post-Vietnam America, the author, James William Gibson, devotes one chapter to paintball. He recounts how it evolved in the United States from something that was once called the National Survival Game. That game was first played in 1981 and, in those days, it was `inspired by an archaic version of the lone hunter-woodsman sneaking through the forests', as a test of `cunning and stealth'. The winner of the very first game, Ritchie White, crept through the woods, was never sighted by his opponents and did not fire a single shot. That emphasis changed over the course of the 1980s and the early 1990s. The paintball guns became bigger, more powerful and more accurate over longer distances, and were capable of firing up to 1 100 rounds per minute. It became more expensive—guns today can cost over $1 000. The sport has also introduced paintball land mines and paintball grenades. We certainly have reached the point where nobody today would deny that paintball is a paramilitary game. The object seems to be to get as close to combat as possible. On the positive side, James Gibson notes in his book that paintball promotes courage and comradeship but, on the other side, he points out: The fundamental sequence of play involves hunting other men, aiming a gun at them, pulling the trigger and making the kill. Gibson continues: Paintball puts men into contradictory relationships with basic social rules. On the one hand, the game allows men the fantasy of being soldiers legally and morally licensed to kill. On the other, since players are not really soldiers or police, the actions of aiming and firing a weapon at another person constitute a major transgression of law and morality. Those who say that paintball is an anti-war or anti-violence pastime are stating only a partial truth. Their argument hides the other half of the truth, which is—to quote Gibson again: Surviving players in regular games never even see the `corpses' of their fallen comrades. Instead, just as in the old war movies. . . casualties simply disappear from view. The game obscures the fundamental reality that war creates death. I must say that Saving Private Ryan, a recent film, is in stark contrast with that and does, in fact, quite dramatically give evidence of what the real carnage of war is like. Some people have asked me how this Bill, and especially the attempt to ban paintball, can possibly reduce firearm crime, which they assume is the sole purpose of the Bill. They inform me that restrictions on firearm ownership since 1996 have not had that effect. To those people, I say: my purpose is wider. I have already dealt with the issue of statistics and, in so doing, I touch briefly on the term `gun culture', which is so often applied to the United States. The culture of a society cannot be measured by statistics. Our society, our culture, is shaped by our thoughts and the words and actions that flow from our thoughts. If we want to be a society of peace, we have to promote peaceful thoughts, words and actions. On the other hand, what sort of society will we become if we promote regular adrenalin charges through mock combat training and swaggering aggression with a firearm in hand? I believe that there are very important reasons for saying, `Enough is enough.' We need to train soldiers in combat tactics, but we do not need to train the general populace, nor encourage that sort of thinking, posturing and acting. We get more than enough violence in the media, in computer games and in real life without the need to promote simulated violence—pointing firearms at fellow human beings—as a recreation. Many other activities are available to corporate groups and individuals to establish a team spirit and esprit de corps. All those alternatives can be practised without the use of firearms and in good, healthy and clean activities. In short, paintball conflicts with the culture that I want to see here in South Australia. It conflicts with the values that I believe a majority of South Australians hold dear. For that reason, I reject arguments that it should be allowed to flourish unchecked in our society, and I call on my fellow members to support that view. I urge the Council to deal with this legislation expeditiously. As was indicated, there is support from the AMA and the Victims of Crime Service, and it would be a shame—and, I believe, a reflection on this Chamber—if it were just allowed to languish as an item of business on the agenda without being properly dealt with. I would appreciate informal as well as formal feedback on the Bill and its contents, and if any members wish to move amendments I would welcome the opportunity to discuss those with them. I urge the members of this Chamber to support the Bill.The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS secured the adjournment of the debate.
Read the Government's reply, opposing the Bill: 7 July 1999