Firearms and other weapons seized by the Australian Border Force in WA. (Photo: The Western Australia)
When he was on CNN, how often did we have to listen to Piers Morgan bloviate about how great England and Australia were because they were the most peaceful places on earth as a result of gun control.
It seemed like every night that windbag would drone on and on and on about the efficacy of confiscation schemes, universal registration and black rifle bans and how the U.S. needs to follow in the footsteps of its neighbor across the pond and its friend down under and effectively disarm its people.
The only problem with Morgan’s reasoning was that, as we all know, when guns are outlawed only outlaws have guns. Gun control — no matter how strict and pervasive —doesn’t work.
Case in point, Western Australia. The state government there is now considering doubling down on gun control with a crazy policy that would give police the power to issue gun ban tickets to anyone and everyone they believe is a potential threat to the community.
From The Western Australia:
Police Minister Michelle Roberts confirmed that she was reviewing a recommendation by WA’s Law Reform Commission to introduce what are known as firearm prohibition orders, which have been credited with helping drive down gun crime in other States.
The orders would enable the Police Commissioner to ban anyone “reasonably suspected” of posing a threat to the community from holding a gun licence or from living in a house where guns are stored.
Police would also have the power to enter the home, car or workplace of a prohibited person at any time to search for illegal guns, without the need for a warrant.
If caught with an illegal gun, the prohibited person would face increased penalties, as would any person found to have supplied them with a firearm or ammunition.
But wait, it gets better. One doesn’t even need a criminal record to lose one’s privilege to own a firearm (remember, it’s a privilege down there, not a right). Anyone can be slapped with a firearm prohibition order, just being linked or loosely associated with a lawbreaker is enough for one to lose their guns.
“Firearm prohibition orders have been found to be effective in other police jurisdictions around Australia when it comes to disrupting the activities of criminal gangs or serious crime figures,” Mrs Roberts told The West.
“I am concerned by the spike in gun-related crime in Perth over the past 12 months (and) giving police the tools they need to disrupt the activities of organised crime gangs and syndicates is something I will always support.”
While that’s crazy, the best part is that WA police do not release statistics on gun crime. Let me repeat that. The WA police do not release statistics on gun crime. You get the significance of that, right? It’s easy for a government to argue that gun control works when it doesn’t have to prove it.
Gun control works. We need more gun control. How do we know it works? We have low gun crime. How do we know we have low gun crime? Eh, well, we don’t publish statistics on gun crime. You’ll just have to take our word for it.
The reality may very well be that gun violence is on the rise in WA.
“Given that we’ve seen a steady increase in the use of methamphetamines in WA, it’s not surprising that gun crime and drive-bys will increase,” Former police commissioner Karl O’Callaghan told The West. “I don’t think it has increased significantly, but my feeling is that … it is happening more often.”
Let’s recap, shall we? Australia is a nation with very stringent gun control laws. Yet despite these laws, the state of WA has experienced a rash of gun-related violence fueled by drugs and gangs. Instead of tackling the source of the violence, i.e. drugs and gangs, WA officials have proposed a policy that would give police the authority to remove one’s privilege to own a firearm on the mere suspicion that he or she might be a criminal or could be linked to a criminal.
This is assinine for two reasons. The first is the assumption that lawbreakers — thugs and drug dealers — are going to follow a new law prohibiting them from owning a firearm when there are existing laws that already do the same. The second is that it gives police the power to arbitrarily say who can and cannot own a firearm.
The result of this policy will be the end of gun rights in WA. Crime won’t decrease with the adoption of gun prohibition orders because criminals will ignore them. But that won’t stop police from issuing them every day, all day to every Joe Public they come across as they become more and more desperate to combat the violence that these orders are supposed to prevent. Soon, no law-abiding citizen will have a firearm because everyone’s privilege to own a firearm will have been revoked. The only people with guns will be, yup, thugs and drug dealers.
When asked if gun prohibition orders are working, the WA government — which doesn’t release stats on gun violence — will lie and say, “Yes, but to be even more effective, we need more gun control.”