More than two dozen people in WA own more than 100 licensed firearms, each of which would have been individually approved by police, figures tabled in state parliament have revealed.
Key points:
- Figures tabled in state parliament show that some West Australians are licensed to have more than 100 firearms.
- Shadow Police Minister Peter Collier says the numbers probably relate to collectors and enthusiasts.
- Police Minister Paul Papalia says these numbers are part of the reasons WA gun laws are being rewritten entirely.
The numbers, which provide an insight into gun ownership in WA, were disclosed on Wednesday in response to questions from the Shadow Minister for Police, Peter Collier.
The figures show there are 178 people in WA with more than 25 firearms, including 34 people who have more than 50 of them, and 26 who have more than 100.
“I was, I’ve got to say, a little confronted by the figures,” Mr Collier told ABC Radio Perth host Nadia Mitsopoulos on Friday.
“But having said that, we need to have perspective on this issue.
“And that is that almost all of these multiple gun owners, I would assume, would be collectors or gun enthusiasts, or there’d be a valid reason.”
Shooting club president says numbers lack context
The numbers do not specify the classifications of the firearms, meaning they could include rifles, shotguns, handguns or paintball guns.
The numbers also do not include gun dealers.
Paul Fitzgerald, WA president of the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia, said the numbers were high but lacking in context.
“We can talk about an individual that may run a paintball business, for example, in Western Australia,” he said.
“And there’s a number of those, and they may well have 300 or 200 paintball markers on their individual license in order to run that business.”
He said people that shoot competitively may also have 10 or 20 different firearms to compete in different divisions.
Firearms need individual approval
Under WA law, each of the 178 people in WA who have more than 25 firearms would need to obtain a license from police for each weapon.
In order to get approval for each firearm, an applicant must show police varying degrees of “genuine” explanations for requiring them, depending on the capacity of the firearm.
Applicants who want to license a low-powered gun need to have a “genuine reason”, while those who want approval for a high-powered gun must show both a genuine “reason” and “need.”
The release of the numbers followed an announcement in March that the WA government was undertaking what it called “the biggest overhaul of firearm laws in Western Australian history.”
According to the government, there has been a 60 per cent jump in the number of licensed guns in WA over the past 13 years, to 349,000 guns in 2022.
However, the number of gun owners over the same period has gone down, suggesting a smaller number of people own a larger number of firearms.
WA Police referred questions to Police Minister Paul Papalia, who was asked about the figures at a press conference on Friday.
“I’m surprised that there are, under the current law, opportunities for people to accumulate very large numbers of firearms,” he said.
“That’s part of why we’re re-writing the entire Act.”
The state government previously stated the reasons behind the proposed new gun laws were related to community safety.
No further details about the nature of the changes have been released. Mr Papalia said consultation on the new laws was under way but they were not expected to be introduced to Parliament until the end of 2023.
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