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OK some info on this issue:

1. Spoke to some of the people having meetings this week.

2. At the National police bureaucrats meeting - whatever it is called - the SA police tried to get a national effort to ban certain chamberings such as the .338 Lapua and a list of similar medium and large calibre long range rifles.

.50 BMG
.416 Barrett
.408 Cheytac
.375 Cheytac
.338 Lapua Magnum

Basically they are targeting the cartridges they regard as long range military cartridges.

3. The other states weren't really interested. I don't know whether WA was in favour or not. They were reported originally to be part of the push.

4. The Police in SA can deny a permit to acquire a firearm without giving any reason.

They can also issue a letter cancelling the registration of an existing firearm, meaning the owner must sell it.

The Police have issued letters to target ranges instructing the ranges that these cartridges may not be used on their ranges. Basically if they are the ranges may be reclassified eg to rimfire ranges etc.

The Police do not accept hunting interstate or overseas as a justification for owning one of the rifles.

The Police regard these rifles as "excessively powerful".

The Police do not like the appearance of sniper, tactical type rifles. Cartridges that are designed to "kill people". Rifles that are of military appearance.

It was pointed out the .303 SMLE is a military rifle and cartridge, but the logic behind the laws is confused. The basic premise behind the logic is "we hate guns".

Reportedly the Minister of Police is supportive of banning guns in general.

5. A comment was made, that an ALTERNATIVE approach the police could make is to BAN any rifle that is "excessively powerful" using a formula of retained energy at a given range. This is a REAL THREAT to most big bore rifles.

My guess is these will be targeted as well in the future using logic like this -

"We have banned the .338 Lapua for being 'excessively powerful', but the .378 Weatherby, .450 NE, .458 Lott etc etc are even MORE powerful. Therefore it is logical we add all of these cartridges to the banned list."

Banning our shooters rights is not done in one fell swoop. It is done by a thousand cuts. By a slowly slowly catchee monkey approach, most shooters, say "it doesn't affect me". Until it does.

6. It should also be noted for our interstate cousins that when one state passes new bans, regulations etc, it is often copied by other states later on. Used as a justification to introduce more bans in their states as well.

So a fight in one state is one that should be shared by all.

The GOOD NEWS is there is a State Election late next month, and we should be making use of it to write letters to the politicians, and visit them in their offices, making sure they are aware of our angst.

The SA Shooters Party will be meeting soon to decide if they are running in the state election and to decide on a candidate. I spoke to the guy whom will most likely be the State candidate this afternoon.

I will post more on this subject in the future and the State election and what help shooters from this site can contribute.

--------------------
John aka NitroX

...
Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"

Edited by NitroX (19/02/10 06:51 PM)

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