New figures reveal that suburbs across NSW have seen hundreds, in some cases thousands, of new guns registered in just the last two years. With private arsenals topping 300 guns in parts of Sydney and regional NSW, gun numbers are rising to dangerous levels.
With Labor cutting deals with Shooters and the Liberal and National parties allowing a massive increase in gun numbers on their watch, neither of the major parties can be trusted to keep us safe from guns.
Detailed mapping of the locations of these guns can be accessed here: https://www.toomanyguns.org The data is police data obtained by The Greens under FOI.
Some key facts about changes in gun numbers in the last 2 years:
- The top 100 private gun owners now have on average 123 guns each, up from 117 in 2017.
- One private gun owner in Mosman has 297 guns, in Eastgardens 305 guns, Cremorne 234 guns and Terry Hills 211 guns.
- Parts of Sydney have seen gun numbers surge with 856 more guns in Camden, 570 in Windsor, 351 in Liverpool and 319 more in Richmond.
- Regional NSW has seen gun numbers increase with 1,507 more guns in Tamworth, 1,281 more in Dubbo, 1,146 more in Goulburn and 952 more in Bathurst.
- The Upper Hunter Electorate where Labor and Shooters have cut a preference deal has seen a staggering 6,978 new guns registered in the last 2 years.
- In the electorate of Barwon, another site of Shooters and Labor preference deals, gun numbers have surged by 5,898 in the last 2 years.
- In the tight marginal electorates of Penrith and East Hills gun numbers have surged by 463 and 767 respectively.
“Most people would be staggered to see the surge in gun numbers in their neighbourhoods,” Greens MP David Shoebridge MP said.
‘While the Premier is preaching to Labor on guns, she has been in charge while gun numbers have exploded across the state.
“There are now dozens of people with more than 100 guns, these are private arsenals right in the middle of our suburbs.
“There is no reason whatsoever for anyone in Sydney to have hundreds of guns.
“Gun numbers are growing so quickly because of a loophole that allows gun owners to use the same “genuine reason” to get their first, second and 300th gun.
“The most common reason given is for hunting and this is used to build up these large private gun stashes,” he said.
There are now more than one million registered guns in NSW, and 90,000 have been registered in the past two years alone, according to NSW Firearms Registry data released under freedom of information laws.
“We have seen a push driven largely by a minority of pro-gun MPs in the NSW Parliament to make gun ownership a normal matter, to get back to where we were before the tragic Port Arthur massacre,” Mr Shoebridge said.
“The major parties in Parliament have gone soft on gun control and the matter is only going to get worse if we have One Nation or Shooters MPs elected.
“It’s all well and good for the Berejiklian government to call on the ALP to tear up any preference deal with the Shooters, but she needs to look at herself and rule out any deal whereby the Shooters prop up her ailing government after next Saturday.
“Ahead of the election this weekend we need absolute certainty about how the political parties will approach this issue,” Shoebridge said.
