NSW has not had an open season on duck shooting for five years. This is nowup for review. Western Australia has banned Open Season on Ducks.

Several organisations can give you specialised opinion on the animal welfare debate, eg. Animal Liberation, The Coalition Against Duck Shooting or The Australian & New Zealand Federation of Animal Societies.

Our task is remind readers that:

(a) The great majority of guns are purchased for hunting

(b) The training and credentialisation of hunters is almost non-existent

(c) Hunters are probably the most careless and callous of all gun owners

(d) Out of season hunting guns are probably the main source of gun misuse

(e) Shooters always resist any improvements to gun laws

(f) Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA) figures on the number of gun owners who refused to hand-in their illegal guns during the 1996-7 gun buy-back scheme suggest that a high proprtion of shooters act unlawfully – this also corresponds with the view suggested by ex-national president of the SSAA, Mr Ted Drane, several years ago when he commented on the unlawfulness of Victorian shooters in regard to mandatory gun registration.

We will not have proper gun controls and the public will remain unsafe until far stricter constraints are placed on hunting.

Duck shooting creates a vast number of wounded waterbirds by the nature of scattered pellets which are emitted by shotguns. It is difficult to believe that duck shooting is not one of the cruelest of pastimes – let’s not call it a sport, that would be a joke.

(It is also time the Brack’s government in Victoria showed concern for the cruelty inflicted by shotgunning and the danger to the community caused by the unlawfulness and poor training and credentialising of shooters.)