An excellent examination of how criminals get handguns was produced by Sydney journalist David Hardaker and shown on the 7.30 report during April 2001.

There’s an old saying “Every illegal gun starts out as a legal gun”. This means that somebody helps in that dangerous process of change. The gun lobby, because many of its members are opposed to strict gun laws is a vital part of the movement of legal to illegal guns and hence to the provision of criminals with handguns.

Two examples of the dangers were shown in the 7.30 Report. In my opinion both show the result of weak gun laws which are part and parcel of the gun lobby’s objective.

In Queensland it was possible for several years in the 1990′s to buy handguns and deactivate them. By doing this you were not required to register the handgun. This made it easy for them to get into criminal hands. All that had to be done was to reactivate them by a simple process. Thousands of pistols probably got into criminal hands.

Then there is the case of Tasmanian William Francis Watson and NSW gun trader Kenmax Special Products. During the 1990′s Watson ordered and got 21 pistols from handgun importer Kenmax. Of course we now know that Watson sold them onto the blackmarket. One of the handguns supplied by Kenmax was used to shoot a NSW policeman. The head of Kenmax argued that since Watson had a Tasmanian gun collectors licence and said he was a collector it was OK to sell the semi-automatic pistols to him.

We wonder why Kenmax did not ask why Mr Watson was so keen on collecting so many examples of a late model semi-automatic pistol – you would think that if Mr Watson was a genuine gun collector surely one example would be enough. The Tasmanian Police deserve criticism for not ensuring that Watson’s collector status was 100% genuine. The NSW Police deserve criticism for apparently not providing the details of Watson’s NSW purchases to the Tasmanian Police.

We can finish this sad story about the gun lobby, the Police, and criminals with the words of another NSW gun trader Barry Smith of N&S Gunsmiths. Mr Smith is president of the NSW Firearm Dealers Association so surely we can believe him.

On the April 7.30 report Mr Smith told us that once he was periodically approached by people in the street,at a club and in the shop to obtain an illegal handgun but now “they are so readily available that they can get them anywhere”.

A major reason why so many handguns are in criminal hands is largely due to the fact that the laws controlling handguns in regard to pistol clubs, handgun collectors, gun shops and the security industry are far too lax. The main reason they are lax is that the gun lobby pressurise politicians to keep them lax. By so doing they make it easy for guns to get into the hands of criminals.