Victorians continue to pay a high price for the irresponsible deal ex ALP Premier Steve Bracks did with the gun lobby in 2006.

In 2006 Premier Steve Bracks set out to woo the shooter vote. He did many things to impress them. Some of the consequences have been a curse to public safety in Victoria.

By 2008 John Brumby had become Premier and he signed-off on a crucial aspect of the 2006 deal – the Formation of the Firearm Safety Foundation (FSF).

To Gun Control Australia the FSF is a poor joke – apparently an ALP sell-out to gather shooter votes.

In the last 25 years in Victoria, on average, a hunter has killed someone every three years. Presumably this will continue, because the training of shooters and testing regime for competence has remained the same, despite the regularity of hunting deaths.

Why has it remained the same?

Simple; because the safety training and testing of Shooter Licence applicants is hopelessly inadequate.

There are no learning segments on the killings perpetrated by legal gun owners deliberately or on the great rate of accidental gun deaths or on the historical development and validity of our crucial gun laws; such as gun registration and banning of semi-automatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns.

Then there’s the crucial weakness of it not being a test anyway: if you sit the test, you pass; it’s as childish and as shameful as that. Why go to the trouble to learn if you know you are not allowed to fail the test.

At its base, the FSF was derived from a gun club. It’s no surprise that gun clubs don’t want to make it more difficult to get a gun.  They want more gun owners, so that there will be more to help achieve their economic and political aims.

Apparently it doesn’t matter much to the organised shooting fraternity how many die in hunting incidents: It seems to us that what matters to gun clubs and the FSF is that as many people as possible get guns.

We complained about the fact that in Victoria a hunter kills someone every three years on average. Peter Ryan, the Victorian Police Minister says he is concerned about those deaths but can’t do anything about it because he can’t change the composition of the FSF: Of course he can’t do that easily; the Bracks/ Brumby government made sure of that before Peter Ryan came into office.

How long, Mr Police Minister, will the Victorian government allow the hopelessly inadequate training, the 100% pass rate and the three-yearly hunting deaths to continue?