This survey puts some numbers to what we already thought was the case. .. and the result is pretty clear!
Prefer the audio version?
We cover the survey result in this podcast which also covers the recent announcement on Victoria’s duck season. You’ll find it at the 54:30 mark.
Shock survey result that isn’t that shocking
WE recently ran a survey to test what people think the public and politicians know about our gun laws.
That’s because shooters know that the level of knowledge is poor – but this survey was designed to put some numbers to that idea.
It’s worse than poor.
The survey that reveals all…
The source of frustration that shooters have over our political problem can be seen in two key ways.
First, is the fact shooters and their organisations have been engaged in the political processes in various ways over the years.
Second, shooters have few positive words to say about our politicians when it comes to gun laws.
You only need to look at how they’ve treated us over the years to see why.
It’s not so much that they have attacked the shooting sports, but because when they do, they simply fail to see what we do.
That’s important because if they don’t understand us, then we’ll never be able to get our message through to them
Survey question 1: Who understands our laws?
So we thought we’d run a brief survey to get some numbers. These are facts that no-one can ignore.
The first question we posed was
“Who do you think understands our gun laws?”
The options were only shooters, shooters and non-shooters, and only non-shooters.
Here are the results:
The result shows that over 90% of people think only shooters understand our gun laws.
Survey question 2: What about our pollies?
Question 2 asked as similar question but in relation to our politicians.
This is important because our laws are made by politicians, so you would like to think that they know what the laws do.
In particular, you would hope that our police ministers know about our gun laws.
This result shows that more than 98% of people say politicians have a poor or no understanding of our gun laws.
Not one respondent thought our politicians have a good understanding of our laws.
Shock or no shock?
The result will be of no surprise to shooters.
Yet it will be surprising to non-shooters. In fact, we suspect they will not believe that the result could be that strong.
That’s because, in our view, the gap in the understanding of our gun laws is very real, and significantly so.
Unfortunately, a poor understanding leads to poor policies – which leads to bad laws and bad programs from government.
Bias
There’s little doubt that each side to the debate will see responses skewed towards the other side of the debate.
Granted, the audience will have been mostly shooters – because that is who we target in what we do.
However, for the result to be so strongly in favour of saying only shooters understand our gun laws, suggests there is a problem that government needs to address.
Even if our politicians don’t believe this to be the case, they need to acknowledge that there is a strong perception that does not look good for them.
We think the results are accurate.
We say that from a lifetime of observations and participation in the shooting sports.
If our politicians can come up with a convincing argument to the contrary, then we’re yet to hear it.
That’s because things like WA’s proposed gun laws, appearance laws, the dreadful narrative that politicians have about the shooting sports and the way this is carried through the media, are tell tale signs of a deep cultural problem of their making.
YOUR SAY: What do you
want to see us do?
WE’VE GOT another survey going – this time to test what shooters like you want to see Politics Reloaded do.
Click here, or scan the QR code to access it
Why not put this on your club’s noticeboard?
Great work, a telling survey. Thanks very much
Having worked with Police & Weapons Licensing as well as having contact with the Police Minister in recent years, I can tell you for a fact that a large number of those in Weapons Licensing do NOT own firearms and only know calibres and actions because they enter them into a system. Some of them have admitted to me that they don’t like guns at all (but they’re only there because it’s a job – albeit a job in a heavily political environment that is highly stressful because of what the Police Service puts on the staff there (NOT the public)).
The Minister admitted to me that they really don’t know much about the law and how departments work… they do what the bureaucrats tell them to do and they stay relatively in the dark otherwise. End of story. This actually makes sense as politicians are media people… they’re not skilled in the areas that they take responsibility for. they’re the ones in front of the cameras and are only there until a Premier decides to remove them or they get voted out of office. It’s an admin position that can have anyone in it that has garnered the favour of the political players.
It’s the media departments and senior bureaucrats who play the games and refuse to consider the rights of or allowances for shooters. They answer to no-one and are unelected morons who are only there because they go from one executive position to another sprouting BS along the way on how good the changes were they made that ultimately lowered the morale of workers and placed undue stress on everyone except for themselves and their pay packets that are usually 3-4 times that of the Minister.
If you had expanded the question to ask what our politicians know about the law generally, I doubt the response would have been much different. Bottom line is, most of our elected representaives have a limited understanding of the laws that affect us. On her website, my own (Labour) member reveals that her backgound is as a Woolworths shop assistant. I’m sure she’s a nice person, and I’m not having a go at supermarket shop assistants because my daughter was one, but it doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that she understands the complexities of the issues that affect me.