The West Australian paper has doubled down on it’s “map publishing” stunt by trying to create alarm over licensed shooters
HEADLINE: WA is ‘awash’ with guns
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN paper has doubled down on it’s “map publishing” stunt by having another crack at shooters.
This is the front page of The West Australian from 30 May after the tragic double shooting at Floreat, a suburb of Perth.
YOU MIGHT RECALL this was the same paper that published the maps of where shooters live in March 2022.
It was a move that WAPol later confirmed helps to promote home invasions.
The same paper has now published another headline that continues it’s campaign to smear licenced shooters.
All in the name of politics
THE WIERD THING about the headline in this latest edition is that it doesn’t actually match what you will find inside the paper.
Yes, there is an article on the number of firearms, however the more substantial articles point to the incompetence of WA Police – and the way WA Premier, Roger Cook, tried to politicise the matter.
The fact the headline takes aim at shooters rather than Cook, is more evidence that the paper will support WA’s Labor Government as much as it possibly can.
What was inside?
HERE ARE THE STORIES that are in the paper.
Click the image to see the larger version.
Article #1
THE FIRST ARTICLE, which supports the headline is on the left of the two-page spread. While it points to the number of firearms in the metro area – it simply supports the maps that were published a little over two years ago.
In the article, WA Police Commissioner, Col Blanch, complains that WAPol has lost cases at the State Administrative Tribunal, resulting in firearms being returned to shooters.
This is why WA Police say they need new gun laws. We’ve run and won cases in the SAT. As a small outfit, we’re up against a well resourced government agency, which means the odds are stacked against us.
However, we won those cases because WA Police either had no evidence to support their claims, or they were poorly prepared.
In other words, WA Police don’t need new laws:
they need better lawyers.
Article #2
THE NEXT ARTICLE (clockwise) recounts the story that Ariel Bombara told the nation’s media, which is that the police basically sat on their hands and ignored three requests for intervention.
What happened will be the subject of another article and podcast that we’ll put out shortly.
However it’s ‘plain as day’ that the police had the laws, resources and responsibility to act to avoid this tragedy – but failed to so.
Article #3
MOVING FURTHER CLOCKWISE, is an article by journalist Ben Harvey. The article talks about two strokes that the perpetrator, Mark Bombara, had prior to the murders he committed.
Of the journalists involved in this edition, Harvey has been more interested one gaining the facts and providing a balanced report.
As we write this, the paper has released an opinion piece written by Harvey, which carried the title “Police Minister Paul Papalia was far too quick to defend frontline officers over Floreat murders”.
His article stated:
“Our Police Minister was, once again, far too quick to side with those that may have had an interest in subverting the truth.
The ring of gunshots on Berkeley Crescent had barely faded when he was out defending the actions of the cops and calling for ever-tougher gun laws.
Papalia had no real idea at that early stage whether the police had stuffed up or not. He would have been relying on Col Blanch’s version of events.”
He goes onto say that if the inevitable inquest finds police were culpable for the fatalities, “then Papalia needs to be sacked”.
Article #4
THE FINAL ARTICLE quotes Liberal Leader, Libby Mettam, as calling on the Corruption and Crime Commission to look into how police handled this matter.
Libby Mettam
Again, this is an article you can read in your own time, however it is disingenuous for Mettam to provide the commentary she has.
That is because it seems like she may have gagged other Liberal Party MPs who wanted to speak out against Papalia’s attack on gun owners, but couldn’t.
That may explain why the Liberal Party supported Papalia’s laws through parliament.
In other words, it does not mean that if Labor loses the next election, that shooters will be any better off.
REMEMBER that the majority of shooters in WA live close to Perth – in seats that are traditionally fought between Labor and Liberal – which makes the question of who to support problematic.
However this is an issue that will be addressed in the National Gun Conference where we will explain what WA shooters can do in more detail.
Suffice to say, the failure of Mettam to support shooters will cost her party key votes.
Why not put this on your club’s noticeboard?
It’s quite funny when discussing things with
journalistsscribblers…. They get their feelings all hurt and start rolling out the “offended” tag when you remind them that their industry isn’t one that regards truth and honest reporting as essential to the job.It certainly doesn’t help one’s faith in the police when you start listening to real crime podcasts and discover that, time-and-again, someone will go to prison – or maybe not go to prison, on the basis of a half-arsed “investigation” performed by police because they had tunnel vision over who did what.
This is what is going on with a large portion of the LEO community when it comes to firearms owners…. that shooters are regarded as mentally deficient because they choose to own firearms. Some shooters certainly don’t help the cause yet never do you see such a whitewash of an entire category of people (well, except when I’m addressing the moonbats who are members of the Professionally Offended or want to protest about world issues where they know less than nothing on the topic).
Politicians are just one aspect of this problem as they lead sheltered lives and generally know very little about the topics over which they get mentioned in the media. The problem is compounded by senior bureaucrats or senior police who want to play politics and answer to nobody and are rarely called out on their behaviour.
The ONLY way that things will improve is when the politicians start to learn that the constituents matter more than their narcissism and future-election chances; that media people are there to report and not advise or pontificate; and that senior police have an agenda to disarm the population whether legal owners or not – and when the public learns to vote accordingly!
Whats more insidious about the government and media response to the Floreat shootings is their attempt to conflate legal firearm ownership with a greater propensity for license holders to commit acts of domestic violence. As soon as that event occurred, the immediate response was the suggestion that WA gun laws needed to be tighter still. Why not also take away offenders drivers licences and cars, or their kitchen implements, or their cricket bats? You can do plenty of damage with those too if you’re so inclined. Unfortunately they’re appealing to an audience that’s at best uninterested, and in many cases actively against our desire to own and use firearms. Libby Mettam’s public position should not really come as a surprise – she has a lot more female voters than shooting voters. I think we have a real problem – just look at how public perception of smoking has changed over 20 years or so. These days its socially unnacceptable to be a smoker, and its not hard to see how private gun ownership could go the same way. Maybe the answer is more self-regulation. Unpalatable as it might be, I’m sure we’d all much rather be setting the agenda rather than wait for our politicians and police to do it for us.