I am reaching out to you Australians that might be part of a club comittee.
With the changes over here in Westganistahn police are taking over responability for complience that SSAA use to. They currently want records for all range officers and range safety approvals but I imagine this will only get worse.
Are the police heavily involved in this sort of stuff on the east coast or is it left to the associations to manage like it use to be here ?
Are we aligning with the rest of the country or off doing our own thing again ?
For example, they are requesting current training standards for ROās and SOās for clubs. They want any information related to training and information packages that is delivered to members so they can provide approval if they are happy with it.
Approval is exactly that, we need them to give us approval to have a club. If they donāt approve we lose the approved club title and can no longer support firearms.
Basically, over here they have taken over club and range approval and licensing. Normally the association would look after that.
In Vic my understanding is that people like Range officers are trained and assessed by the State organizing body of the sport they participate in.
Range Certification is carried out by the police. The particular range must be operated as per the conditions of the certification. That is by the committee of the club that operates the range.
Its all clear as mud and there would be very few people that know the full picture.
Iām over in Queensland and the police Weapons Licensing Branch certify and approve ranges themselves, but their focus is mainly on the templates (ie deciding what the maximum muzzle velocities/distances are) and ensuring the club is running approved matches (each club here has a list of āapproved matchesā they are allowed to shoot; itās a very broad list).
The only time Iāve heard WLB start asking about RO qualifications etc is when thereās been a history of issues at a club and itās clear they arenāt doing the right thing. Thereās no legally required training/certification to be an RO, although some clubs (especially the larger ones) obviously provide something similar.
Sounds like theyāre just looking for another avenue to clamp down on shooters, if they can find ways to interfere & close your clubs itās tougher to get a genuine reason for your guns.
My understanding of Qld is pretty much what @Martini has said. There will be police approvals required re compliance of a new range and the scope of what shoots/calibres the range can handle. But once theyāre up & running they have very little input at all other than checks on their security, safe storage conditions, and firearms licenced to the club.
This all started 2 years ago where they emailed us saying the club isnāt approved and we need to apply for approval. Not knowing what they were on about I sent them the police licensing certificate that was provided when the club first started that listed allowed calibers. They told everyone that the previous police assessments are no longer valid and every club must apply for re approval. Now the info they are requesting is getting more and more onerous. All the information they ask for is available from the association but I feel they are trying to side step them completely by going direct to clubs. As JSS said, easier to shut down individual clubs than trying to shut down an association.
I think the only saving grace is they donāt actually know what it is they want so will accept most things. As they get more involved they will create policy based on the worst of every club.
Since the QLD police shootings, our Firearms Registry chief is literally going through the legislation page by page and making our club comply with every single regulation, section, sub clause to the letter in an effort to cover their (NT Police) arse in the unlikely but equally horrific event that an NT police officer is harmed ITLOD by a licensed or unlicensed person in posession of a registered firearm.
At the moment its a barney over clubs having their shooters complete an āapprovedā safety course. In the legislation, approved means āapproved by the police commissionerā who last time we checked is not a firearms safety expert and is not surrounded or advised by firearms safety experts.
Our club does a two hour course for new shooters that is 1.5hrs theory and 30 mins air pistol.
Yeah, in vic thereās a quite a bit more in terms of safety course process. Depends on the club how long it actually is and over how many sessions, but the core of it is pretty much the same and covers a bit.
Need to keep some relativity in the discussion as it is very different between Handguns and rifles when it comes to clubs giving training on safety. The only training I have ever had at a rifle club is the specific club and range rules.
So, as per my previous post going on about compliance, get this latest bullshit:
Good Afternoon Everyone
I am writing to enquire and notify you all that it is a requirement under the Northern Territory Firearms Act 1997, for all Clubs under Section 30B (4) to provide their Annual Reports. These records should be received by the Firearms Policy & Recording Unit within three (3) month after the end of each financial year ā so by September of each year.
As you will note in the attached legislation, there is also the requirement to have this āin the approved formā. No form has ever been officially approved by the Commissioner, however if you meet all the requirement under Section 30B (4) (a), (b), and (c), this will suffice
I just donāt get how much effort and money is being spent on such a small part of public risk when most of the club people they are getting harder on are compliant and unlikely to do such things. I wonder how many hoops cloud 9 has to go through to sell pipes and such specifically for a substance that is illegal to posess ? I donāt see them rushing through legislation to stop them selling implements in the sake of public safety.