Letter to the Editor

RE: GYMPIE Grieves after Nations Darkest Day (The Gympie Times, Thursday, May 25, 2018 page 4).

The Port Arthur tragedy took 35 lives, all of Australia rightly grieved, but due to wrong decisions, two million innocent firearm owners took the blame and are still paying the penalties.

April 29, 1996 was a very dark day.

However, it was not our nation's darkest day, as the 62,000 Australian war deaths in World War One, which brought dark days to hundreds of homes every day.

The World War 2 and it was a very dark day on November 19, 1941, when a German Cruiser sank HMAS Sydney at Shark Bay, just off the coast of Western Australia. It went down with all hands and 645 Australian homes were desolate with grief.

CLICK HERE: Why shooters will not vote LNP on election day

READ MORE: Gympie gun shop no soft target

Another dark day, February 19, 1942, Darwin was bombed and strafed with bullets as the Japanese fighter/bombers attacked, killing 252 civilians and soldiers.

Times, decades and years may change but the grief in those homes was just as devastating as 1996.

It was a Dark Day for Australia when on July 20, 1840, 26 men, women and children were murdered on the Coorong Coast, South Australia, the relatives were desolate with grief.

Pauline Hanson: People are the problem - not guns

On October 17, 1861, 19 men, women and children of Cullin-la-ringo, near Springsure, in central Queensland, were murdered and again Australian homes were ruined with grief.

Australia has had many other dark days, as on August 15, 1834, when 33 men women and children were murdered in Northern Queensland.

On none of the previously very sad occasions did the government suggest that millions of innocent Australians would carry the blame and without any due lawful process be deprived of their property and have huge restrictions imposed on their lives involving their remaining property.

Then bizarrely legislate to remove our sacred right of defending our families' lives and our own lives in an inverse avenging retribution for the loss of life at Port Arthur, people who had already been denied the right and means to defend themselves, and their loved ones.

The Opposition leader Peter Beattie, quote "to ensure people can walk down the street without fear of being gunned down", his decree only ensured that good people handed in their firearms, as the bad people have no problem acquiring, leaving the good people in greater fear except for Peter Beattie, who at all times had the police armed politician protection squad to defend him and his family.

Up until that point Australia did not have a statistic that collected numbers of home invasions, prior to that point, break and enters always occurred when the home owner was out.

Thieves did not want to be shot.

Once homes were disarmed they became the target for thieves who have no care if anyone is home, or not, even if they are a firearm owner as they have to keep guns under lock and key with the bolt open or removed.

Peter Beattie's good friend and co conspirator 'anti gunner' Professor Paul Wilson, (Bond University) Criminologist who wrote the article in Playmate magazine calling Gympie "Helltown" also got a mention on Page 4 'Briefs'.

The government thought so highly of Paul Wilson they gave him a medal, The Order of Australia, (the magazine he chose to write in should have given everyone a clue to his morals) but "Briefs" failed to mention that at that time anti gunner Paul Wilson the Criminologist was an active paedophile and convicted of four counts of indecent treatment of a child of eight years old and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment in November 2016.

Judge Julie Dick said "the offending was persistent, brazen and involved the corruption of a child".

That is another example of how light sentences are given for real crimes against people and seven year sentences for contravening the governments weapons legislation.

We do not need to think too deeply why child molesters campaign to disarm families, fear of being caught would be greater than anything the court system could fairly inflict on him.

If anyone mistakenly believes that the 1996 uniformed gun laws has prevented further deaths please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia

Ron Owen,

Gympie