Issues in firearms control: a critique of the 1985 New South Wales legislation

Abstract

New South Wales recently has adopted significant amendments to its firearms control laws. In so doing it has evinced certain fundamental policy choices. These relate to matters including gun registration and the licensing of gun owners; controls on ammunition; the appropriate locus of discretion in firearms control matters; the appropriate controls for especially dangerous types of firearms; the situation of primary producers; reciprocity in firearms licensing within Australia; and the collection of historically significant firearms. This article identifies the policy preferences implicit in the 1985 New South Wales law. It then proceeds to critique these policy decisions with reference to patterns of law (present and emerging) in the country's other jurisdictions, and the relevant secondary literature in the field. While concluding that the newly amended New South Wales legislation remains “functional and purposive”, on the whole, the article ends with a problematic for the future. VII. And be it further enacted, That every person who shall be found with any fire-arms, or other instruments of a violent nature, in his possession, and shall not prove to the satisfaction of the Justices of the Peace as aforesaid, that the same was or were not intended to be illegally used, as hereinbefore is provided, shall be deemed to be guilty of a high misdemeanour, …A