WFSA Current News - November, 2003 

November 16, 2003

Game meat to the poor
            The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today in an article by Bob Riepenhoff describes the donation of over a hundred thousand kilograms of venison for the poor in that American state alone in 2002. Hunters handed over carcasses of 5,646 deer, the meat from which was ground and then distributed according to need.
            Donated deer are taken in a field-dressed condition to nominated meat processors, who then prepare the meat without further cost to the donors. The Department of Natural Resources offers published lists of participating butchers.
            Plans such as this one show the face of hunting that is seldom presented by large, urban mass media outlets. The amount of seasonal hunting that goes on around the world is also often underestimated.
            Milwaukee’s Wildlife Damage Program works together with a hunting organization called Hunt for the Hungry, and it is hunters’ licensing fees that provide the funding.

November 16, 2003

Illegal guns in Australia despite bans
            Under the byline of Sam de Brito and Katrina Creer, a news article today describes the smashing of a ring of illegal Australian gun manufacturers, said to be the largest in the history of the state of New South Wales . A syndicate of seven people has been arrested. The complete guns and parts together had the potential to total more than three thousand firearms. Capable of firing two rounds, they were easily disguised, being only ten centimetres long and four wide. The report also states it was not clear what materials these guns were made from.
            Australia has had two large gun confiscations, the first after new legislation in 1996, when more than 600,000 longarms were taken from legal owners, and then again this year with the banning of certain types of handguns, and the requirement for these also to be surrendered by all licensed owners.
            The report suggested these illegal guns would fetch in the order of fifteen hundred Australian dollars each on the black market, providing a total value of over four million dollars in this cache alone. The city of Sydney has had a continuing series of gang-related shootings. The illicit manufacture of illegal and non-sporting handguns in these numbers, especially where such substantial cash values are involved, shows that this kind of criminal activity continues quite independently of heavy legislation directed against lawful owners.

November 6, 2003

Tighter gun laws: implications for South Africa
           An article by Laurie Goering of the Chicago Tribune has quoted interviews with a number of people directly affected by South Africa’s incoming new gun laws, including victims of crime now taking steps to arm themselves for the protection of their families.
            Suffering from high crime rates, the country has instituted substantial changes to gun laws. There is an unknown number of illegal guns in circulation in the country, and the new laws are to operate by the usual method of registration and restriction.
            The National Firearms Forum is a peak body of South African hunters, sport shooters and firearm manufacturers. Its chairman, Alex Holmes, has gone on the record as saying his group believes that for the new gun registry system to work with any accuracy, as much as six percent of the entire South African police force would need to be employed full time on the processes surrounding gun registration. November 4, 2003
        
Another failed gun amnesty
            The Phuket Gazette today ran an article describing the current and continuing amnesty which is in operation in Thailand until December 15. The article can be read at http://www.phuketgazette.net/news/index.asp?id=3111 .
            Thailand is a country where for a long time, it has been common for caches of arms and explosives to be unearthed. This being so, it is an environment where lawful gun ownership has come under governmental attention. For two years there has been a draft bill in existence forbidding the carrying of guns in certain areas of the country even by those who are licensed. Penalties for breaches are very severe. 
            In this present amnesty, three sites in Phuket have been nominated for the deposit of illegal arms. No questions are to be asked, and no information gleaned at the time of lodgement of illegal arms will be used to prosecute legal cases. There is some confusion about the length of the amnesty, and whether it is a new one, or an extension of an existing one.
            The article ends with the statement that the previous amnesty, in July, 2002, brought forward not so much as one single gun. This surely casts the severest doubts on the efficacy of the process.