My name is and I live in SE Queensland with my family. As a ten year old my Father took me shooting on a privately owned farm near the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. I looked up to my dad (still do). With the borrowed 22 cal pump action rifle nestle in his arms he taught me to respect the firearm. It is a sporting implement, a means to acquire food and to hone ones marksmanship skills. It was never considered a toy but more a tool. Several years later at 12 years of age, I purchase a second hand Australian made Sportco bolt action rifle. How proud I was to own my own firearm and one made in the great and free country of Australia. I cleaned and polished it and cared for it like my other sporting items, my hockey stick and tennis racquet. My Dad insisted that I store my rifle out of sight and to keep the bolt separate from the rest of the rifle and the ammunition. There was no licensing or firearms legislation then, just common sense. Some months later we stayed on a farm in Kingston SE where I shot many a rascally rabbit. I had a silencer fitted so I wouldn’t disturb the rural neighbours or the other rabbits in the warren. Many years later I joined the South Australian Pistol Club. I attended the club regularly and practiced the events shot at both the Commonwealth and Olympic Games. Alas, I was not gifted with the skills of a marksman but at least I tried, learned a lot and had a heap of fun and I knew I was supporting my fellow countrymen in their quest for glory at the highest level. At the Coorong, I hunted ducks during the duck season and later also assisted the CSIR in banding Crested Turn during their nesting season. I loved the outdoors, camping, campfires, good company, spotlighting and target shooting and occasionally assisting those farmers who allowed me to hunt on their properties. Mr H, Mr L, Stewart and all the others in Meningie, Murray Bridge, Tailem Bend and Kingston SE. I sold and purchase many different firearms over the years. My mates and my girlfriends would come with me spotlighting, camping and fishing. It was a great time to grow up in Australia and it could be again. I thank my Grandfather for putting his life on the line in two wars and for my father who installed in me the fundamental differences of right and wrong. Some of us don’t need a piece of legislation to guide us. I am married with two of my own children now. I have never committed a crime or used a firearm in a criminal manner. I have served on a jury. I have a full time job. I pay my taxes. I am your average middle class wage earning, mortgage paying, Aussie employee. One of my pastimes is still target shooting. Like me, my son, aged 14, has a firearms licence. We visit our club and shoot at paper targets and metallic silhouettes. We have a great time. My daughter visits the club with me also. We both shoot at paper targets with a 22 cal rifle, semi automatic pistol and air pistol. I love their competitive streak. We have little competitions amongst ourselves. It’s a great way to while away an afternoon. Since I was ten, that’s more than 40 years ago, successive State and Federal governments have imposed upon me and my family the requirement and financial burden to, register my firearms, complete a course in owning an operating a firearm, obtain a licence, made me seek permission from a public servant to purchase a firearm, taken away my right to purchase certain firearms, made certain firearms that I once owned along with that silencer illegal and steadily made the whole sport more expensive to participate in. The criminal element has of course ignored all your requirements all your legislation and all your restrictions and has carried on doing what criminals do and despite what you do to me, what additional restrictions or costs you force upon me, the criminal will continue being a criminal. So perhaps after reading my simple story you may like to just stop and think that perhaps all the carefully written laws, restrictions and expense you have forced upon my fellow sporting shooters and I over the last four decades have been in vain. You have been targeting the wrong people. Spoons don’t make you fat just as guns don’t harm people..