SSAA (South Australia) Inc

"I suggest then that the gun lobby people in Australia are much the same as in America. They are conservative, conscious of their modest status, less sensitive to life's aesthetic values, and secretly suspicious of their inability to answer the argumentation of the gun control groups and the academics. They see themselves as tough, self-made men who should not be curtailed in their economic self interests, and their desire to exploit nature and be armed."

"I contend therefore that there are good reasons to suggest that the typically keen gun devotee fits the parochial image..."

"...increased education [i.e. schooling] is likely to decrease the desire to possess guns."

John Crook,
President, Gun Control Australia.
'The Development of the Gun Lobby in Australia'
 

"I believe that the 'need to be armed' philosophy along with the right to own guns are the most deceptive and dangerous aspects of all the shooters basic dogma. It is saying the obvious, but nevertheless it needs to be said; if people are armed and become their own lawmen the police can hardly be expected to take their job seriously, for they would not be the ones who the public look to for safety."

"I don't believe that shooting is a sport because it does not meet the two fundamental parameters which define sport. A true sport is something which affirms life, whereas shooting is either attempting to kill or practicing to kill ... there is nothing life affirming about shooting. Secondly, sport is about superb physical fitness. An examination of shooters and shooting magazines obviously indicates that physical fitness training has little to do with gun ownership or shooting. A third parameter of sport is that it is a competition amongst equals, and whilst this may be true for competitive range shooting, it is certainly not true these days about hunting."

"I do however suggest that it is in the order of ten times more dangerous to take a gun out for a day than drive your car for a day"

"...and indeed I suggest that one of the characteristics of the shooting fraternity is its juvenile attitude to nature and society. Killing things does not make you grow up. On the contrary I believe that it is a distortion to the process of natural social development."

"...I would argue that even the best behaved shooter is a much greater community risk that [sic] the average cricketer or tennis player."

"My own observation suggests that shooters are no more careful than most people and that some of them are above average in callousness; however their major problem is the implement they use."

John Crook,
President, Gun Control Australia.
'The Gun Lobby's Dogma'
 

"It is not for me to decide whether the police should or should not be armed"

John Crook,
President, Gun Control Australia.
'The Police and the Gun Lobby'

"Fundamentally, guns are designed to kill, and the practice which competitors at Commonwealth Games participate in, is just the same as normal target practice. This is aimed at making the shooters better equipped to kill some living thing."

John Crook, Gun Control Australia.

Letter to Australian Commonwealth Games Association asking for a ban on shooting sports.

"Instead of trying to discipline shooters and develop a responsible set of effective controls on guns and shooting, the Gun Lobby is becoming increasingly extremist in both its ideology and its actions. It is I would argue, becoming more anti Australian."

"The ultimate internal danger to Australia would be realised if shooters have a key role in our State parliaments."

John Crook,
President, Gun Control Australia.
'Gun Lobby Tactics'

"Our logic is that shooters are the most ill-disciplined people of any recreational group, that's what attracts them to guns. It's a state of mind."

" . . . they are usually poorly disciplined, they never had much success at school and were never very good at sport. Guns to them represent something they were never able to achieve."

John Crook, quoted in The Advertiser, Adelaide.

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"Shooter groups, like the Sporting Shooters Association, who want to break our gun laws; take away gun registration; take away limits on hand guns; are in my opinion the most anti-social and dangerous type of groups that Australia has recently seen outside of course of certain criminal drug-related gangs."

John Crook,

President, Gun Control Australia,

in a radio interview, Radio Adelaide, 19/04/2007

"I think there's been too much concentration in Australia by the Police Ministers on illegal trafficking"

"Most of our violent crime in Australia is committed by licenced shooters."

Samantha Lee, Co-Chair,

National Coalition for Gun Control,

making more unsubstantiated allegations.

"The ownership of a weapon indicates an intent to kill - the "rabbit" is the excuse but the capacity to kill is the main purpose of a firearm"

Anne O'Byrne,
Convenor, National Women's Consultative Committee.
'Women & Guns'

"A gun is an instrument which can only kill or injure a person."

"Gun owners should amuse themselves with other hobbies"

Professor Ian Webster,
Professor of Community Medicine, University of N.S.W.
'The Gun Drug'

National Coalition on Gun Control co-chairperson Samantha Lee, referring to a shooting with an unlicensed, unregistered, prohibited handgun in Melbourne, June 2007.

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"The only handguns that should be legal are the ones that are approved for use in the Olympic shooting events, that's our position."

"There are extremists in the handgun community who would like to drag us down the same road as America, simply so they can be amused by their hobby.

"The only thing to do is to nip this in the bud before they can do even more damage than they have already."

And (firearms) sold only from adapted police stations. 

John Crook, Gun Control Australia, in a radio interview June 2007.