Only 20 People Signed!!!

APR 3, 2018 — The Barwon region alone which makes up most of north-west NSW, tops the list with 8,617 gun owners, & yet only 20 people have signed my petition. I think this is proof enough that gun owners in Australia DO NOT support each other, we are fractured & we are our own worst enemy.
If you are a gun owner & you have a good reason for not signing my petition, then PLEASE let me know what that reason is. I think that I am making a very reasonable request, so do you have a reason not to sign my petition, or do you just not give a damn?!
Keith H. Burgess
NECLHG NSW.

PETITION HERE: https://www.change.org/p/to-the-honourable-the-speaker-and-members-of-the-legislative-assembly-of-new-south-wales-in-parliam-muzzle-loading-pistols-to-be-placed-on-a-less-restrictive-licence/u/22588438

Please Sign This Petition.

This is a sawn-off pump action Breech-Loading shotgun seized by police from criminals, this is what criminals use. They do NOT use black powder muzzle-loading pistols. So why are flintlocks, wheellocks & matchlocks on a restrictive firearms licence? Either it is because of sheer ignorance, or they simply could not be bothered to distinguish a muzzle-loading pistol from a modern breech-loading pistol when they drafted the legislation.

Please sign my petition asking the government to take primitive muzzle-loading pistols off the restrictive H class licence & place them with other muzzle-loading guns on the less restrictive B class licence.
Thank you.
Keith.

This is a matchlock muzzle-loading pistol, it requires a smouldering matchcord to make it fire.

This is a wheellock muzzle-loading pistol, it requires a key to wind up the lock, & a piece of iron pyrite rock to make it fire.

This is the most sophisticated of the muzzle-loading pistols that I want removing from the H class licence. This is a flintlock, it requires a piece of hard rock clamped in the jaws of the cock to make it fire. All three of these pistols require black powder & only black powder to be placed in the pan & down the muzzle of the barrel to make them fire. None of these pistols is capable of firing modern cartridge ammunition.

How smart are you? Smarter than the average law maker? Do you think that in this day & age a criminal would even know how to use one of these guns let alone bother when they can easily access a modern gun?

https://www.change.org/p/12899519/u/22240317?utm_medium=email&utm_source=petition_update&utm_campaign=226711&sfmc_tk=kIvJhmhCg6n4rFH6o1psT6hKqK5Ay0M8zTEiEeeyWhi0a8o%2b50U2pp4A10tu34Jq&j=226711&sfmc_sub=49039519&l=32_HTML&u=41475935&mid=7259882&jb=1

Gun Gauges.

These gun gauges courtesy of Dixie Gun Works, Inc. www.dixiegunworks.com 

Letter to our Local MP.

If you agree with what I have said here, I urge you to write to your own local state MP.

Keith H. Burgess. Wychwood Forest, MSF 2007, Armidale 2350.

The Hon. George Richard Torbay, MP. northerntablelands@parliament.nsw.gov.au

Dear Sir,

I have written to you before regarding the matter of antique flintlock muzzle-loading firearms versus modern made flintlock firearms. But as nothing has been done to amend the legislation I thought it worth writing you again.

Antique flintlock muzzle-loading pistols & long arms do not require a firearms licence, registration, or a permit to purchase. Modern made copies of the exact same gun do require a firearms licence, registration, & a permit to purchase. This makes no sense, & the requirement of licences, registration & permits to purchase also means more work for the NSW Firearms Registry & the Police. The extra work & costs involved in separating 18^th century muzzle-loading guns from 21^st century muzzle-loading guns is simply not sensible.

This is not the only problem. A few months ago I was subject to a firearms check. The police sergeant attending was ignorant of the content of the firearms legislation. He did not know what a muzzle-loading gun was & told me he would have to report me for having illegal firearms that were not registered. These were antique muzzle-loading guns made before 1900ad. By law he should have confiscated these guns if he truly believed they were breech-loading firearms that required licence & registration, but he did not. I then at my own expense had to take my guns to a gunsmith in Arding so that he could verify that these guns were in fact muzzle-loading firearms & that they were in deed antiques.

Recently I purchased what was supposed to be an antique flintlock pistol. This pistol however turned out to be a copy. The person who sold it to me broke the law be posting this firearms through the mail, because it was not an antique. By law I had to turn this gun over to the police, so I took it to Armidale police station. The police did not want it! They had never seen a muzzle-loading gun before & were not interested. They told me to forget about it & take it home again!

Due to this ridiculous legislation I could not do this & so had to insist that they take this pistol, log it & give me a receipt. The point here is that the police themselves don’t care whether or not anyone owns a muzzle-loading pistol, so why is such a gun restricted by law? There is no difference between a flintlock muzzle-loading pistol made in 1750ad & the same identical gun made in the 21^st century. It is not as if the guns made now were actually breech-loading & just made to look like a muzzle-loader, this is not the case. These modern made flintlocks are in every way the same as the originals. They need a piece of rock to create sparks to ignite the priming powder which in turn has to ignite the main charge. No wonder the police are not interested in these guns.

 ([2] Section 6A Exemption for certain firearms manufactured before 1900

Omit section 6A (1). Insert instead:

(1) A person is exempt from any requirement under this Act to hold

a licence or permit in respect of the possession of an antique

firearm.

An antique firearm is defined and one made before 1900, with the same commercially available ammunition requirements as before . A functioning copy of an antique firearm is a replica firearm and is treated the same as modern firearms, regardless of the availability of commercial ammunition. The corresponding clauses of the Firearms Regulation 2006 are repealed, moving control of antiques to the main act from the reg. 

To take all flintlock muzzle-loading guns, including flintlock pistols, off licence, off registration & off permit to acquire would save the Government a lot of money & free up Police service staff for more important duties.

Your assistance in getting this legislation amended would be greatly appreciated.

Yours very sincerely,

Keith H. Burgess.

New England Colonial Living History Group 1680-1760. N.E.C.L.H.G.

Member of: Australasian Living History Federation. A.L.H.F.

Registered with: Australia Register of Living History Organisations. A.R L H.O.

The Matchlock Gun. A Video.

Its good news week, someone dropped a bomb somewhere Etc Etc !

The good news is I managed to track down the gunsmith. I feared he had gone out of business as I was unable to contact him. But this afternoon we took a trip & tracked him down. Lovely chap, very helpful. Knows his stuff. He was able to identify two of the guns on the spot, and by the time we got home he had confirmed that the Belgium barrel was also an antique & pre 1900ad.
Thank you Tony, you are a champion.

Now for the paperwork and the cost! All because a police officer was ignorant of the firearms legislation and had no general knowledge of firearms and was unable to perform his duties in regards to firearms checks correctly. If this had been about moderm breechloaders I could understand it, but all this over two incomplete muzzle-loading guns and one percussion muzzleloader that is quite obviously not of modern make? What a farce.