Gun laws Victoria: amendments in limbo as politicians bicker
POLICE are pleading with Victorian MPs to pass a Bill which would help crack down on crime gangs and get illegal arms off the streets, but politicians remain at loggerheads over the change.
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TOUGH new gun laws to crack down on crime gangs and get illegal firearms off the streets remain in limbo with state political parties at loggerheads over details.
Assistant Commissioner Stephen Fontana reissued a plea for MPs to pass the Bill, which would allow police to search the premises or vehicles of anyone issued with a Firearm Prohibition Order (FPO), after Monday’s gun heist.
Armed robbers stole dozens of guns — now likely to be sold on the black market to underworld figures — from O’Reilly’s Firearms in Thornbury. The laws to introduce FPOs were introduced to parliament last year and passed the lower house, but stalled after the state opposition called for amendments that reduce the time frame of the orders from 10 years to five years.
GUN ROBBERIES IN MELBOURNE TARGET IN-DEMAND HANDGUNS
BANDITS STEAL HANDGUNS FROM THORNBURY STORE IN ARMED ROBBERY
TRUCK RAMS GATES TO GUN EMPORIUM ENTRANCE IN TULLAMARINE
Police are yet to release CCTV footage of the daylight heist, which occurred just after 11am on Monday, but it can be revealed:
UP to 65 guns were stolen in the brazen robbery;
POLICE will investigate possible links to Middle Eastern organised crime figures; and
SOME of the weapons were stolen from safes and not glass display cabinets.
Police are also investigating an incident in which a semi-trailer ploughed through the entrance of another gun shop just hours earlier.
The Gun Emporium in Tullamarine was hit in a ramming at 3am on Monday. But workers claim the shop’s security measures scared them off.
It is not yet known whether the two incidents are linked.
Premier Daniel Andrews said the government was trying to give police more power to fight illegal firearms and the laws have been described by police command as a “game changer”.
Police Minister Lisa Neville attacked Opposition Leader Matthew Guy, saying the public would ask why he wanted to “water down these laws” aimed at organised crime figures.
But opposition spokesman Edward O’Donohue said the government should have brought on a debate about the laws and amendments to get laws passed to help “tackle the crime wave that has left Victorians afraid in their own homes”.
The Combined Firearms Council of Victoria said the Coalition’s amendments to the laws “will help rather than hinder the fight against gun crime”. Police are combing security footage of the area around O’Reilly’s, and specialist firearms investigators are expected to be involved in the investigation.
Mr Guy said yesterday the latest robberies were very concerning given the number of weapons stolen and it was “like we are living in the wild west with gun robberies and jewellery thieves”.
Victoria Police last year launched a new unit to examine firearms trafficking in the wake of the deadly Brighton siege in which an employee at an apartment complex was murdered and the gunman shot dead by police.
A source familiar with O’Reilly’s said most of the guns stolen would not come from the store’s glass display cases.
He said there would have been nowhere near 65 of the weapons kept in the cases and the majority would have been secured in a safe.
Police are expected to investigate potential links with Middle-Eastern crime figures.
They are heavily involved in Melbourne’s illicit weapons trade and have a history of commissioning younger offenders to commit robberies for them.
They have in the past supplied vehicles, weapons and intelligence to underlings. who then carry out robberies.
There are indications the raid was highly organised.
The vehicle used by the bandits, a Toyota Kluger four-wheel-drive, was stolen from a Glenroy address last month.