Cops demand national gun owner register after constables killed

Annastacia Palaszczuk and Queensland Police Commissioner back calls to examine introduction of national register of ­licensed firearm owners after last week’s police killing.

An aerial view of the scene at a property in Wieambilla where the shooting took place. Source: Nine

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll have backed calls to examine the introduction of a national register of ­licensed firearm owners after last week’s execution-style killing of two young constables.

Police are demanding the register, first recommended after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, saying officers’ safety is being compromised by the inability to quickly check if a person has a gun licence interstate.

Four police officers were ambushed last Monday as they walked up the driveway of a remote property at Wieambilla, 290km northwest of Brisbane, on a NSW-instigated missing person inquiry.

A neighbour was also fatally shot before police stormed the property in armoured vehicles and killed the three shooters.

Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers and the Australian Federal Police Association called for a national register after it emerged one of the police killers held a NSW gun licence, which may not have been known to police before they went to the property. Mr Leavers said police across Australia could not access information that a person held a gun licence interstate unless a particular request was made to that jurisdiction or if it already had been passed on.

“The time for talking about a national firearms database has passed and it needs to become a reality to help protect police across the country,’’ he said.

The state-federal National Firearms Agreement, struck in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre, recommended a nationwide register of all firearms and their owners that could easily be accessible to law enforcement nationally. But it hasn’t been set up.

On Sunday, Ms Palaszczuk and Commissioner Carroll both issued statements supporting the push for a register.

“I will support it being discussed at national cabinet,’’ the Premier said.

Commissioner Carroll said she supported a “review for a national registry of firearms”.

“I am supportive of examining any changes needed to improve officer safety and further protect the community,” she said.

“Enhancing national databases and information-sharing arrangements across jurisdictions remains a priority for the Queensland Police Service.”

Commissioner Carroll would not comment on the incident, saying the investigation was ongoing into the shooting.

Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll.

Shooters Nathaniel Train – the principal of a NSW primary school who went missing in December last year – brother Gareth Train and his wife Stacey were killed by police.

Gareth Train, who owned the property with his wife, did not hold a gun licence but Nathaniel Train had held a gun licence in NSW.

A Queensland Police search of Nathaniel Train would not have automatically alerted them to him being a gun owner, although it is not known whether it was included in the NSW police missing person report on him.

Police are investigating whether one of the three Trains anonymously tipped off NSW police to the location of Nathaniel Train so as to lure them to the ambush at the property.

The former primary school principal reportedly also broke through a border gate into Queensland last December, just days after the state was opened to people who were fully vaccinated.

The ABC quoted an unnamed farmer who said he contacted police after Nathaniel Train cut a padlock to cross the border and that his car then went into floodwater that drowned the engine. Train later came back to retrieve guns, a bow and arrow and knives.

Queensland Police would not comment on the report.

Last week, it was revealed Gareth Train had been prolific online, espousing bizarre conspiracy theories.

Just hours after the shooting, he and his wife posted a chilling online message boasting they had killed “these devils and demons”.