Sounds of Summer: Blackmarket gun's

[philw]

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2009/s2781993.htm

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/audio/twt/200912/20091229-SS-blackmarket-guns.mp3

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Hello, I'm Elizabeth Jackson and you're listening to a current affairs special.

Hundreds of illegal guns have been seized in Australia recently in a police crackdown on organised criminal groups such as bikie gangs. The confiscated guns range from rifles to pistols.

Just where are the guns coming from? Police can't say for sure but there are several likely sources.

Brendan Trembath prepared this report.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Police wrap up a raid in the New South Wales southern highlands. Twenty-five seized guns are put in brown paper bags and taken away as evidence.

A reputed member of an outlaw motorcycle gang is charged with firearms offences.

Illegal guns are being seized frequently as Australian police turn up the heat on various groups.

From an office in Sydney's west Detective Superintendent Arthur Katsogiannis runs the Firearms and Organised Crime Squad.

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: In the last year or two we've had quite an impact. We've had four different strike forces which have worked both covertly and overtly targeting some individuals who were selling and manufacturing illegal firearms.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: He says more than 150 firearms were seized, including an AK-47 assault rifle - the first one seized in the state.

The AK-47 is used by insurgents around the world. Osama Bin Laden is seen with one in his video warnings to the West. Police intelligence suggests that on Australia's black market an AK-47 might sell for up to $20,000.

Twenty-nine of all the guns recently seized by Detective Superintendent Katsogiannis' squad were handguns.

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: Gun crime is a blight upon our society and unfortunately you know there's individuals out there, a minority that may want to use them to commit criminal offences. But that's what we get paid to do and that's where we get our satisfaction, to ensure that those guns are taken off the street.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: This senior detective can't say for sure where seized guns are coming from. But one likely source is thefts from legitimate gun owners.

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: Just over 400 firearms stolen a year as a result of break, enter and steals. Half of these stolen firearms, a result of these particular incidents, happen because of a lack of compliance on the part of the licence holders.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Registered gun owners are supposed to store guns securely in a sturdy safe or risk a fine and the loss of their licence.

The Federal Government says there are about 2.5 million registered firearms in Australia. They belong to more than 700,000 individual licence holders.

Guns circulating on the Australian black market could also be coming from another source. They were bought legally before the laws changed.

After the Port Arthur massacre in1996 self-loading rifles and pump-action shotguns were banned. The Federal Government helped organise a national buyback of more than 700,000 such guns at cost of close to $300 million. But it's not known how many were not surrendered and are still out there somewhere.

Detective Superintendent Katsogiannis again:

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: We are unable to trace them, whether they've gone out to the black market or otherwise, I can't speculate on that. What I can say is that we in the New South Wales Police with our law enforcement colleagues are doing everything we can to locate any illegal firearms.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: From time to time Australia's police forces declare amnesties to encourage people to turn in unregistered guns with no questions asked.

The New South Wales Police Force announced an amnesty in March. Over 4,000 firearms were surrendered and destroyed.

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: Those weapons will never be used again for any type of activity, whether it be sports shooting or criminal activity.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: But what if for every gun seized or surrendered locally another one was slipping into the country undetected.

Detective Superintendent Katsogiannis has heard the talk about guns smuggled in from overseas but he sees little evidence to support it.

ARTHUR KATSOGIANNIS: There's always a possibility that some may come through undetected but we believe from the checks that are being done from our law enforcement colleagues that that's minimal.

Even in relation to parts which may be brought in from overseas where someone may use those parts to manufacture firearms, I know that in meetings that I've had with our both international and national law enforcement colleagues that a lot of those are picked up when they're brought here.

Because one of the main priorities for obviously for our law enforcement people in Australia is that both firearms are drugs are in that category one status where all available attempts are made to ensure nothing gets into the country illegally.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Sydney's Port Botany, one of Australia's busiest ports. A heavy duty forklift darts between stacks of shipping containers.

The containers come from all over the world and there's a never ending line of them coming and going. Ninety-nine per cent of Australia's international trade moves by sea.

One of the country's main gun groups suggests illegal firearms are slipping through ports such as Port Botany.

Tim Bannister from the Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia:

TIM BANNISTER: You've got to consider that less than one per cent of all cargo is ever examined. That amount of examination according to Senate Estimates is now dropping by another 20 per cent.

So there is the possibility that firearms and you know other contraband can make its way onto our shores.

One other area we're very concerned about is international crew, whether it be by port, by plane - are they examined? Can they walk from their ship onto our shores with a duffel bag with goodness knows what in it and sell whatever they do?

Now you've got to put this in a context that some of those overseas, boating crew, are paid a pittance. You would earn more at Subway. For them to walk into Kings Cross or Perth of Fremantle or Whyalla, with contraband they are making a huge amount of money if they can get away with it.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: The Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia was established just after World War II to promote shooting sports and protect gun owners' interests.

(Sound of gun firing)

Today the organisation boasts more than 100,000 members.

TIM BANNISTER: We ourselves have promoted for some time a campaign called Secure Your Guns Secure Your Sport which actually has been operating for six to seven years and has received bouquets from the Institute of Criminology from the current Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor.

We have encouraged our members to not only secure their guns but to secure them in perhaps more expensive safes than what they otherwise would.

We have helped there by providing sponsorship or vouchers up to the value of $100. We've done that with the cooperation of the firearms industry.

At the end of the day we feel comfortable that our members are doing the right thing. We will do this. We will do the right thing. But we ask the police, we ask the legislators to look at where the real problem is; and that is those who use firearms for criminal purposes.

They are not registered firearms and they are not licensed people. They got those firearms from the grey market or the black market. A tiny percentage, a quarter of a quarter of a quarter of a per cent came from a licensed shooter or a security guard or a policeman.

It is evident by all statistics, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Institute of Criminology statistics that that is the problem and that's where the police resources need to be.

The police resources spent to knock on the doors of licensed shooters, to inspect the premises of licensed shooters is a waste of time. It should be spent on those who we know are out there, that they know are out there and must be prosecuted.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: How can you though endorse this concept of safe storage but not have any oversight of it? If people want to go around and check on people's gun cabinets what's the harm in that?

TIM BANNISTER: I do know a lot of police and I've met with many police from firearm registries but there is still often a culture of the public is a criminal in waiting, a potential criminal.

It has been boasted to me by - and I won't say which state - by a former chief inspector of a firearms registry that although they may not find something wrong there they will keep on looking and try and find something wrong.

It's a little bit like having your car pulled over and someone trying to find something wrong. It is the wrong attitude.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: The Australian Greens party has a problem with guns in private hands and doesn't mind saying so. It makes an exception for elite athletes. The party leader Bob Brown has long campaigned for a ban on handguns, especially semi-automatics which fire one shot with each pull of the trigger.

But Senator Brown calls these guns something different, much to the annoyance of many gun owners.

BOB BROWN: I'm very concerned about them because it's permitted for automatic handguns - these are essentially hand held machine guns - to be on the market in Australia. And thousands each year fall into criminal hands through robberies, both of gun shops and private collections.

And they have been used in mass murder overseas. We saw a whole schoolroom of young children shot down in Scotland last decade by a man wielding an automatic handgun. We've seen recent murders, mass murders in the United States.

I cannot think of any justification for these guns being in civilian hands and available through misadventure or crime to criminal outlets in Australia.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: What do you mean by an automatic handgun? What's that?

BOB BROWN: I simply mean it's a handgun that you can keep pulling the trigger because it's got more than one bullet there and keep shooting.

Now, most people think of pistols or handguns as being one-shot machines. They're not. And that means that as in the case in Scotland where 16 young children were shot, one after the other by a man wielding one of these guns - they should not be available in the public arena in Australia.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: But by using an imprecise term like automatic handgun the sporting shooters say you don't know what you're talking about.

BOB BROWN: Well I do exactly know what I'm talking about. Now sporting shooters, let's confine that. There are very, very small numbers of dedicated people who are looking at the Olympics and you can make exceptions for those.

But when it comes to the risk of these guns which can be repeatedly used to shoot people if they're in the wrong hand, being more widely available so that people on some days can have fun, I don't think it's worth the risk.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: But you don't get to elite Olympic competition overnight. You have to start somewhere.

BOB BROWN: Well let me just say again: look at the risk. We inevitably, down the line, with the passage of time will see another mass murder with these weapons.

We took out of the public arena the semi-automatic long rifles but at the same time we did not clean up the potential for a disaster coming out of the use of semi-automatic repeat shot small weapons, handguns. We should follow suit. We should put greater curbs on them.

You can't eliminate them. There are special circumstances in which they should be used. But at the moment as we know there are thousands of these circulating in the wider community – not in, I'm not talking about the sport shooters or the security agencies, I'm talking about in the wider community - because we didn't restrict them and we haven't restricted them strongly enough.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: How concerned are you that numbers of these weapons are coming in from overseas because we don't check all of the cargo that comes into Australia?

BOB BROWN: Well there's a big concern there and the other concern is that the United States has been the recalcitrant. It's a big producer in signing international agreements to cut the use and the export and the global trade in these weapons.

But you know, they are being, it's not just coming from imported weapons but it's from the ability of weapons to go into the wrong hands. They're very valued by people whose intents is criminal.

And they're being lost out of gun collections and out of gun shops and private collections throughout the years and we know there's thousands of them in circulation. And we need to work strongly to stop that to make this society a much safer place.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: To stop these guns falling into the wrong hands what would the Greens like to see by way of changes?

BOB BROWN: We'd like to see legislation which prohibited the sale and resale of these semi-automatic pistols and short guns. And you can build into that the rare exception where there is a legitimate use.

At the moment it's far too, that restriction is far too loose.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: In 2007 one man gained a surprising insight into Australia's firearms black market. While drinking in a pub at Arncliffe in Sydney's south someone he'd never seen before offered to sell him a semi-automatic pistol straight out of the box.

MALE: He had it right there and it had clips, two clips. It was obviously brand new.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: This man no longer lives in New South Wales but still he does not want his name used.

MALE: This guy just did not know me at all. But it was real...

BRENDAN TREMBATH: How do you know it wasn't a replica pistol?

MALE: Oh because I checked the slide and I checked the barrel. It wasn't a replica at all. It was a fully functioning pistol.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Knowing this, what happened to you, what concern does it raise in your mind about gun control in the community?

MALE: This was a brand new weapon and it was a genuine Glock. I know they have a lot of Chinese knock-offs of them. This was a genuine Glock. They're a very recognisable pistol, you know, a big boxy plastic thing you know.

Are they so plentiful that a guy could just come up and try and sell it to me in a pub?

BRENDAN TREMBATH: He was drinking with old mates he grew up with in New Zealand. Over time they followed different paths. He says the friends joined a notorious bikie gang but he didn't.

But the suspicion is the man selling the gun assumed he was in a gang too. Despite what he saw he did not go to the police.

MALE: No I didn't do anything with it. I just went, wow, that's incredible.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: This man's account cannot be independently verified. But he wouldn't be the first person to claim that guns are sold in pubs in Australia's most populous city.

The illegal gun trade is an enduring one. Graham "Abo" Henry was in the thick of it for decades.

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: I had hundreds of them; hundreds of guns over the years. We had different things, especially Neddy Smith and myself when I started to run with Ned Smith later on in my life from 1977 onwards.

And we had a great deal in weaponry in those days from, you know machine guns, the old Thompson machine guns to Armalites to Schmeiser machine guns. Things that in the night time if you fired them they'd be able to see from a mile away because of the flames that used to come out of them.

We had everything mate. Everything you could possibly want.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Those are all quite large. What did you carry around with you?

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: We always had little guns, always carried 32 Snubnose or I had a 45 British Bulldog I always carried, I carried in the bum bag that I got sitting here with me now.

Because it was small and concealable and you know didn't stand out like dogs' balls virtually, you know. So they were the sort of things that we'd carry.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: He won't name any names but is prepared to say where he used to get his guns.

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: The guns came from all sorts of little things. You might buy them in the pub. You might you know some might come from seamen who come from overseas on shipping liners.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Like any market the sale price depended on supply and demand.

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: Oh probably $400 for a good hand gun, $400, $500. I think the most I ever paid for one was $2,000. You know you could get $5,000 for them every day of the week you know.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: He and Arthur "Neddy" Smith were armed and dangerous, staging robberies and dealing in drugs with the apparent approval of corrupt police.

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: Neddy Smith you know was protected by the police and had a green light and so that's what our gang had. It had a green light. Ned was the alleged big ring leader, of which he was. He was the bloke who had the green light in the first place.

And you know I ran off him. I put the gang together and then we ran from there.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Do you have any regrets about any regular people you might have had to threaten or scare in the course of you know being an armed bandit or any other crimes you committed?

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: I can't say that I don't feel sorry for people who I guess were on the receiving end of it. But, you know, do I have any regrets about it? No mate. It was just the lifestyle I led and it's just the way the world was mate.

You know, I don't really have any regrets about anything I've ever done because you know, and especially to other criminals or anything like that because they all knew the rules and all played by the same rules as I did. And if they broke them they suffered their consequences.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Their exploits were dramatised in the 1995 ABC mini-series Blue Murder. Peter Phelps played Graham Henry.

(Excerpt from TV drama series)

PETER PHELPS (playing Graham Henry): Can't sit here doing nothing, waiting for something to happen. You know me old son, I'm rearing to go.

(End of excerpt)

BRENDAN TREMBATH: The real Graham Henry lives a less dramatic life now since his release from jail in 1997. The 58-year-old lives on the coast. As he sits on a bench by the water I asked him if much would have changed from the gun trade he used to know.

GRAHAM "ABO" HENRY: I think a great deal has changed mate. The whole culture has changed. It's you know there's no organised crime as such you know. I mean look when I say organised crime there's people out there that organise crimes.

But organised crime to me and always has been that there's got to be corruption. And I don't just mean police. You've got to have police, you've got to have politicians, you've got to have judges and magistrates and prosecutors.

If you don't have that then you're not playing organised crime, you know. And it's all those wheels that come together that make it run around like the well oiled machine that is mate. You know so it's, certainly today there's nothing like that.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: The Sydney identity Graham Henry ending that report from Brendan Trembath. And you've been listening to a current affairs special.

[tt11758]

So this one aussie asshat thinks that America has been "recalcitrant" in supplying illegal weapons to Oz?  Hasn't he heard?  All of OUR illegal weapons are going to Mexico.  Just ask Oba-Mao and Hitlery.

[fightingquaker13]

Americans selling illegal guns in Australia, because that makes a lot of financial sense. However, in the interest of reigniting the spirtit of liberty in our down trodden brethern, I would support GIVING them away. Screw Toys For Tots, lets start AKs for Aussies.
FQ13

[tt11758]

Americans selling illegal guns in Australia, because that makes a lot of financial sense. However, in the interest of reigniting the spirtit of liberty in our down trodden brethern, I would support GIVING them away. Screw Toys For Tots, lets start AKs for Aussies.
FQ13

I favor a program here in the States.  Call it "AR's for Radio Announcers".   
s

[crusader rabbit]

We all know this to be true:  gun control laws only impact the law abiding citizen.  Bad guys break the law.  The only effect gun control has is to disarm the lawful mking them victims of the unlawful. 

[Sponsor]

[ericire12]

I favor a program here in the States.  Call it "AR's for Radio Announcers".   
s

Tom is a radio announcer

[tombogan03884]

Relax Eric, Tom T is the radio announcer, not Me 

By the way, didn't the Irish fight for like 600 years with arms SMUGGLED BY SEA.

[twyacht]

Perhaps the Gov't can issue "vouchers" for expensive safes to keep what little "legal" gun owners are left Down Under...

I was surprised the Green Party Dolt, didn't throw the United States into the mix of supplying illegal guns,....After all, Mexico has no problem, and me?

I just go down to Wal-Mart and pick up a fully auto AK at least twice a month....