Queensland shooters achieved a critical last-minute concession in the Queensland Community Safety Bill 2024, with the Police Minister agreeing to a significant change before the Bill was passed on August 22nd.
As a direct result of our lobbying and the pressure applied by you, our members and supporters, offences where no conviction is recorded will NOT count as “disqualifying offences” for the purposes of applying for firearms licences.
While this does not prevent the police from using generic “Fit and proper person” grounds to deny licences (which they do anyway), it does mean tens of thousands of Queenslanders will not automatically be denied a gun licence forever just because they went to court for a minor matter or in uncharacteristic circumstances.
While the Bill itself is still bad law and we oppose it and its passing, this change is still welcome.
We’d just like to take a moment to thank you, our members and supporters, for making this possible – this change is directly because of the hard work put in by people contacting their MPs and voicing their concerns over the Bill and its implications for shooters.
We’re not out of the woods entirely though – the rest of the Bill was passed more or less as-is, despite unprecedented concern from more than 200 community organisations about its contents (only KAP, Mirani MP Stephen Andrew, and The Greens voted against it), and we encourage you to take that into account at the upcoming State Election on October 26.
