Following the WA Government’s recent PR stunt involving guns handed in during the first “buyback” being destroyed by explosion (and PR photos of surrendered guns or guns arriving at the crushers), we got in touch to ask if historic or collectible firearms – a number of which were identified by our Collector’s Branch president via those same publicity photos – had been destroyed, and what efforts had been made to keep historic or collectible guns out of the crusher.
WAPOL replied surprisingly quickly to confirm collectible and historic firearms were set aside during the “buyback” and donated to museums.
A WAPOL Spokesman said a list of possibly historical firearms was given to WAPOL at the start of the buyback, and any guns identified from the list were set aside. Any firearm that appeared to have a collectable value was also set aside for review by the Western Australia Police Force Firearms Library.
The spokesman confirmed firearms identified as historical were donated to The Royal Western Australian Historical Society; The Western Australia Police Historical Society; or The Western Australia Police Force Firearms Library.
WAPOL have conceded that some items of historical or collectible value may still have been destroyed (something our Collector’s Branch president has confirmed based on photos of firearms being delivered to a destruction location), but we are very glad a genuine effort was made to set aside collectible or historic firearms handed in during the “buyback”.
Obviously we still oppose the “buyback” itself and the way pretty much everything surrounding these gun laws has been handled by the WA Govt, but we can still acknowledge that someone involved in the process somewhere made a good-faith effort in doing the right thing to ensure historic or collectible guns weren’t automatically destroyed.
Photo credit: The West Australian - Title: More than 5400 South West firearms handed back to police in State Government's gun buy back scheme | Bunbury Herald. link: https://www.bunburyherald.com.au/news/bunbury-herald/more-than-5400-south-west-firearms-handed-back-to-police-in-state-governments-gun-buyback-scheme-c-16031928
