Final days of gun amnesty
113 firearms surrendered to police
TOOWOOMBA police are urging residents with unlicensed or unregistered firearms to take advantage of the final days of a national amnesty.
Currently, 113 firearms have been handed into the region’s police as part of the National Gun Amnesty was started on July 1 and will finish on Saturday, September 30.
Toowoomba City Patrol Group Inspector Stephen Angus said while the uptake during the start of the three-month long amnesty was slow, he was happy with the amount now handed in as well as the high amount presumably handed to licensed dealers.
“Historically gun amnesties have always been slow. We have found from past experience that towards the end of the amnesty, people wait until the last moment basically, to start handing them in,” Insp Angus said.
“So hopefully people will avail themselves in the last week of the month to
surrender or destroy unlicensed firearms.”
The largest number of firearms surrendered to police have been in the Lockyer Valley, with 34 handed into the Laidley station and 23 to Gatton. There have been 27 handed to Toowoomba police, nine in Pittsworth, eight in Warwick, seven in Stanthorpe and five in Texas.
Insp Angus said the penalties for possession of unlicensed firearms or illegal firearms were extremely high, with the gun amnesty a perfect opportunity to hand firearms in for destruction or alternatively hand them to police for safe-keeping to gain a firearms licence.
“The thing with the Toowoomba area, the Lockyer Valley and the
southern region in general is it’s largely a rural area so you do have higher proportions of gun ownership because firearms are a fundamental part of rural life,” Insp Angus said.
“The majority of people who do have guns are law-abiding people. The unfortunate part about it is they get into the hands of criminals and potentially used for crime and to
potentially harm or injure people, including police, which is what we don’t want to see.”
Residents can surrender firearms until September 30 at police stations or at licensed firearm dealers or shops. Outside of the amnesty period, anyone caught with an unregistered firearm could face a fine of up to $280,000, up to 14 years in jail, and a criminal record.