About 100 members of the local shooting fraternity packed out the Civic Centre to hear from the NSW Police Firearms Registry and industry bodies on shooting-related issues affecting the region. 

NSW Police Firearms Registry director Bruce Lyons led the forum group alongside panel members from the Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia, the Australian Pistol Association NSW branch, Firearm Safety and Training Council, NSW Police Firearms Registry, and other hunting groups.

The forum allowed the community to meet with representatives from the NSW Police Firearms Registry and members of the peak bodies from the sporting sector to discuss any issues affecting locals.

Among those present was Sporting and Shooters Association Tamworth branch president Keith Judge, who oversees 366 members, and mooted the idea of an annual amnesty.

“We’ve seen a very successful return of obsolete and unregistered firearms and yet there seems to be some sort of suggestion that there’s more to be done, and I’m interested to find out what that is,” Mr Judge said.

“I’d like to see this amnesty done, say, every 12 months and not wait for years and years until all this pressure builds up.”

“The shooting community, we believe we are law-abiding citizens and it is a privilege to own a firearm, not necessarily a right.

“But unfortunately, there is a minority in the community who are abusing that either by stealing them and using it for illegal purposes, and that allows the anti-gun lobbyists in particular to become very emotional about the whole thing, as we’ve just seen with the Las Vegas shooting.”

Mr Lyons conceded he saw “some merit” in calls for a permanent amnesty, but held concerns over the criminal element “in terms of committing a crime and then handing in the gun under an amnesty, having the gun destroyed by the police department and that gun might have been used in a murder”.

Mr Judge’s calls come on the back of the Oxley Local Area Command recording among the highest number of illegal guns to be surrendered in the latest national gun amnesty, which ran from July 1 to September 30.

The forum heard the amnesty was an “incredible success” for NSW, accounting for almost half of the national total.

Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson invited the NSW Firearms Registry forum to come to Tamworth so the gun-heavy region “could have the opportunity to ask face-to-face the questions you have directly to the Firearms Registry”.

“These are the people I go to to get my information to feed back to you,” Mr Anderson said of the forum panel.

“This issue of firearms and everything around it is very important to me and I want to make sure we stay abreast of it and want to make sure we are in line of any changes, and that we have our say.”

Other items to be discussed at the community forum included the Adler shotgun re-classification and maintaining attendance records for shooting clubs.