news, local-news, gun, mudgee, laws, firearm

​Monday marks a tragic anniversary for Virginia Handmer. On June 27, 1993 Virginia’s daughter Dali Pleshet was shot dead with a semi-automatic firearm at Cooks Gap. Dali was 15 years old and had walked to a nearby property to wish her neighbour a happy eighteenth birthday. As she was leaving, a group of teenage boys staying at the home were preparing to go kangaroo shooting. One of the boys joked that he could hit Dali from a distance. He pulled the trigger and she was killed. As she battled the devastating grief of losing a child, Virginia found herself petitioning parliamentarians when the Firearms Registry returned a finding of no charge to the adult who had owned and provided the gun. The man was eventually charged and convicted as well as the teenager who shot Dali. “There were many trials and many mentions, probably 40 over a few years, and I went to all of them and I really got involved in the public safety angle of firearms,” Virginia said. In the years before the Port Arthur Massacre, Virginia advocated for gun control and was a staunch supporter of the Howard Government firearm buyback and legislation. But she and members of a strategic planning group including Greens MP David Shoebridge, say the laws have been eroded severely in the 20 years since they were introduced. “What happens is one state waters down legislation because of deals with the Shooters Party or whatever and the other states follow suit,” Virginia said. Ahead of the July election and in light of the recently Orlando shootings, the group is calling on government to reinstate the Howard era laws. “In 1996 we had bi-partisan support for the new gun laws that came through and basically when anybody made a fuss from the Shooters Party the Coalition and the Labor Party were able to say this is tough but 90 per cent of Australia wants these laws," Virginia said. “Now I can’t imagine that’s changed and people don’t realise that it’s been watered down. “So what they think is part of the safety and all of the rest of it is not. “In Australia there are many gun deaths and I guess the majority are suicide and that means that people can still get their hands on guns. “John Howard himself has come out and said this needs to be addressed and obviously he thinks it’s a serious enough issue that he’s not doing it within his party.” Further galvanizing the group is the potential importation of a semi-automatic handgun against the recommendations of the Australian Crime Commission. “The thing that’s really worrying about the Adler Lever is that the magazine is a five bullet magazine and can get changed to an 11 bullet magazine really easily. It’s basically a semi-automatic and for some bizarre reason it circumvents this legislation. It’s a big concern.”

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