Woodward says he received the message in a email, reported to have been sent by Gene Sperling, head of the National Economic Council.
WASHINGTON — Journalist Bob Woodward on Wednesday said a senior White House official told him he would "regret" taking issue in recent days with President Barack Obama's version of how across-the-board budget cuts came to be.
Woodward said in interviews with Politico and CNN that when he informed the White House he was writing a story critical of the White House's handling of a debate over the origin of the cuts, known as sequestration, the official reacted angrily.
The aide "yelled at me for about a half hour," Woodward told Politico, and then followed up the tirade with an email.
"I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today," the official wrote Woodward. "You're focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. ... I think you will regret staking out that claim."
Politico reported that Woodward saw the statement as a veiled threat.
"I've tangled with lots of these people," said the journalist, who established his reputation by breaking the story of the Watergate break-in under President Richard Nixon and has written a series of best selling books about Washington politics.
"But suppose there's a young reporter who's only had a couple of years — or 10 years' — experience and the White House is sending him an email saying, 'You're going to regret this,'" Woodward said. "You know, tremble, tremble. I don't think it's the way to operate."
Some $85 billion in spending cuts are due to go into effect Friday unless Congress acts, and with the deadline approaching there is practically no movement toward preventing them. President Barack Obama has scheduled a meeting with congressional leaders on Friday, but little is expected of the encounter.
The president has crisscrossed the country in recent weeks to draw attention to the inconveniences and problems from the cuts, which economists say could shave 0.6 percentage points off of already anemic U.S. growth.
While the president has been conducting that campaign, the spat over what Woodward calls the "paternity" of the sequester has proven a distracting sideshow to the fiscal battle.
The administration has sought to counter charges by Republicans that the sequestration cuts were proposed by Obama administration officials.
Woodward's book "The Price of Politics" is a fly-on-the-wall account of the negotiations in 2011 that ended with a deal to raise the nation's debt limit. As part of the deal, both sides agreed to make additional efforts to reduce the national budget deficit, and proposed the sequester as an alternative so unappealing that it would force the administration and congressional Republicans to find common ground.
That deal proved elusive and both sides are currently trading blame for the sequestration cuts.
TWITTER FUN
Woodward said in an article in the Washington Post on Friday that the president and his chief of staff at the time, current Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, were wrong in initially claiming last year that the sequester was the Republicans' idea.
"Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and (Rob)Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid," Woodward said. "They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved." Nabors was then the White House's chief liaison to Congress and is now deputy chief of staff.
The administration has argued that both sides agreed to the terms of the sequester and has pointed to comments at the time from House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, that he was for the most part satisfied with the deal that spawned the arrangement.
Woodward's account of his recent testy exchange with the White House points to continued sensitivity over the issue of whose idea the sequester was.
A White House official said in an emailed response to Reuters that no threat was intended by the comment.
"The email from the aide was sent to apologize for voices being raised in their previous conversation," the aide said. "The note suggested that Mr. Woodward would regret the observation he made regarding the sequester because that observation was inaccurate, nothing more."
The BuzzFeed news website identified the official who tangled with Woodward as Gene Sperling, head of the National Economic Council. The White House did not respond to a request to confirm the identity of the official.
News of the exchange drew instant reaction from Washington insiders on Twitter, much of poking fun at the war of words.
"My amateur advice: stop cooperating with Woodward in the first place," wrote Neera Tanden, the president of the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress think tank and a former Obama campaign advisor.
"Hey, guess what? All of you will talk to Woodward for his next book, too," wrote Tony Fratto of Hamilton Place Strategies and a former White House official under President George W. Bush.
Additional reporting by Susan Heavey
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"There are hundreds of thousands of Americans who are working today who will lose their jobs as a consequence of this Republican decision," White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said during a conference call with reporters Sunday afternoon. "This is going to have a very real impact on people's lives and on communities."
The Obama administration has entered the full-court-press stage of its campaign to defeat a measure, known as sequestration, that would slow the rate of growth of federal spending. Its latest tactic is to release a state-by-state analysis claiming the cuts would hit hard in every corner of the country.
Louisiana, for example, would lose $15.8 million in education funds, putting 220 teachers' jobs at risk, according to the White House. Head Start would be eliminated for 1,400 children, and there would be many more cuts in military spending, law enforcement, job training, environmental and other programs.
Wisconsin, to take another example, would lose $8.5 million in education funds under this scenario, putting 120 teachers' jobs at risk, with Head Start eliminated for 900 children, as well as a variety of other cuts.
South Carolina would lose $12.5 million in education funds, the White House said, putting 170 teachers' jobs at risk, with Head Start eliminated for 900, and much, much more.
It just so happened that the Republican governors of Louisiana, Wisconsin and South Carolina were in Washington on Monday for a National Governors Association gathering, which included a session with the president. When reporters asked about that new state-by-state analysis of possible cuts -- which just happened to be released on the eve of the meeting -- the governors saw a White House political trap.
"You all got it in the media before we got those," said Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. "So I think it's pretty clear that those were put out for political purposes ... If you were serious about having a discussion with the governors about the implications, you wouldn't give it to the press before you gave it to the governors."
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal added that Obama seemed bound and determined to use the sequestration fight to win higher taxes, willing to hold out the prospect of painful cuts to accomplish his goal.
"I think the president is trying to force us into a false choice," Jindal said. "The reality is, there is no reason for these cuts to be made this way." Obama could instruct his Cabinet to emphasize cuts to spending on things like consultants, Jindal said, and not on things like Head Start. "It is the president's job as the chief executive to prioritize."
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said the governors asked Obama to come up with better cuts, or even to delay future spending, like the Medicaid expansion in Obamacare, if the budget situation is as dire as the administration says. "The answer to everything we got was no," Haley said.
As the governors spoke, there was a real question of how much flexibility the president has to shape the cuts that are contained in the sequestration measure, which he proposed and signed into law with bipartisan support in 2011. Does Obama have the authority to move money around so government consultants would take more of a hit than Head Start?
Jindal believes so. "Everybody has known that this was coming," he said. "When did [Obama] go to his Cabinet heads and say, 'If you had to make these reductions, what would be the least painful way to do it?' "
There's no indication Obama has done anything to make the cuts easier on the public. To the contrary, it is in his political interest to make the cuts as painful as possible and then blame them on Republicans.
Nevertheless, it is not entirely clear how much leeway Obama has, given that the law orders across-the-board cuts applied to all "programs, projects, and activities" that are not specifically exempted, like entitlement programs and active-duty military staffing. The governors conceded that Obama might need some help from Congress in making the cuts more palatable -- not that the president would ever want to do that.
At one point, Haley called the whole situation "frustrating" and "bothersome." And in the end, the governors sounded like people who had not only had it with Obama but were also unwilling to defend their party's leaders in the House and Senate. "We're not here speaking on behalf of Republicans on the Hill," Walker said. "We're speaking on behalf of Republican governors. And the contrast is, we're providing leadership, balancing budgets, and doing it without raising taxes."
Byron York,The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blog posts appear on washingtonexaminer.com.
VERY QUIETLY OBAMA'S CITIZENSHIP CASE REACHES THE SUPREME COURT
AP - WASHINGTON D.C.
In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama's qualifications for the presidency, the group "Americans for Freedom of Information" has Released copies of President Obama's college transcripts from Occidental College ... Released today, the transcript school indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship.
This document would seem to provide the smoking gun that many of Obama's detractors have been seeking. Along with the evidence that he was first born in Kenya and there is no record of him ever applying for US citizenship, this is looking pretty grim. The news has created a firestorm at the White House as the release casts increasing doubt about Obama's legitimacy and qualification to serve as President article titled, "Obama Eligibility Questioned," leading some to speculate that the story may overshadow economic issues on Obama's first official visit to the U. K.
In a related matter, under growing pressure from several groups, Justice Antonin Scalia announced that the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments concerning Obama's legal eligibility to serve as President in a case brought by Leo Donofrio of New Jersey . This lawsuit claims Obama's dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president.. Donofrio's case is just one of 18 suits brought by citizens demanding proof of Obama's citizenship or qualification to serve as president.
Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results of their investigation of Obama's campaign spending. This study estimates that Obama has spent upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds in the past year with eleven law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure of any of his personal records. Mr. Kreep indicated that the investigation is still ongoing but that the final report will be provided to the U.S. Attorney general, Eric Holder. Mr. Holder has refused to comment on the matter...
LET OTHER FOLKS KNOW THIS NEWS, THE MEDIA WON'T!
Subject: RE: Issue of Passport?
While I've little interest in getting in the middle of the Obama birth issue, Paul Hollrah over at FSM did so yesterday and believes the issue can be resolved by Obama answering one simple question: What passport did he use when he was shuttling between New York , Jakarta , and Karachi ?
So how did a young man who arrived in New York in early June 1981, without the price of a hotel room in his pocket, suddenly come up with the price of a round-the-world trip just a month later?
And once he was on a plane, shuttling between New York , Jakarta , and Karachi , what passport was he offering when he passed through Customs and Immigration?
The American people not only deserve to have answers to these questions, they must have answers. It makes the debate over Obama's citizenship a rather short and simple one.
Q: Did he travel to Pakistan in 1981, at age 20?
A : Yes, by his own admission.
Q: What passport did he travel under?
A: There are only three possibilities.
1) He traveled with a U.S. ... Passport,
2) He traveled with a British passport, or
3) He traveled with an Indonesia passport.
Q: Is it possible that Obama traveled with a U.S. Passport in 1981?
A: No. It is not possible. Pakistan was on the U.S. . State Department's "no travel" list in 1981.
Conclusion: When Obama went to Pakistan in 1981 he was traveling either with a British passport or an Indonesian passport.
If he were traveling with a British passport that would provide proof that he was born in Kenya on August 4, 1961, not in Hawaii as he claims.. And if he were traveling with an Indonesian passport that would tend to prove that he relinquished whatever previous citizenship he held, British or American, prior to being adopted by his Indonesian step-father in 1967.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the American people need to know how he managed to become a "natural born" American citizen between 1981 and 2008.
Given the destructive nature of his plans for America, as illustrated by his speech before Congress and the disastrous spending plan he has presented to Congress, the sooner we learn the truth of all this, the better.
If you don't care that Your President is not a natural born Citizen and in Violation of the Constitution, then Delete this, and then lower your American Flag to half-staff, because the U.S. Constitution is already on life-support, and won't survive much longer.
If you do care then Forward this to as many patriotic Americans as you can,because our country is being looted and ransacked!
Forward ArticleTwo of President Barack Obama’s top political strategists are behind the launch of a new liberal activist organization that will be funded by seemingly unlimited donations of $50,000 or more from “Hollywood studio executives, California energy investors and Chicago business titans,” according to the Washington Post.
The move has shocked some former progressive allies of the president and represents a complete turnaround for a leader who, as candidate, once pushed for stringent campaign finance reform and strict limits on donations.
They are blasting Obama for abandon his campaign stances in favor of a group that can raise unlimited sums with limited transparency – “the very circumstances he complained about publicly in 2010 when the Supreme Court granted corporations and unions the opportunity to contribute to groups seeking to influence elections,” the Post reports.
“This is an unprecedented vehicle providing a whole new entry point for corruption by individuals and companies that may seek to buy influence with the administration,” said Fred Wertheimer, a Washington lawyer and reform advocate who is president of the organization Democracy 21, told the Post. “It will either lead to scandal or the appearance of scandal.”
“This OFA idea is a terrible example of individuals and corporations being asked to pay to get access” to administration officials, added Bob Edgar, a former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania who heads Common Cause, referring to the new group, Organizing for Action.
Organizing for Action’s leaders insist it will be nonpartisan and steer clear of election activity. But it is already drawing up a list of plans for ads and other activities that amount to a liberal agenda of gun control, climate change legislation, same-sex marriage laws and “ballot access.” The first ads on gun control targeted only Republicans, the Post reports in an article published online Sunday.
The new organization is seeking to keep Obama’s 2012 campaign organization up and running in a type of permanent campaign that will allow the president to push his agenda on a state-by-state basis heading into the 2014 elections. The group is headed by Jim Messina, who managed Obama’s reelection campaign, has been talking with Democratic Party leaders, including those responsible for success in the 2014 midterm elections.
“Messina and Jon Carson, a leading strategist, have traveled the country meeting with members of the Obama 2012 National Finance Committee, who are being pressed back to work to find support for the new organization,” the Post reports. “In huddles with Hollywood studio executives, California energy investors and Chicago business titans, they have suggested $500,000 as a target level for OFA bundlers and that top donors get invitations to quarterly OFA board meetings attended by the president.”
A “founders summit” on March 13 includes a $50,000-per-person meeting at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington led by Messina and Carson.
A one-page memo accompanying the invitation says the OFA will help “strengthen the progressive movement and train our next generation of leaders. It also promises to engage in “state-by-state fights” over issues such as “ballot access and marriage equality.”
Nick Adams is an Australian speaker and author of two top-selling books: "America: The Greatest Good" and its 2012 sequel, "Exceptional America: A Message of Hope from a Modern-Day de Tocqueville". His website is www.nickadamsinamerica.com.More ↓
SYDNEY, Australia – In the country that has some of the most restrictive firearms legislation in the world, law-abiding citizens must obtain police permission before purchasing a gun and subject themselves to public ridicule, surprise searches without warrants, arbitrary confiscation and burdensome government regulations.
It’s a fate that could befall America, some warn, if citizens willingly surrender their firearms – and with those guns, an entire nation’s hard-won freedom.
Australian Josh Coughran, who was forced to turn over his pistols and license when increased work commitments prevented him from completing burdensome gun-range attendance requirements, cautioned that gun “reform” is a slippery slope.
“It’s a viral epidemic that starts small and eventually envelops its host, often resulting in death,” he said. “The devil is in the details, and our story bears true to that old adage. What started as a small attack by a minority on semi-automatic rifles is now what it is today.”
His message to Americans?
“Do not surrender a single one of those rights that have been purchased at such great cost in blood,” he warned. “I still wonder how the country my forefathers fought and died to defend became the instrument which took away my rights.”
These media stories reflect the complex and sobering tale of Australian gun-control efforts, a journey that travels from the vast borders of the Australian coast to the suburban streets of its most populous city and documents the failings of seemingly unrelated matters of immigration and multiculturalism.
With this coinciding with the renewed gun debate in America in the wake of Sandy Hook, Australian gun control advocates, far from undeterred, are energized and appear determined to revisit the past. One headline on the nation’s most popular news website declared, “New gun buy-back scheme needed: Gun-control advocates.”
Despite mushrooming gun crime and gun numbers in Australia, there remains little appetite in the nation’s populace – or political will for law repeal in the parliaments – for a return to the days prior to 1996.
Firearms today have no part in Australian culture, with an entire generation of citizens having never held one.
But it wasn’t always this way.
Australia’s transformation from gun nation to gun-hating country is a tragic tale, often misrepresented or inaccurately told. It is a story of treachery, timing and constant political cunning – one that has moved the agenda of gun control away from guns and ammunition to mandatory attendance and gun ranges. And those organizations best placed to campaign for gun rights have been bought into silence.
1942: Australia’s own ‘Pearl Harbor’
1942 Darwin bombing
Few Americans remember that in February 1942, Australia had its own “Pearl Harbor,” with the bombing of the city of Darwin. In fact, while far less significant as a military target, a greater number of bombs was dropped in this raid than in the Pearl Harbor attack. In its immediate aftermath, civilians of all ages collected their guns, assumed their posts and waited. Even the civilians of the indigenous population, the Aboriginals, assisted, using guns to kill or capture Japanese prisoners of war.
This was a time when Australia was well armed. Almost everyone had a gun, and almost everyone knew how to use them.
Gun ownership was an integral part of the culture, and through an individual’s experience of shooting at or after school, in the military, or cadets, they were adept at their usage. An equivalent of the American Second Amendment – a luxury never afforded to the Australian population – appeared entirely unnecessary. Even national cinematic efforts reflected the deep gun culture of Australia, where even children learned gun safety and operation.
Six weeks after the deadly Dunblane school massacre in Britain on April 28, 1996, in Port Arthur, Tasmania, a 29-year-old mentally ill man used his Colt AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to conduct one of the most murderous rampages of the 20th century, leaving 35 dead and 21 injured.
Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard
With the election of a new conservative federal government just a month earlier after some 13 years of Labor Party (Democratic) rule came substantial political capital. Newly elected Australian Prime Minister John Howard seized this and moved almost immediately to enact some of the strictest gun laws in the world, known as the National Firearms Agreement, or NFA. It banned civilians from owning self-loading (i.e. semi-automatic) rifles and shotguns, as well as pump-action shotguns.
Additional legislation introduced concurrently across Australia as part of the NFA tightened the criteria for “genuine need” and purpose of use, enforced safe storage of firearms and ammunition and mandated training and reporting.
This required the cooperation of all of states and territories, as Australia’s Constitution does not permit the federal government to enact gun laws. The states in Australia are financially dependent on grants from the Commonwealth (the federal government), so the federal government gets its way with the states much more than in the U.S.
To force the hand of the states, Howard threatened to take the matter to a national referendum to change the Constitution should the states refuse his laws. He was successful.
In doing so, at an enormous financial cost totaling more than half-a-billion dollars, Howard implemented a generous gun-buyback scheme, which resulted in Australians visiting their local police station and turning in their weapons. And they did it in droves. Hundreds of thousands of firearms were handed in voluntarily.
The public relations campaign of the government, riding on the emotion of the massacre, captured not just the weapons of the citizenry but also their hearts. Most were convinced that by turning in their weapons they were acting in the best interests of safety and the nation, and they did it without a heavy heart.
Many in the United States wonder: How could law-abiding people simply submit to government demands on such a fundamental matter of individual freedom?
What cultural influences could be sufficiently powerful to witness citizens voluntarily entering their local police station to turn in their firearms, instead of crying, “Come and take it“?
Americans have been conditioned to instinctively think and act as individual. The Australian’s equivalent conditioning, while significantly less than the European, is nevertheless more toward the collective. Contrary to the outdated worldwide perception of the Australian stereotype as a fiercely rugged individualist, the average Australian almost always leans to compliance over prospective conflict.
In addition to this, at the time of the proposed gun laws, shooting groups were reportedly threatened that noncompliance would culminate in eviction from government land ranges.
Despite their compliance, civilian shooters would later be locked out of ranges, and their right to shoot alongside the military was revoked and rendered illegal.
‘Divide and conquer’ gun groups
With the 1996 reforms, Australia introduced some of the strictest and most cumbersome gun laws in the world, born largely from emotion, rather than rational, evidence-based policymaking.
But aside from civilian compliance for the buyback, the story of how Prime Minister Howard and his government were able to effectively silence and garner the support of the reasonably entrenched gun organizations at the time is a fascinating study in human behavior and psychology.
Many shooters suggest within this study that there is a lesson to be learned in the form of a warning for American gun owners.
Faced with multiple associations representing a particular section of shooting (such as the Rifle Association, Pistol Association, Hunters etc.), and having indicated his desire to legislate with the support of gun industry and shooting associations, Howard met with each association separately.
Keen to ensure their membership and association would not be affected, each group pledged support for all of Howard’s initiatives, provided that he left their “gun type” alone in the new legislation. Manipulating each group’s self-interest, Howard employed a “divide and conquer” tactic, which led to the complete implosion of the various associations.
Despite this, there remained some stubborn opposition. Aware of the historical nature of the reforms, Howard had to sweeten the deal. To do so, he and his government looked at how they could win the support of the remaining associations, clubs and ranges. They devised attendance requirements and compulsory club ownership, whereby shooters, depending on the firearm, were obligated to attend their local club and range a certain number of times in the year.
Associations – which were battling declining memberships and had begun struggling financially a decade earlier in the mid-1980s when the sport of shooting in Australia had become extremely expensive – suddenly had great reason to support the gun-control measures that were being proposed.
At the time of the gun-reform proposals, fearing the fix was in, shooters and gun-rights advocates began joining (the closest equivalent in the U.S. would be registering political affiliation) their state division of the Liberal Party of Australia (the mainstream conservative party and that of the Howard government; the equivalent of the GOP) in an effort to influence opinion through the party.
Any interest in, or support of, firearms in Australia today is considered suspect and unusual by the general population.
As one popular Australian website explained, “[I]t’s unlikely they’ve ever seen a gun, much less held or shot one. Most Aussies would be surprised to know that there are gun ranges in Australia.”
Contrary to international perception, Australia is one of the most urbanized countries in the world, with almost 90 percent of its population living in cities. With this concentration, as well as substantial Asian and Middle Eastern immigration, traditional Australian sympathies and cultural appreciation of responsible firearm ownership have been diluted to the point of virtual nonexistence.
In today’s Australia, a reference to a “weapon” among law-abiding men is far more likely to involve an attractive female than a firearm.
For public officials or prominent individuals, just being photographed in the presence of a firearm is considered scandalous.
Even the leading Australian winemaker, Yalumba, found on the shelves of American supermarkets, removed itself from the NRA wine list, withdrawing its stock and refusing to service the account, citing philosophical differences toward guns.
Gun-rights advocates in Australia are on the political outside, considered to be “the cultural fringe.”
While considerably more may harbor pro-gun sentiments, exceedingly few of these are prepared to publicly voice their opinion. Mainstream media coverage and editorials concerning guns in the country are almost exclusively supportive of strict gun control, as evidenced here, with any dissent usually calling for even tighter controls. As it is in Europe, discussion of gun control in Australia is considered “apolitical,” unframed by support of the “left” or the opposition of the “right.” As a result of this, divided opinion is scarce: Most of those who identify as either liberal or conservative in Australia are united in their view of guns.
All gun-control measures in state and federal politics have been bipartisan, although the more cynical suggest in a political culture where voting is compulsory, gun-control reform was embraced and continues to be led by conservatives seeking to take ownership of the issue and negate the country’s left from making it political.
The failure of Australian conservatives, even those purportedly pro-American, to associate gun control with individual liberty or political correctness or the feminization of culture reflects the nature of the Australian political system: It is largely absent of ideology and philosophy, with the voting public favoring the transactional to the transformational.
Samara McPhedran and Jeanine Baker, who had their 2006 study published in the British Journal of Criminology, concluded that the Australian experience of reducing gun ownership, banning certain firearms and imposing onerous regulations hasn’t resulted in a safer society.
Based on the paper, the head of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn, said, “I too strongly supported the introduction of tougher gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre. The fact is, however, that the introduction of those laws did not result in any acceleration of the downward trend in gun homicide. They may have reduced the risk of mass shootings, but we cannot be sure because no one has done the rigorous statistical work required to verify this possibility. It is always unpleasant to acknowledge facts that are inconsistent with your own point of view. But I thought that was what distinguished science from popular prejudice.”
Setting aside these statistics, it remains clear from the revelation that there are more guns in Australia today than there were in 1996, and the festering undercurrent of drug gang-related killings in Sydney and Melbourne since the early 2000s, as well as the almost daily reports of neighborhood shootings, that the criminal element remains armed, despite the reforms.
A shocking list of strict regulations
Despite assertions to the contrary at the time, the NFA and its additional legislation did not end gun reform in Australia. Subsequent legislation by each of Australia’s five states and two territories has created even stricter gun control.
As a result of this, never before in Australian history has gun ownership been so low among law-abiding citizens. Many Australians are forced to surrender their firearms through the burden of compliance regulations and cost, unable to meet the requirements for family, work or medical reasons.
“The current firearms licensing legislation and system are not evidenced-based. … [I]t is misdirected, unwieldy, costly, error-ridden and it is rapidly becoming unworkable,” said Geoff Jones of the Sporting Shooters Association of Queensland.
Gun owners point to increasing delays for approval, longer waits for permits and the increasing difficulty to comply with ever-swelling regulations.
Such regulations are wide-ranging and govern the transportation, use, purchase and storage of firearms, as well as gun-club membership and gun-range attendance requirements, all based on the class of firearm.
The following are some basic Australian regulations:
To own a firearm, you are required to have a license (an application for such will usually take at least three month for all processes to occur, e.g. criminal checks, safety courses, etc.).
All firearms are to be registered with police.
Self-defense is not a valid reason but a prohibited reason. (While you may own a long-arm for various reasons, there is only one reason permitted for a handgun license, and that is competition target shooting.)
Every firearm holder must be a financial member of a registered gun club at all times. (More than this, it must be an association approved by the commissioner, who may at any time dismiss the association, leaving all members of that organization in breach of the law.)
Every time you wish to purchase a firearm, you must apply to the police for a permit to purchase that particular gun, which may be denied at their discretion without any reason provided.
Every firearm must be stored in a safe that is “secured to structure,” and the installation of the safe must be viewed and approved by police before use (with strict rules down to the number of bolts outlined in the Police Registry Guide irrespective of the weight of the safe).
Transportation of firearms may only occur between storage location and gunsmith, or storage location and shooting location. (Any breach will result in instant confiscation and arrest.)
In addition to these, the Australian gun owner is subjected to the following realities in 2013, courtesy of ongoing regulations:
Mandatory attendance requirements for those who own handguns include a minimum of six target shooting visits to the pistol club per year for the first firearm and two additional visits per additional handgun, where competition scores from “approved matches” must be recorded each time.
Mandatory attendance requirements for those who own rifles or long-arms include either a minimum of four visits to the rifle-range per year (if target shooting is declared as the reason on the license) or a minimum of two visits to the rifle range per year (if hunting is declared).
Pistol clubs and rifle ranges are legally required to inform police if a member has not met the required competition shoots, and they are not permitted to admit a member if the member hasn’t met these requirements.
Firearms collectors must belong to an approved collectors club and attend at least two meetings a year.
If a citizen has firearms on his property, the police have a right to search the property without a warrant any time they wish. They’re not legally required to advise the citizen of a visit in advance. (In the last 18 months, one general constable as well as a firearms licensing officer in full combat gear attends.)
In the event that any party involved in a personal complaint owns firearms (whether the complaint was instigated on his behalf or otherwise), prior to investigation, the police confiscate the firearms for an indefinite period of time.
It would also surprise Americans to learn that Airsoft or BB guns are prohibited and categorized as Category A weapons, the same class as shotguns and rifles (and subject to the same regulations). Anyone found in Australia possessing an unlicensed Airsoft pistol or BB gun faces the same charge as a person who unlawfully possesses an actual firearm.
Entire disciplines of sport shooting in Australia have been abandoned or restructured, as a further consequence of the changes in legislation.
Another avenue of attack: the gun range
With ongoing regulations and gun owners’ fear of losing their firearms due to a minor technicality at any time, governmental gun control targeted at individuals, guns and ammunition is slowly exhausting. In addition to this, from the buybacks to enforcement, such a path is costly. Yet the government’s gun-control agenda includes another avenue of attack: the gun range.
Unlike many other countries, public lands in Australia belong to the Commonwealth or the federal government. Most ranges are on federal land and have been targeted by the government.
In the most prominent case to date, the famous Anzac Rifle Range at Malabar – where Australian soldiers trained for both world wars – was evicted by the federal government. The reason given was asbestos buried by the government in the 1940s, with Minister Penny Wong declaring the site a “health hazard,” despite protestations to the contrary and the matter never having been raised previously. In addition to this, the sale of such sizable land, as gun ranges are by nature, is lucrative for government.
In the light of this, it is difficult to contest the assertions of law-abiding gun owners that the gun-control measures of 1996 were ineffective, imposed a great cultural and economic cost and succeeded only in disarming the good and empowering the criminal.
To understand and appreciate the climate within which the gun owner or sporting shooter of Australia resides, one need only read this speech.
Given the cultural attitude toward guns in Australia, many of Australia’s leading gun owners groups and individuals were reluctant to be interviewed for this story.
![Associate Editor of the Washington Post Bob Woodward. IMAGE]({"default":"http://col.stb.s-msn.com/amnews/i/1e/65c8c814b01d2dfbd269a28d4bda9_h366_w650_m6_lfalse.jpg"} "Associate Editor of the Washington Post Bob Woodward. IMAGE (AFP Photo: Jim Watson)")
![Reuters]({"default":"http://col.stb.s-msn.com/amnews/i/99/6a6e1e9d2013e8fe84e6814a7d491_h17_w0_m6_lfalse.gif"} "Reuters")
By Mark Felsenthal
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By Nick Adams
To force the hand of the states, Howard threatened to take the matter to a national referendum to change the Constitution should the states refuse his laws. He was successful.
Many in the United States wonder: How could law-abiding people simply submit to government demands on such a fundamental matter of individual freedom?
With the 1996 reforms, Australia introduced some of the strictest and most cumbersome gun laws in the world, born largely from emotion, rather than rational, evidence-based policymaking.
Despite assertions to the contrary at the time, the NFA and its additional legislation did not end gun reform in Australia. Subsequent legislation by each of Australia’s five states and two territories has created even stricter gun control.
With ongoing regulations and gun owners’ fear of losing their firearms due to a minor technicality at any time, governmental gun control targeted at individuals, guns and ammunition is slowly exhausting. In addition to this, from the buybacks to enforcement, such a path is costly. Yet the government’s gun-control agenda includes another avenue of attack: the gun range.
