Opinion
Australia – -(AmmoLand.com)- In a case of “you can’t have one, but I need one for my own protection”, police in the Australian state of Victoria are set to buy and fit 600 AR-15s for their patrol cars.
At a whopping $28,000 (US) per gun.
National Shooting Council spokesman, Peter Zabrdac, said the announcement that the government was going to spend AUD $25m (US $17m) to buy the guns is reportedly being done in the fight against terrorism and gun crime. That works out to AUD $41,000 or US $28,000 per gun.
Covering the acquisition with a veil of secrecy
“We all want our police to be armed and protected, but no-one can explain why the cost per firearm is ten times the going rate,” Mr Zabrdac said.
The acquisition will include five new mobile units, training and probably some additional storage, but attempts by our Council to find out how the money will be spent or whether the police will even go to tender are not available.
“Even when you take the additional costs into account, the government has not explained why the cost is so high, or who is going to profit from it,” he said.
An admission that Australian gun laws don’t work
Mr Zabrdac said the announced AUD$25m (US $17m) announcement also is a bad look for gun laws in Australia which do not permit citizens to own semi-automatic rifles, including AR-15s.
Terrorism attacks have been few and unsophisticated, and changes to Australia’s gun laws in 1996 had no effect on gun crime – so the acquisition cannot be explained by either of those two things.
“The only remaining possibility is that the police want them because they will enjoy the new look, even if it serves no real purpose” he said.
“In fact, it creates the risk of encouraging people to join the police force for the wrong reason. If Victorian’s needed that level of protection, we would be better off calling in the army”
“Unfortunately, the Victorian Government has a poor track record when it comes to managing the firearms portfolio. Only last year it brought in new laws aimed at targeting criminals without consulting anyone, with the result that they were successfully challenged by an alleged bikie.”
“The Victorian Government doesn’t understand the gun debate and has decided to throw millions of taxpayer dollars at an extravagance that has nothing to do with protecting the community,” he said.
Peter Zabrdac is the Vice President of the National Shooting Council – www.nationalshooting.org.au
Australian National Shooting Council
The National Shooting Council is Australia’s peak political and lobbying group for shooters and shooting organizations who are sick and tired of the political attacks on what we do.
The Council is led by people with significant political experience from both sides of the political spectrum – and with track records showing what can be done when the right people come together. www.nationalshooting.org.au
Terrorism my ass! They’ll use them on the people they just disarmed, who by the way they will label terrorists when they see what the gunmen has in store for them and even think about fighting back. I wouldn’t give a damn if they offered $100,000,000 each nobody should sell them a f*#%ing BB gun! Look at it. They tell everybody THEY cant have one and now all of a sudden they’re turning around and buying some for themselves? What a bunch of damn hypocrites!! Piss on those bastards. Yeah yeah I know, but it’s the police, the good guys.… Read more »
When they come for our weapons…GUESS WHAT? We’ll be arming ourselves with dead cops M4’s. That’s how it will work. Anyone who will ENFORCE the orders will be your ENEMY.
They will need them to kill the Aussies I have met,some tough SOB’s.
Aussie Land was THE Penal Colony for Great Britain’s most dangerous criminals,they dumped them there and it was so secluded and shark infested little hope was left for escape………but man did the UK.
These Cops will be slaughtered.
Arm them with what they allow the general public to have. Maybe that will change the minds of the tyrants who rule AUS when the police forces decline to try and stop crime.
Why does Australia need weapons of war when they disarmed their citizens? Because they didn’t get the guns from the criminals. Yes, they’re that stupid. Maybe the cost of of these AR’s are so expensive because they failed to exempt themselves from the firearms taxes and background checks.
They didn’t even get all the weapons from the citizens, they just cracked down on the gangs and picked up a wad off them, but there are an estimated 1.5 million semi autos and bolt guns in the peoples hands.
Just cancelled our trip to Australia and New Zealand.
Since I see misinformation in comments below, Here’s the REAL deal on Army weapons. We RARELY use M-16s anymore ( even down to the guard level) pretty much across the board we use M4s, select fire (3 rd burst) is gone, 99% of the inventory has been converted to FULL auto.How do I know? I’m still serving.
Leftist politicians scamming the people and at the same time letting some of the weapons in that they don’t like in order for their own protection to be in place. They, like all politicians, don’t care about the people they are supposed to protect.
What would be their mindset if they found out those they arm with these weapons don’t like them and have other ideas about how and who to use them on? Corruption, is one deep hole that has no bottom.
@noville, Lets assume that your insults are true, just for a moment, would you prefer intelligent useless scum? I think that for you that would be counter productive. OK the moment is over.
Elected officials are the honest, hardworking, and brave men and women of law enforcement to force the population to submit to unconstitutional legislative acts. This is how freedom grabbers in all levels of government get their way.
@Gentlemen, I was going to fire the copy editor over this one, but he was wagging his tail and had a shit eating grin on his face. I f’ed up and left out the verb. It should have read: ” Elected officials are using the honest, hardworking, and brave men and women of law enforcement to force the population to submit to unconstitutional legislative acts. This is how freedom grabbers in all levels of government get their way.”
I knew that, Who in their right mind would use officials and honest in the same sentence.
It is ALWAYS up to those “honest, hardworking, and brave men and women of law enforcement” to say NO to ANY law that infringes on the rights of the citizenry. Otherwise they are NOT honest, they are NOT hardworking (how is sitting on your fat ass in a patrol car of donut shop hardworking?) and they surely aren’t BRAVE men and women. LAW ENFORCEMENT is the problem. TRUE hones, hardworking and brave men and women would be PEACE OFFICERS not “Law” enforcement officers. But, hey, the post came from “Wild Bill” so what would I expect?
@USA, No, I have not changed my mind, if that is what you mean. It is just that some people expound conclusions that would require them to know an entire population. Example given: Typical cops. That would require one to know all cops in order to determine what typical would be.
Other people seem to know only one or two words (e.g. Scum, useless). With that lack of statistic method theory and lack of facts, how could they have credibility with anyone.
@USA, Thank you. Consider me advised.
Somebody making a killing on these sales.
Boy, to be the company selling those! Talk about a profit margin! And at 28,000 per rifle that is MORE then 10x the going rate. I mean a really good AR shouldn’t cost more then what?$1000.00? And I don’t mean a pumped up over priced Daniel Defense, I mean something like a Ruger or Springfield Armory. Which means they are TWENTY EIGHT Times the going rate. Not 10 x. I mean who out there is selling AR’s BESIDES Daniel Defense for $2800?
They probably had to pay 25,G to the politicians for each gun to get the contract…just sayin
They should order them from PSA in South Carolina.
They probably want ones that actually work.
Appears someone in the Aussie GOVERNMENT is going to POCKET some STOLEN TAXPAYER AUD.
I bet that a lot of these rifles will be lost in boating accidents and end up in elite hands, no questions asked.
Wait! Have I missed something? I’ve always understood that the AR15 is a semi-automatic firearm while the M16 (now the M4) is a military firearm capable of full-auto fire. The article is discussing the purchase and use of semi-auto rifles. Why are we accepting the misinformation of the headline referring to fully automatic weapons. Lose the language, and lose the battle.
You meant the M16M4 right?, M4’s are used in CQB’s( mostly for spec ops and teams) the Army is mostly all M16A4’s.
It’s more than 10 times.
“The cost per Remington M4A1 was just $673 per. Their bid severely undercut Colt’s previous contract, which priced the rifles at over $1,200 a piece. FN’s contract with the Army is $77 million for the first 120,000 rifles, which works out to a bottom line of just under $642 per M4A1.”
The cost to convert the AR15 to full auto is actually around $100 or less. a minor change to the lower receiver and the full auto FCG.
Minor?,little bit more to it that, like,like a lower drilled precisely/w parts installed for the 16 bolt to function with, The hammer and dis-connector, the select fire lever, and last but not least a FULL Machine shop and blue prints for the FA lower parts.
NOT MINOR.Not to mention getting low shelf lowers.(or have the shop and expertise to do it.Not many do, nor have the prints.
If your going to that trouble just machine a FA Auto sear.
The article says that $28K per gun is 10 times the going rate. Seriously? The “going rate” is $2800/gun??? Mine is an Armalite Eagle 15 and it cost me $599. I bought in back in the summer of 2016 when the experts were telling us that Killary was definitely going to be the next president. That means that $28K is 47 times what I paid for my rifle. Hopefully, some of the good citizens of Australia will be able to put somebody’s feet to the fire in the Land Down Under, cuz there’s definitely something going on under … under… Read more »
aka John Doe citizen dose not need one but the police do
Who needs those,the students if they desire can carry concealed if they want to.