The WA State government is due to introduce its new firearms laws next year with the explicit aim of driving down the number of recreational shooters (approximately 60,000) along with the number of licensed firearms (360,000) in the State.

Police Minister Paul Papalia has made it clear he believes that less guns and less people with firearms licences will lead to less firearms deaths.

While there is a correlation between the number of licensed gun owners in the community and firearms related deaths – think the United States (high) vs Japan (low) – no evidence has been provided that reducing and capping the number of guns held by each recreational shooter makes any difference at all.

The Minister is, in effect, embarking on a major social experiment, something that no doubt will be closely watched by the powerful American firearms community.

If Papalia is proven correct and his new laws result in a reduction in the number of licensed shooters and firearms, which then translates into a measurable reduction in fatalities, then he can look forward to many invitations to speak at policing conferences around the world.

If, however, he is wrong, he will be decried as yet another activist politician whose over confident belief in State sanctioned social engineering at the expense of individuals simply leads to the loss of civil liberties.

I suspect his success, if any, will be closely linked to the extent the new laws make it as difficult and expensive as possible for recreational shooters to keep their guns, thereby reducing the total number of licence holders rather than any reduction in the number of firearms they can own.

To me, it defies common sense to think that reducing the maximum to 5 firearms (recreational) or 10 (sporting and primary production) would make any difference.

It only takes one to cause death or do untold damage if used irresponsibly.

I would wager that Minister Papalia could achieve a safer community by the reverse logic of imposing a minimum number of say 50 guns per person rather than imposing a maximum of 5 as such a number would seriously reduce the number of licence holders to the madly passionate or the rich.

As I said, it’s an interesting political experiment; an experiment that is also yet to be tested in the ballot box.

At the very least, the Minister has probably guaranteed the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party will return to the Upper House at the next election as it is highly likely its last result will double from 9,669 to close to 20,000 in 2025, which would almost guarantee the party a seat if it plays the preference game correctly.

Should the Government lose control of the Upper House on the back of these gun laws, Minister Papalia will be about as popular as his colleague Minister Buti with his misstep of attempting to impose new heritage laws during the middle of the recent Voice referendum debate.

But the political fallout will not end there. The Liberals and Nationals are also in the firing line since a vote for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party is probably a lost vote for both conservative parties.

The problem they have is any sign of overt support for the gun lovers is likely to lose them support from the much larger community of gun haters, hence their deadening silence over the past 18 months on the topic.

They are like bunnies in the spotlight, paralysed in political fear of being wedged between two competing interest groups.

Which leads me to the question, what can be offered to those recreational shooters whose votes are up for grabs at the next election?

On my calculations, some 50,000 recreational shooters some time next year will suddenly find that their licence, which was historically linked to a rural property which they don’t own, has been revoked with the sweeping away of the old letters of access.

Many of these recreational shooters will find it difficult to find a landholder of sufficient acreage who is prepared to give up one of the limited number of recreation licences they will be allocated by the police based on the size and location of the property.

In the good old days, anyone with a few acres could sign a letter of access which meant the pool of possible property owners exceeded 100,000 when all the hobby farms and peri urban blocks were added to the commercial farming properties.

But, in Minister Papalia’s brave new safe world, the government is likely to impose serious restrictions on the number and calibre of licences that will be allocated to small blocks near towns and with the ending of the rort of large properties selling unlimited licences there simply will not be enough to go around.

Once landholders have accounted for family, my guess is that about half of the recreational shooters are going to have to hand in their firearms as they won’t have a link to a trusting friend on a farm or station who will want the responsibility of having them and their firearms linked to their property.

The only other option is for the landless and those with no landed friends to  join a sporting gun club with all the costs and attendant requirements. Failing that, it’s off to the cop shop to hand in their weapons.

This is likely to make for a solid group of unhappy voters. That is unless someone thinks of a way around this problem.