The Sad Demise of a Down Under Gun Shop

Gun control activists like to insist that their efforts to restrict the right to keep and bear arms aren’t aimed at law-abiding gun owners, but the folks who are supposedly on the right side of the law always seem to end up paying the steepest price for their anti-gun agenda.

That’s certainly the case in New South Wales, Australia, where one family-owned gun shop has now closed its doors after eight years in business. The owners of Badlands didn’t do anything wrong. They weren’t accused of breaking the law or violating the terms of their firearms dealer license. Instead, they found themselves caught between a government determined to impose new restrictions on lawful gun ownership and a bureaucracy that couldn’t keep up with its own red tape. In the end, staying in business simply wasn’t worth it anymore.

The saga of Badlands and its owner Zac Kirwans has been detailed by Robert Borsak Jr., the State Director of the NSW branch of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party. It’s a sad and sordid tale of a government intent on destroying the framework that makes gun ownership possible, without having to directly prohibit gun ownership altogether. 

Zac said it turned his viable business into something that was virtually worth nothing, forcing him to sell what was left to avoid going into a debt they couldn’t get out of.

That is what the government’s grandstanding looks like when it reaches an actual family.

It does not look like a press conference, a minister standing behind a lectern or another carefully rehearsed line about the number of guns in the community. It looks like Zac and his wife marking down stock they worked hard to buy, trying to recover enough money to escape from their own business without being buried by it.

As he closed his doors, Zac had new firearms sitting in the shop at around the price he paid his suppliers, yet he still could not move them. He was facing having to sell them later at a loss.

That is because the damage did not stop with the new firearm limits and classifications. Delays from the Registry with licences and permits to acquire have brought ordinary trade to a crawl.

A firearm dealership cannot survive if it cannot sell firearms. It really is that simple.

It does not end with the firearm, either. A new shooter who cannot obtain a licence or PTA does not buy a scope, rings, rails, ammunition, a bag or cleaning equipment. That shooter is not preparing for a hunting trip, so there is no reason to buy camouflage, boots or camping gear.

“It’s a complete system,” Zac said. “You’re not just buying the one thing.”

Badlands had deliberately remained a smaller, family-oriented shop. Rather than trying to stack every imaginable firearm on its racks, Zac and his staff concentrated on ordering what customers wanted and putting together good-quality, individual set-ups.

That approach depends on customers being able to become licensed, obtain permits and purchase the products. When the system stops working, the entire business stops with it.

Kirwans says the NSW government is offering business owners like him grants of up to $25,000 to re-establish himself, but he says that figure is so small it’s an insult. 

In addition to losing his business, Kirwans says he’s also concerned that he won’t be able to hang on to a family heirloom because of the new restrictions being put in place in New South Wales. 

His family has an old Winchester lever-action .22 Magnum that his grandfather bought from Kmart. After it was rediscovered, they followed the proper process and had it registered.

Zac remembers using it under a junior permit on trips out west. It is an ordinary little rimfire, but its value to the family has nothing to do with what somebody might pay for it.

It is a connection to his grandfather and to his own childhood. One day, it could have become a connection between Zac and his children.

Because it holds 11 rounds, Zac fears it may be caught by the new restrictions.

“It’s been in our family for about 60 or 70 years,” he said. “I can remember using it when I was younger. Am I going to lose that because it holds over 10 rounds?”

This goes hand-in-hand with what I wrote about yesterday; the idea that the gun control lobby doesn’t need outright confiscation to succeed. 

Make it difficult enough to buy a gun, and eventually some people will decide it’s not worth the hassle. Make it impossible for gun shops to stay in business, and even those who are willing to jump through every hoop the government puts in front of them will have a harder time exercising their rights.

That’s the reality that Zac Kirwans and his family are facing, and they’re far from the only ones affected by the latest restrictions in Australia. Every customer who can no longer shop at Badlands has lost something too, whether it’s the convenience of a local gun store or the expertise of someone who knew them and their needs.

Gun control advocates may celebrate the closure of a gun shop as a victory, but what exactly has been accomplished here? Has a single violent criminal been disarmed? Has anyone been made safer because a family-owned business has been forced to close its doors?

No. A family has lost its livelihood, lawful gun owners have lost a place that catered to their needs, and a government that claims to be targeting dangerous criminals has instead made life more difficult for people who were following the law.

I’m not all that concerned about an Australian-style “buyback” happening here. It’s the slow strangulation of lawful gun culture that I’m worried about, and we’re already seeing it in places like California, New York, and Massachusetts. 

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