PISTOLS USELESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 206, 1 September 1933, Page 5

PISTOLS USELESS.

CATCHING BURGLARS. HOUSEHOLDER'S "DELUSION." COMMENT IN MELBOURNE. "We will never get anywhere with the pistol question," said the Victorian "Police Journal" recently, "until we lay a ghost —the popular delusion that an honest, law-abiding citizen has the advantage when he is armed. We say from experience that instead of being an advantage tp have a revolver under your pillow at night or in your house, or on your person on the public highway, night or day, it is a source of disadvantage." The question has arisen recently in Melbourne because, in a test case, it has been ruled that the Firearms Amendment Act does not enable the police to restrict the possession of firearms to persons whom the police are satisfied have special reasons for requiring to be armed. Before the State Parliament passed tlie Firearms Amendment Act 1932, any reputable householder could obtain authority to possess a revolver. There were then 16,000 pistols registered in Victoria. About 10,000 of them were held 6y ordinary citizens for the protection of their homes. The declared intention of the Act was that only banks, organisations or persons having the care of large sums of ! money or other property should be permitted to possess firearms. "An Advanced Sneak Thief." According to police opinion, the type of criminal with designs on a householder's property is more or less an advanced sneak thief who has no desire whatever to risk his neck by committing murder. He is not likely to use a gun unless a gun is drawn against him. He is not even likely to carry a gun unless he fears that he will be threatened with a gun. If he is of the rarer type who does carry a gun and who would not stop at using it when threatened, he has all the advantage over the householder. He is alert and ready against intenup-

tion. He has everything to gain by avoiding capture, and, if forced into gunplay, will get his shot in first. According to the highest police opinion in the State, a gun is not nearly so good protection for the householder's property against burglary as are a dog of the yapping variety, and a master switch at the bedside that will turn on lights throughout the house. If the dog barks and the lights go up 999 out of 1000 burglars will drop swag and tools and bolt. A telephone call for the police patrol will then have a far better chance of effecting the criminal's capture than any heroic course of action that the householder may take. The police search their experience in vain for any instances of housebreakers being captured at a householder's pistol point. Decrease in Crime. The Chief Commissioner of Police claims that since the restriction of permission to possess firearms there has been a marked decrease of serious crime in Victoria. The police have made it very difficult for criminals tq secure and remain in possession of firearms. A gun in his hip pocket may often give the criminal the Dutch courage to attempt a crime that he would not otherwise have dared. This contention is borne out by experience in other countries. In America anyone can buy firearms. Crime is rife, every criminal is armed and does not hesitate to shoot. In England even the police are not allowed to carry revolvers unless they are specially detailed for dangerous jobs, and no country is more free of the armed criminal.