THE ADLER HERESY

Unlike the titles of so many of my blog posts and articles, this one holds no obscure esoteric subtext to entertain or task the reader.

The opinions I will express below, will appear, to many, to be nothing short of a betrayal of those I have formerly sought to defend; an expression of heresies worthy of a bonfire in the Campo de' Fiori.

What follows is not a betrayal, of course. Rather, it is an attempt to look beyond our anger and disappointment at the looming prospect of being denied a new toy, with a view to exploring how the whole sorry affair might have been managed with some strategic foresight, returning real benefits to the shooters’ cause.

There is much I could say about the Adler controversy, but will not. I will not because, frankly, I am both amazed and very grateful the Australian media’s collective mind is not as devious as my own. If it were, if the media focused on the various emotive angles that have occurred to me, there would be absolutely no way the Adler’s action would ever glint under the Australian sun.

It is as much for the reasons I will not outline here, that I believe we would have been better served as an interest group, to have taken an altogether different and thus far largely unexplored strategic approach, to the Adler’s importation.

And now, prologue complete, I’ll will get on with the sombre business of detailing my radical views. Which, just quietly, I suspect I do not hold in isolation.

The Adler a110 lever action

In the current Australian political climate, to have marketed a gun as “a game-changer”, as seen on at least one firearms merchant's site,  was something of a game-changer in itself, having pretty-much redefined the human capacity for cloth-eared stupidity. 

How we can promote a gun as a “game-changer” while simultaneously attempting to convince the media to swallow the claim that it’s no different to any other gun, absolutely eludes me. 

And as we now know, it also eluded the media.

As if that weren’t ill-conceived marketing decision enough, Adler promoters have decided to throttle even more catch-phrases out of their certifiably insane muse, among them the claim that it is “Tailor made for fast and furious pig shooting from the bike, quad or ATV".

In the parlance of the great majority of Australians, this description translates as follows, “You can pump much more lead into the air than ever before, while engaging in gang-related drive-by shootings!” Or perhaps, “Why not hang off the back of the ute with your red-neck mates while letting rip with this little beauty!”

Exactly how many units of product the importer expected to move in the 10 seconds prior to the media swooping on these claims, investigating them and setting new standards of sensationalism, remains unclear, but one presumes the importer is wishing the retailer had tried more subtle sales-pitches.

There should never have been any doubt that journalists, anti-gunners, politicians, or for that matter the community, would vehemently oppose the introduction of any technology that promoted itself on claims of increased speed, capacity and potency.

The arrogant folly of taking a wild punt that the Adler would slip into the system without raising a regulatory eyebrow has resulted not only in doubt being cast over the future availability of the Adler, but also a potential for tighter restrictions or perhaps even the abolition of lever-actions already in the community.

So how do I believe we should have approached the importation of the Adler?

Here is where you should start collecting wood for that bonfire I mentioned at the outset, because I believe that as an interest group, shooters, via their various agencies, should have moved pro-actively to recommend the Adler be assigned the tightest possible licensing category, if not banned entirely for recreational purposes.

Despite the hype, the Adler is not a “game-changer”.  There is no evidence to indicate that it is more accurate than shotguns currently available and both hunters and target shooters are doing very well in their chosen activities without the benefit of Adler’s boasted speed and 8-shot capacity.

If a hunter feels he’s likely to be bailed-up by 8 homicidal porkers, there are plenty of other efficient calibres with adequate magazine capacities that have served the hunter to date. Despite the marketing spin, most pig hunters do not use shotguns and I suspect the number of duck and skeet shooters who feel the Adler’s fast 8 shot capacity will improve their game in real terms.

Let’s be upfront. We want the Adler because it’s cool and we are angry about the controversy surrounding it because we want one of these cool new toys. 

If denied access to the Adler, Australian shooters will not be disadvantaged in any way, whatsoever. We are simply expressing indignation at the State’s suggestion we cannot be trusted and we are angered by what some perceive as a further erosion of our ‘rights’.

Hollywood has already ensured the thug-appeal of the shotgun and as much as we may resent the stereotypes and being nannied by the State, only an invertebrate intellect could genuinely believe the lever-action would not swiftly become the weapon of choice among underworld figures and gang member. 

This was bound to fill police ranks with concern about being outgunned and as we know, it was police who raised initial concerns.

The Alder has brought much angst and unwanted scrutiny to firearms regulation and the lever-action in particular, at a time when Howard’s mini-me is at the Nation’s helm, but we needed only to show a little maturity to harness the inevitable public outcry to our advantage.

The moment the Adler promotions surfaced, we should have been capable of seeing the inevitable looming large on the horizon and resolved to lead the push to reject the Adler.

Yes, that’s right, reject it!

In so doing we would have lost nothing tangible or demonstrably beneficial to shooters and hunters. However, we would have demonstrated very clearly that the anti-gunners’ portrayal of shooters as fanatical rednecks, who lack any responsibility for considerations of public safety, self-control and moderation, is demonstrably false.

By leading the push for moderation in a very public way, we’d have made a clear statement, “we are not committed to owning firearms at any cost.”

We’d have put on the record, our willingness to work cooperatively with agencies such as the police, for the public good, rather than proving ourselves committed to domestic heavy arms proliferation, as the Greens and others will portray us.

We’d have demonstrated our maturity, our foresight and our commitment to working in partnership with agencies and the community, to ensure responsible firearms ownership, instead of simply talking about it.

By making one well publicised ‘sacrifice’ we’d have stripped our opponents of their main weapon against us, the perception that we will never be satisfied and that no-matter how outrageous the proposition, we will always strive to justify ownership of any and all firearms.

The greatest hurdle we face in the battle to keep our firearms and retain our shooting and hunting cultures, is the public’s perception of who we are and what we’re about. Had we adopted the strategy above, we’ve have done immeasurable damage to the stereotypes promulgated by our opponents.

More importantly, we’d have been well placed for future lobbying on other issues of genuine significance, because we’d have proved ourselves capable of objective analytical thought and decision making, that, in the public’s eyes, would have shown us to be responsible participants in the policy making process.

Instead, we continue our attempts to defend the Adler, with half-baked claims about its benefits to the control of the feral menace and even on the grounds of ‘humaneness’, which absolutely no-one, including a great many hunters and shooters, is swallowing.

And now our lack of strategic foresight and restraint, coupled with flawed perceptions of what we wrongly persist in calling our “rights as firearms owners”, seem set to jeopardise our relatively easy access to other lever-action calibres.

If we hope to retain our firearms into the future, our advocates need to get much better at this strategic planning and risk management lark!

So send hither thy Dominicans, I fear them not. For I'll get outaya way now...

Follow the blog on Twitter @Hunters_Stand

If you'd like to share this post the link to cut & paste is http://thehunterstand.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/the-adler-heresy.html

For those wishing to leave comments either anonymously or under their own names (go-orn, I dares ya!), please select the 'Name/URL' option from the drop down menu beneath the comments section at the bottom of this page. You do not need to enter a URL.

If you would like to receive notifications when new posts are uploaded to the Hunters' Stand, send your name and email address to thehunterstand@gmail.com This service will not include notification of new comments. All information provided will be treated with the utmost confidentiality and discretion.