Explanatory Notes

A Bill for an Act that recognises self-defence as a legitimate premise for the possession of a regulated weapon in specific circumstances: 

The Parliament of Australia

Short title

This Act is the Preservation of Life — Community Protection Act 2022

Explanatory Notes 

The evolutionary outcome of the fight-or-flight response is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival.  The fight-or-flight response (also called hyperarousal) was first described in 1932 by Walter Bradford Cannon an American physiologist, professor of  the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School.

Given the above, it is reasonable to say that an attack that defeats the survival of many such as a mass murder or act of terrorism will cause an emotional state of hyperarousal in people that are the third person witnesses through the medium of visual and audio news reporting.  

A flight response is to look for a solution that deprives a future attacker from having a capacity to act offensively.  Conversely, a fight response is to look for a solution that enables a future protector a capacity to act defensively.  

The rationale of those of the “offensive camp” is that the police are obliged to have weapons and citizens must be denied possession of a regulated weapon for the purpose of self-defence because the weapon could be  stolen or misused for personal motives.

The rationale of those of the “defensive camp” is that locks are for honest people, and in outlawing the weapon only outlaws (not victims) have weapons because the knowledge of how to manufacture weapons cannot be eradicated.        

The paradox is neither rationale is absolutely incorrect and yet they are mutually exclusive statements. Therefore the probability of each representing a possible solution  is the sum of their possibilities.

Social psychologist Rollo May, the father of anxiety theory stated that the opposite of courage in society wasn’t cowardices it is conformity. Given this statement,  if freedom is not having to ask the State for permission and the barometer of harmony is a low police-to-citizen ratio than the solution to reducing violence in society cannot be Authoritarianism.   

During the 1980s banks were the target of armed criminals until improvements in security including the presence of armed guards. Did these criminals then simply go away?  No, they shifted their attention to softer targets such as service stations and late night convenience stores.  Likewise what we believe are probable targets for terrorists have received increased security including the presence of paramilitary police.  Will the terrorists simply go away? No, they will shift their attention to softer targets. 

What are the softer targets and how might we know the general instructions of terrorists?   Just as we have publicly available information to guide us defensively so do the terrorists offensively. For instance, the Hamas Covenant 1988 sub-titled Islamic Resistance Movement specifically names the Freemasons, the Rotary club, Lions clubs, and other clubs (conjecturally RSLs) as their enermies. Hamas is not the only terrorist organisation that has listed these places where people congregate as targets.    

Because increasing the police-to-citizen ratio to enormously high levels to place a police officer at every potential terrorist’s target or place where violent crime may occur is authoritarian and a clear indication we are a police State and its Citizens subordinates, a different approach is needed based on the possibilities of the mutually exclusive rationales given above. 

This Act recognises “malum prohibitum” within the context that possession of a weapon is not evil in and of itself.  This Act asserts that there are many trustworthy Citizens of good character that in specific circumstances should be permited to possess a regulated weapon to preserve life or lives in response to a grievous attack.