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A West Australian gun club says it had no idea two of its members had been targeted in a series of raids on sovereign citizens last year, sparked by high-profile police shootings in the eastern states.
May-Ring Chen and another man were members of the Canning Gun Club, which has about 600 members from across Perth, when they had their guns seized and licences suspended following the raids in October last year. The operation concluded after 135 firearms were seized, and 44 licences were suspended or cancelled.
Neither person was charged and there is no ongoing police investigation. It is not suggested they presented a safety risk, but were targeted by WA Police due to beliefs they had espoused.
A state tribunal found they were both members of the Canning Gun Club, where members could continue to hire out weapons at will, and there was no process in place to inform the committee or the organisation why their licences had been cancelled or were under review.
Chen is challenging her cancellation in the State Administrative Tribunal, while the man has taken his fight to WA’s Supreme Court.
A club representative told this masthead they were completely unaware two of their members held beliefs in line with sovereign citizen views which reject the legitimate authority of the government.
The Canning Gun Club representative said because of privacy reasons, WA Police were unable to reach out about why they had cancelled or suspended the firearm licences of Chen and the other man.
From the limited information the club was given by Chen herself, the representative said they understood she had sent two non-threatening letters to WA’s Governor and police commissioner.
“Everyone is entitled to send letters to their ministers and public representatives,” the club spokesman said.
However, when informed of their contents, the representative said the organisation had not been privy to the fact Chen had claimed to be a “Galactic Emissary”, that she had a “soul name”, and purported “there was no law without consent” in the same letters.
The representative conceded they would have had concerns about members who thought WA’s firearms act was not legitimate.
However, he also emphasised it was unlikely to come up during conversation between members, and as a result, there was no way to flag those they may have concerns about.
The club’s rifle captain Frederick Glisson also came to Chen’s tribunal hearing earlier this month to give evidence.
Chen called him to speak on behalf of her membership and character, and told the tribunal she was studious and attentive while completing the exhaustive list of safety requirements to shoot at the range. Glisson also provided a reference letter for Chen.
“The only reason I wrote this is May approached me and said her firearm licence had been withdrawn,” Glisson told the tribunal.
“We had no idea what happened, and we had been informed by Ms Chen about the outcome, but there was no detail behind that.
“She asked if I could provide some reference as to what the process was and how she had behaved.”
Glisson told the tribunal he had been previously unaware Chen believed WA’s firearms act was “not legitimate”.
“The issue we have as a club is that we have a lot of responsibility for people coming into the club … we have very strict protocols on how we handle everything,” he said.
“We had no communication from [WA Police’s] firearms branch that there was any issue with Ms Chen.
“The organisation has been in the dark in this whole process.”
Glisson told the tribunal there needed to be a way for WA Police and gun clubs to communicate if there were issues with a person’s ability to hold a gun licence, and said too many organisations relied on the adequacy of the police’s vetting process.
“[As a gun club], we have a lot of liability – we assume if a person has a licence from WA police they are properly vetted people,” he said.
“It’s a bit of concern that a member of our club ends up in a situation like this and to this day, we still haven’t had any communication about how to respond to it.”
WA Police Assistant Commissioner Kylie Whiteley told ABC Radio on Wednesday it was a gap in communication police were working to fix.
“In terms of gun clubs, we have in our future arrangements planned to ensure there’s an automated system that will give alerts the relevant people in relation to licences,” she said.
“That’s always been planned, and that’s always our been our intent to make sure we come and deliver those arrangements in the near future.”
She said any such system would directly alert a gun club about concerns held by WA Police about a member.
Separately, Whiteley also conceded police were concerned about ranges in Perth that allowed people to walk in and hire out weapons without a licence.
“Equally, we want to make sure if anyone’s been told they not to have a firearm that we enable those early alerts,” Whiteley said.
The tribunal is currently determining Chen’s case, while the other man’s case remains before the Supreme Court.
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