Sen. Sgt Chris Martin: time to hand in gel blasters or face unwelcome penalties

In the past three to five years, WA Police officers have responded to more than 1600 reports of someone in possession of a firearm.

But it has turned out in each one of those cases the “firearm” very much looked like the real thing, but was in fact a “gel blaster”, which fired liquid-filled gel pellets at 100m per second.

We don’t want these false alarms to be occurring anymore, so that’s why the WA Police Force and the State Government have decided to outlaw gel blasters from July 3.

Until then, people can take advantage of an amnesty and surrender their gel blasters at their local police station.

Attending a call-out which could involve a lethal weapon is the most concerning thing my staff can do

I don’t want my officers going to jobs thinking someone is in possession of a firearm, but it’s actually a gel blaster.

A lot of them are exact replicas of AK47, M16 and M4 weapons and look the part from a distance.

I understand some people are frustrated by this decision, because gel blasters have been used for recreational purposes.

However, we want to reduce as many of these incidents as possible, and if removing gel blasters from the community is one step in that process, I’m all for it.

Attending a call-out which could involve a lethal weapon is the most concerning thing my staff can do. It places a massive amount of risk not only on the officers, but the people who are calling and other members of the community.

We have had more than 20 gel blasters handed in so far at Geraldton Police Station and we’re seeing similar numbers across the State. People can surrender them 24/7. They will get a receipt and the gel blasters will be destroyed. At this stage there is no reimbursement.

I encourage people to act before the amnesty ends on July 3.

Otherwise, they risk prosecution and a penalty of up to three years imprisonment and/or $36,000 in fines. The last thing I want to see is the number of reports of people allegedly in possession of firearms increasing.

We obviously want to have as few fatal interactions with the community as possible, and where we do have reports of firearms we want to have some confidence they are genuine so we can allocate appropriate resources.

It’s understandable some people don’t want to hand over their property, but I urge them to accept the reality that this is a public safety risk and be part of the solution. The alternative of jail or hefty fines is one to avoid.