Killing sparks teen gun use warning

Shooting victim Lewis McPherson, in a picture from Twitter. Source: adelaidenow

A GROWING number of teenagers are arming themselves with weapons, including handguns bought on the black market, experts have warned.

As a 17-year-old boy yesterday faced court over the New Year's Eve shooting death of Lewis McPherson at Warradale, in Adelaide's south, questions were raised over how the charged youth allegedly obtained the gun.

Flinders University professor of criminology Andrew Goldsmith said young people's attitude towards carrying weapons was changing.

Anecdotally, young people talk about the need to be protected when they go out and about," Prof Goldsmith said. "How does a 17-year-old happen to be waving a gun around a suburban street?"

In April last year, it was revealed almost 11,000 licensed firearms had been reported missing or stolen in South Australia in the past decade.

SA Police's annual report expresses concerns about the "prominent and visible nature of gun crimes" in the community, particularly involving bikie gangs.

And leading Adelaide defence lawyer Michael Woods said guns could be bought on the black market for as little as $500 if a person had the right connections.

"It's not as though you can walk into the front bar of a pub and buy a gun, but it's common knowledge that drugs and firearms are two things that go together because people that are involved in the sale of drugs are often also involved in selling firearms," he said.

Mr Woods said he was concerned by a growing number of shooting incidents in Adelaide over the past two years.

"There is a big difference between arming yourself with a knife and arming yourself with a gun ... I think there has been an element of glorification of such violence in recent years, which is a worry," he said.

Mr Woods said some blackmarket guns were stolen or bought from overseas, but many firearms were slowly pieced together by purchasing gun parts online then assembling the weapon.

Some of the cheaper blackmarket firearms were notoriously unsafe, he said.

Prof Goldsmith said the mere presence of a gun intensified the potential for death or serious injury when conflict arose.

"It's about opportunity and I think the more weapons out and about, the greater the opportunity for random (incidents), not necessarily planned things but things that escalate," he said.

"Some people who are apprehensive and scared, they may be inclined to produce (a weapon) under some sense of threat."

Child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said there was no doubt more teenagers were carrying weapons than in previous generations.

"There is no doubt that the young people that I work with feel more apprehensive and fearful than they did 20 years ago," Dr Carr-Gregg said.

He said an increasing number of young people had learnt to "see violence as a problem-solving device", and violent computer games and images often contributed to children being desensitised to violence from a young age.

"It feeds upon itself. The more people that carry weapons, the more other people also carry them ... they don't want to be the one without protection."

Dr Carr-Gregg said there was no "silver bullet" solution, but the carrying of weapons among young people created a vicious cycle that often led to violence.

He believes all primary schoolers should take part in compulsory anger management and conflict resolution classes.

Gun Control Australia spokeswoman Samantha Lee said it was concerning that a 17-year-old allegedly had access to a gun.

"Kids and firearms just don't mix," she said.

An Australian Institute of Criminology research report from June last year says most illegal firearms were either imported before legislative changes and reforms in the 1990s and early 2000s, or were stolen registered guns that were then circulated on the black market.

The report says that between July 2004 and June 2009, an average of 1545 firearms a year were reported stolen to Australian state and territory police.

Of these, only about 10 per cent were ever recovered.

Ms Lee said reducing the number of legal firearms would naturally decrease the number of illegal ones.

The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia's SA president, David Handyside, said current firearms laws were adequate and illegal weapons were the issue.

"They are off the radar in the first place and people are highly unlikely to admit that they have one," he said.

"We are obviously very concerned about having illegal firearms on the street. That is the main problem here at the moment."

Prof Goldsmith said gun numbers in Australia were comparable to or above the number before the Port Arthur massacre, despite about 820,000 firearms being handed in during an amnesty after the incident in 1996.

He said the sheer number of guns provided opportunity for some of them to be illegally obtained and go "off the radar".

"Whatever number were handed in as part of the amnesty has been more than recouped through imports and purchases of guns. There is a lot of legitimate gun acquisition, but then those guns can be poorly secured or they can be stolen."

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