Sporting Shooters Association of Australia

The Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia (SSAA) is a federated non-governmental organization established in 1948 as the premier representative body to promote shooting sports and protect firearm owners' interests in Australia.[1] The SSAA currently claims a membership of over 186,000,[2] making it the largest body representing licensed firearm owners in Australia, with interests covering all aspects of recreational shooting and hunting, including firearms collecting and youth education. The SSAA also participates in the ongoing debates on government firearms policies.

Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia
Formation15 April 1948
HeadquartersAdelaide, South Australia and Sydney, New South Wales, Canberra, ACT
Membership
186,000
President
Geoff Jones
CEO
Tim Bannister
Editor
Jennifer Martens (Acting)
Website

History

On April 15, 1948, about 100 shooters met in the Sydney's Railway Institute Building in Elizabeth Street to form The Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia. One of the most notable changes since that time is the number of members, which continues to increase each year. In 1959, it had a mere 250 members, compared to today’s 187,000 members. Membership fees have also increased since the SSAA first formed in 1948, with urban members paid 10 shillings and country members paid 7/6.

The SSAA began in New South Wales because of the government’s increasing involvement in firearms legislation. In 1950, NSW adopted the title of "SSAA NSW" so everyone was clear that it was not just a "one-state organisation". State branches came into being at different times, with Victoria in 1951, Queensland in 1957, South Australia in 1964, the Northern Territory in 1965-66, the ACT in 1965, Western Australia in 1967 and Tasmania in 1969.

In 1962, SSAA National came to life as a result of a meeting consisting of 12 people. The group agreed that there was a need for a federal body, whose purpose would be to assist and advise state bodies.[1]

Structure

The SSAA is organised at the bottom level as local sporting clubs, around locations and/or speciality shooting disciplines or conservation activities. Members may be unaffiliated with a club, or members of one or more clubs. Clubs are organised in branches, where each club sends two voting delegates to the branch AGM. A state may have one or more branches according to the population and size of membership. State level executive teams deal with state level sporting management and legislative issues, and elect the SSAA National Executive Board. SSAA states it is independent of any political party and supports politicians who support recreational shooting and hunting while condemning those that work against its members' interests.

Activities

The SSAA at the club and branch level has many thousands of volunteers and officials running competitions and managing facilities of their clubs for all levels of competition. The SSAA manages more than 16 handgun, rifle and shotgun shooting competitions at the local, state, national and international levels, as well as having several branches devoted to historic and collectible firearms.

The SSAA runs its own political lobbying department, the SSAA Legislative Action (SSAA-LA). The SSAA-LA is "dedicated to ensuring Australians are able to exercise their freedoms and calling out those who threaten those freedoms", and focusses on important political news, national and international perspectives on legislative and regulatory developments and other time-sensitive matters. The SSAA National E-newsletter is a free-of-charge subscription email service available to SSAA members, which allows subscribers to select perferred contents between regular and/or SSAA-LA news. Regular news includes current and upcoming news, views and events about firearms ownership, sport shooting and recreational hunting issues, plus special offers. SSAA-LA news includes important political news, national and international perspectives on legislative and regulatory developments and other time-sensitive matters.[3]

The SSAA also comprises an insurance arm, the SSAA Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd, which is based in Fullarton, South Australia and provides general insurance for the majority of major shooting organisations within Australia, as well as public liability insurance for SSAA members while shooting or hunting.

Facilities

Each SSAA state branch runs/leases a number of shooting ranges and facilities, open to both SSAA members and non-members with varying fees and rules:

New South Wales
Metropolitan
Regional

ACT

Victoria
Metropolitan
Regional

Queensland

South Australia

Western Australia

Tasmania
Metropolitan
Regional

North Territory

Publications

The SSAA publishes a range of publications, including:

  • Australian Shooter (monthly)
  • Australian Hunter (quarterly)
  • Australian & New Zealand Handgun (annual)
  • The Junior Shooter (biannual)
  • SSAA's Comprehensive Guide to Shooting & Hunting in Australia
  • Shooting and the SSAA - A Beginner's Guide
  • A Journalist's Guide to Firearms and the Shooting Sports
  • ASJ: The political voice of the SSAA
  • SSAA National E-newsletter
  • Field to Fork - The Australian Game Cookbook.

Revenue

The national branch of the SSAA collects $10 million in annual fees.[4]

See also

References
  1. "About Us". Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  2. Hunt, Peter (13 September 2017). "Shooting among Australia's fastest-growing sports thanks to women, tradies". SHOOTING has become one of Australia’s fastest growing sports, attracting women and tradies in record numbers. News Corp. Retrieved 14 February 2018.
  3. "SSAA-LA". Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  4. "How John Howard's gun control laws have given a multi-million dollar boost to the shooters' lobby". Retrieved 9 July 2019.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.