On a Monday afternoon earlier this month Barwon MP Roy Butler was talking to the NSW Premier about renewed calls for a national firearms registry in the wake of two police officers and a bystander being killed in Queensland by Nathaniel Train, his brother and his wife Stacey.

Mr Butler says he pleaded with Dominic Perrottet not to "let good people get punished because of this”.

In an exclusive for the Western Plains App, the member for Barwon says he does not want farmers, sporting shooters and “law abiding firearm holders” to be “tied up in red tape” through gun laws that have “no link with public safety”.

Some big hitters have backed the creation of a national firearms registry - Queensland Premier Anastascia Palaczuik and the Australian Medical Association have both publicly declared their support.

A spokesperson for Dominic Perrottet told the Western Plains App "The Premier has said in recent weeks that he’s open to a discussion through National Cabinet to ensure more national consistency...He said it in relation to registration".

Mr Butler told the Western Plains App he is concerned we could be headed for a kneejerk policy response to the December 12 tragedy.

“Let me make it clear that what happened that day is absolutely abhorrent,” he told the Western Plains App.

 “As a former police officer I remember the last few police shootings very clearly, it sticks out in your mind. I know how it hard it hits every officer when it happens. These shootings are just very, very sad”.

Roy Butler is no longer a member of the Shooters Fishers Farmers Party is voicing his opposition to a National Firearms Registry. Image: ABC News, 2021

“But I don't see how these tragedy would have been avoided by police have quicker access to records of licensee holders in different states,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said “practical ways” that gun ownership laws could be changed would be raised at the first National Cabinet meeting next year, including he says “better national consistency and national information that can serve the interests of police going about their duty”.

The exact weaponry used to bring kill the two QLD police officers to their knees last week has not been made public.

QLD police have suggested the group used the slain officer’s service pistols, while News Corp has reported the group had also used a .30-06 bolt action rifle, a .22 rifle and a shotgun.

While QLD Police stated they attended the property for a welfare check on Nathaniel Train before the shootings, the ABC has revealed on December 22 that Nathaniel Train was wanted on an outstanding warrant related to a border breach in December 2021 when he illegally crossed the NSW-QLD border in a 4WD carrying weapons.

He then abandoned two of the licenced firearms after his vehicle became bogged, this meant his gun licence was then suspended.

Queensland’s police deputy commissioner, Tracy Linford, still says police were there to follow up on missing person reports coming from Nathaniel Train's wife.

"The Queensland Police had very little history about the Train family members," Linford said. "Nathaniel Train's only history with us was a 2014 driving offence" as well the December 2021 breach."

National Registry unlikely to change "inaccurate data"

Butler says told the Western Plains app a registry would simply mean that if someone was trying access weapons licence information about a person from, say, South Australia in NSW they would have not to deal with what is he says is a cumbersome process of multiple databases being accessed across different states.

But his fear is that the changes will end up making it unnecessarily difficult for farmers and sporting shooters to obtain and keep guns when traveling or moving interstate as it could add another layer of regulation to already flawed data collection process.

"At the moment registries are keeping a lot of inaccurate information and guns are being inaccurately categorised, so a data sharing scheme is only as good as the data going into it" he told the Western Plains App.

A national registry was first recommended to Government after the Hoddle and Queen street massacres 35 years ago. Then again after the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996 and the Lindt Store Massacre in 2014.

The Queensland Police Commissioner and the Queensland Police Union have both called for a national database since the Wieambilla slayings.

The Australian Federal Police Association earlier this year told the Guardian Australia had it been lobbying federal MP’s since 2019 to bring in a national database.

Aerial view of Gareth Train’s property in Queensland. Picture: ABC News.

However, none of those advocating change have made an explicit argument indicating how the recent shootings would have been avoided by a national firearms database.

Coonamble’s David Murray who runs Murtech Munitions told the Western Plains App he thinks a national firearms database may lead to less red tape, not more.

“When weapons arrive from interstate I would hope it would that we wouldn't re-register them. It would mean less double handling…its hard to see any negatives (with a national firearms registry) to be honest”.

His only concern he said would be if there was a move to create new national gun protection laws along with the registry. 

Prime Minister Albanese’s December 21 statement that he will asking for a briefing not to “change the nature of the gun laws but change the nature of the way that information is coordinated” would suggest there are no proposals on the table to make further changes to gun laws beyond the creation of a national registry.

A spokesperson from the NSW Premier's Office told the Western Plains App he is "not committing to anything further at this point" in relation to gun law reform.

Roy Butler added that he has also been working closely and productively in the last few weeks with the NSW Government in reforming NSW state gun registry system. 

He said the changes would be made public but that there would be a “significant improvement” in the registry’s operation including less “paperwork duplication” and more accurate data information collection.