A sporting shooter has taken aim at people who flout the law with their firearms, saying they should be targeted instead of law-abiding gun owners.
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The Mercury has reported the number of people with firearms in parts of Illawarra had climbed almost 40 per cent since 2010, and there is now one registered gun for every nine people statewide.
James Walsh, of Helensburgh, runs the Sydney branch of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, the largest in the state with 32,000 members.
"We're all law-abiding citizens, we're the most heavily-scrutinised group in the community. The guns that people know about really aren't the problem, the problem is the criminals," Mr Walsh told the Mercury.
"Shoebridge [Greens MP and Justice spokesman David Shoebridge] is of the opinion that any gun's bad and guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens will only end up in the hands of criminals, which really isn't a justifiable statement.
"We ... would actually just like to see the powers-at-be tackle the issues, tackle the criminals, tackle the crime, not the knee-jerk reaction of 'let's go after the people we know that have guns because they're the easiest people to go after'."
Mr Shoebridge was quoted in Fairfax Media publications this week, saying a reduction of firearms in circulation was needed to protect community safety.
The comments caught the ire of Mr Walsh and a number of Mercury readers.
"Dont [sic] worry about the law abiding firearm owner it's the unlaw abiding [sic] firearm owners you got to worry about," Jayson Coolman wrote on the Mercury website.
On Facebook, Brock Crowther commented: "Media needs to stop looking at what the law abiding citizens have and focus on what the criminals are doing".
Mr Walsh said there was "a lot of bias towards firearms owners".
"Yes, there has been a rise in gun ownership, but that is because we're seeing a rise of people who are enjoying the sport," he said.
"There has been a rise in hunters because a lot of people are turning to free-range food, a lot of people are starting to see the benefit of taking wild meat or taking venison, in particular in the Illawarra and places like that, to take a deer and to use the entire animal for food."
