WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch says he has no intentions of meeting with WA’s “sovereign citizens”, who identify as people who do not recognise authority or believe in the law.
Speaking on Radio 6PR this morning, Blanch said it was his idea to remove firearms from 70 people in the state who identified themselves as sovereign citizens following the shooting deaths of two police officers in Victoria in August.
WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch.Credit: Hamish Hastie
Asked if he had taken his powers under WA’s new tougher gun laws too far, he replied:
“There are no other cohorts that I am considering [removing guns from],” he said.
“People are welcome to not like the police, to not like the laws of the land, to not like the current government, that is standard … there is nothing wrong with that, this is about, ‘Do you agree to abide by the laws of the land?’.
“They don’t recognise WA Police as an official police force of the state, I don’t know how I could possibly entrust them to follow the laws of being a firearms owner.”
The guns were seized during a five-day operation last week, after Blanch deemed the owners ‘not fit and proper people’ to possess a firearm.
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