Police across the Northern District have seized 31 firearms, and charged 20 people with 64 individual offences in the past month.
Officers in the district continue to target illegal firearms,and as a result conducted multiple searches including a targeted search at Norwood by members of the Northern Criminal Investigation Branch with the assistance of specialist police resources.
As a result of that search, police recovered a firearm stolen from Ravenswood in April this year.
Three people were charged with 19 separate offences.
In July, police seized a 9mm submachine gun after the weapon was discharged inside a room at a Launceston hotel.
Police recovered the weapon after the man allegedly tried to evade officers.
The weapon was located inside a bag along with a double barrel 12-gauge shotgun – which was also seized.
The man was charged with 15 separate offences.
Nobody was injured during the incident.
Also in July, police conducted a targeted search at a Deloraine residence following a business burglary.
As a result of that search, officers from Longford Police recovered two firearms and stolen power tools.
One person was charged with nine separate offences.
Acting Detective Inspector Jason Jones said these were only a few examples of the illegal firearms police had recovered.
“Every illegal firearm in our community is a concern – of those seized in the last few weeks many of the firearms were stolen,” he said.
“Illegal and unregistered firearms are a risk to our communities, and we will continue to remove these items from our streets.
“If you have an illegal or unregistered firearm, there is a permanent amnesty in Tasmania and those firearms can be handed into police or a licensed firearms dealer without consequence.”
Anyone with information about illegal firearms in Tasmania is urged to contact police on 131 444 or Crime Stoppers Tasmania at crimestopperstas.com.au. You can stay anonymous.
