Great Southern police call for gel blasters to be handed over before ban

Katanning police are urging residents to hand over their gel blasters or risk being hit with a prohibited weapons charge. The replica guns, which fire water-filled gel pellets at 100m per second, will become outlawed from July 3. Katanning acting officer-in-charge Sgt Shelley McQueen said the blasters looked so similar to real guns she would struggle to tell the difference in low light. “The reason that these have become a prohibited weapon is because not only can they hurt people, but they are also manufactured to look exactly like a weapon,” she said. “Officers who have been trained for years struggle to identify them.” Nearly 150 instances of police confronting people with gel blasters were recorded last year alone, Police Minister Paul Papalia said. Mr Papalia said criminals were drawn to the product for their resemblance to real guns and the ability to convert them into live firearms. “We are aware that criminals are interested in these — they’re obviously attractive because they look like a firearm,” Mr Papalia said. “But because of their ability to (interchange parts) and turn them into a firearm, that makes them even more attractive.” Gel blasters were banned from entering Australia until December 2017. However, a Brisbane court decision — which ruled that gel blasters could not be defined as a firearm by the Department of Home Affairs — opened the door for their importation. Despite being illegal to possess in WA, no specific piece of legislation covered their usage. The WA Government, at the request of police, will make gel blasters a prohibited weapon under the Weapons Act 1999. Sgt McQueen asked residents to conceal their gel blasters when handing them in at the station. “What we would ask is if you are going to bring them into the police station, that they are secured in a bag or a case so it doesn’t appear that you are walking around with a firearm,” she said. Residents can hand over their gel blasters without criminal consequences until July 3.