Police in Australia Seize Guns From Dozens of Owners Who Reject Government Authority
Police in Western Australia have seized guns and revoked or suspended firearms permits from dozens of owners linked to what investigators describe as sovereign citizen ideologies, or views that reject government authority.
Officials linked the crackdown on firearms users believed to hold such views to the fatal shooting in August of two police officers in Victoria state, in the country’s east. The suspect in those killings, 56-year-old Dezi Freeman, remains at large, weeks after he is said to have killed two officers visiting his rural property to serve a search warrant.
In the years before the shooting, Freeman appeared to have embraced so-called sovereign citizen views during court appearances. Members of such movements use debunked legal theories to reject government authority.
Freeman is suspected of killing Detective Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart and wounding a third officer. Following the shooting, investigators in Western Australia used bolstered gun laws enacted in 2024 to identify weapons owners in their state who they said held similar views to Freeman’s. (Read more from “Police in Australia Seize Guns From Dozens of Owners Who Reject Government Authority” HERE)
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