National shooting association calls for ceasefire, offers to reinstate Singapore Rifle Association after years of legal wrangle
SSA president Michael Vaz said his association will not endorse SRA members’ applications for gun licences if SRA rejects the olive branch.
SINGAPORE — After almost two years of ongoing acrimonious courtroom battles, the national sports association for shooting has offered to bring the Singapore Rifle Association (SRA) back into the fold.
But the olive branch — which would see the SRA reinstated as a constituent ordinary member of the Singapore Shooting Association (SSA) — is yet to be picked up, several days after the offer was made.
In December 2016, the SSA had expelled the SRA as it said then that the rifle association no longer had the best interest of the fraternity at heart, and that the organisation was not in good standing with the SSA.
In a statement published on its website on Sept 1, SSA said it had voted at an extraordinary general meeting to “revoke the resolution to expel SRA for the larger good of the shooting fraternity and the SSA to better focus its ambitions towards the success in the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020”.
As of Tuesday (Sept 4), the SRA has not accepted the offer. It has also not responded to TODAY’s queries on the matter.
If taken up, the SSA’s offer means that SRA’s members will be able to use the facilities at the National Shooting Centre (NSC) at Old Choa Chu Kang Road when it reopens.
As the NSC is the only shooting range where civilians can shoot and store firearms in Singapore, SRA members will not be able to get their licence for their guns if the rifle association rejects the offer.
All unlicensed guns will be removed from the NSC when it reopens, said the shooting association.
The SSA’s statement added: “SSA felt that the loss of shooting privileges in NSC and ownership of their firearms was too heavy a price for SRA members to bear as the dispute was between the managements of SSA and SRA, and not between SSA and SRA members.”
The SSA said it also took into consideration the fact that some SRA members are also members of the Singapore Gun Club (SGC), the Sporting Shooters’ Federation and Safra, which are constituent members of SSA and whose representatives sit on the SSA Council.
SSA president Michael Vaz, who is also president of SGC, told TODAY: “If SRA rejects this, SSA will not endorse SRA members’ applications for gun licences. Their guns will remain unlicensed and the armoury operator AETOS will be compelled to remove all unlicensed guns.”
The SSA and the SRA have been embroiled in a number of legal disputes since 2016, and Mr Vaz said that while the existing lawsuits and appeals will continue, “we had asked that no new lawsuits be initiated from Sept 1 onwards” as part of the SSA’s offer to reinstate the SRA.
He added: “SRA’s rejection (of SSA’s offer) will signal the fight goes on. The reinstatement (offer) will negate any claims they may have because the members of SRA will lose their guns due to a decision made by their management to continue their attacks on SSA.”
REOPENING OF SHOOTING CENTRE
Meanwhile, Mr Vaz said the SSA expects the NSC to reopen in mid to late October, but that this would hinge on approval from the police.
In February 2016, the NSC was ordered to shut down after the Police Licensing and Regulatory Department found “serious licensing irregularities” during an audit of the armouries of the SGC and SRA.
The police had seized 77 weapons without proper records from the armouries then. In December 2016, the police ordered the SGC and SRA to remove an additional 70 firearms after a review of the firearms and ammunition allowed for use in Singapore, including sports shooting.
As a result of the closure, all shooting activities there were halted —
except for national training — for more than two years.
Mr Vaz said the NSC’s closure had “hurt us (Singapore shooting) badly” as some of the SSA’s development and talent programmes had to be put on hold.
He said: “SSA will do our best to salvage our programmes after a two-and-a-half year setback. We hope we can ramp up our small bore programme and produce some talent in time for 2020 Olympics.”
Additional security measures have since been installed at the NSC, including a new 3-metre barbed-wire fence, CCTV cameras, motion and metal detectors. Armed guards will also be stationed at the facility around the clock, and anyone entering the facility will have to go through metal detectors and X-ray inspections of their bags before entering and leaving the NSC.
A STRING OF LAWSUITS
- In November last year, the SRA was ordered by the High Court to pay S$85,600 in costs, after losing a claim for more than S$450,000 against the SSA for losses caused to its NSC armoury by two floods in 2014 and 2015. SRA had successfully claimed S$4,708 for the 2015 flood.
- A month later, Mr Vaz was ordered by the High Court to pay damages of S$30,000 for defaming the SRA. The lawsuit was prompted by two statements made by Mr Vaz in his capacity as SGC president. He had insinuated that the SRA was to blame for the closure of the NSC, as well as for the proposed enhanced security requirements imposed by the police.
- In May, Judicial Commissioner Pang Khang Chau dismissed SSA’s reimbursement claim to the SRA for the costs of demolishing what SSA had called “illegal structures” at the SRA’s S$300,000 range at the NSC. Mr Vaz, SSA honorary secretary Yap Beng Hui, and treasurer Patrick Chen were also found by the judge to have “wrongfully conspired to injure” the SRA by producing a resolution to suspend its rights, and the trio were ordered to pay damages equivalent to the legal fees and expenses incurred by SRA in investigating and responding to the matter. The trio have since filed an appeal.
- The fourth lawsuit between Mr Vaz and the SRA, over an alleged breach of contract, will be heard later this month.
