Sydney's shootings won't be stopped by fighting gangs Sure, fight gangs with a new federal anti-gangs task force, as now promised by the Gillard Government. But I am less convinced that the task force will do much about a problem singled out by the Prime Minister in announcing her new task force: Even though we have seen general reductions in gun crime, we have certainly seen increases in shootings in public places. Most particularly when we look at the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, we see that over the past 15 years, shootings in public places have soared. The number of drive-by shootings in this state, in New South Wales rose from 73 in 2010 to 88 in 2011, with around seven incidents per month last year. More than 130 shootings took place in this city. Former NSW detective Tim Priest is surely right to say many of these shootings have more to do with ethnic factors than with organised crime gangs: I fail to see just how this initiative is actually going to stop random drive-by shootings that are not connected to gangs. There is evidence in Sydney that some of the shootings are more about culture and how some in our community deal with personal offence, rather than being gang related. Turf wars between motorcycle gangs and other organised criminal groups are behind some of the incidents, say police. But they also warn that young men without gang links have begun arming themselves to resolve disputes with roots as petty as an argument between two women in a supermarket... New South Wales police announced a new initiative to address gun crime, which the police commissioner, Andrew Scipione, described as the state's "number one problem." But news that it will be led by the force's Middle Eastern organised crime squad sparked anger in the Muslim community... Keysar Trad, spokesman for the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, said the squad's new assignment implied the problem was confined to one ethnic group when incidents have been also lined to Serbian and Samoan organised crime, as well as gangs or individuals with no particular affiliations... Nick Kaldas, the deputy police commissioner of New South Wales, told Fairfax Media: "We are seeing guns used to settle the most trivial matters. Small debts, arguments over women, domestic tensions, road rage and minor property disputes. One shooting incident took place following an argument about Syrian politics in a hairdressing salon; another after one man complimented another's wife at a wedding. A task force on the links between immigration and crime might be just as useful as a task force on gangs, if not more so. But, of course, that would be too rude... Yoni Bashan says Julia Gillard is simply setting up a small new task force to do what existing ones do already: A new strike team, devoted to gangs, only duplicates the work of specialist state police who have far more experience in the area. Second, even with new strike teams, the paltry 70 investigators promised by the PM's office is a drop in the ocean. The NSW Middle Eastern organised crime squad has double that strength to focus on a single ethnic group and it still has its hands full. How can 70 investigators, spread over every criminal gang nationwide (outlaw bikies alone comprise about 40 groups), achieve meaningful results?... But most damning of all is that we already have a perfectly good implement to do this job. Instead of being a taskforce, though, it is known as a "fusion centre." Run by the Australian Crime Commission, it is based on the same concept and performs a virtually identical role... Funnily enough, it, too, has special "strike teams" ...