Posted on 03/08/2006 12:50:38 AM PST by Dundee
Glock and bullet story
How come the bad guys can have guns and we law-abiding types can't? Go ahead, John, make our day!
John Howard dropped in on Nine’s Today show last week as part of the 10-year Festival of John (bookings are already being made, in light of Kim Beazley’s continued ALP leadership, for the next celebrations in 2016). The usual ground was covered – succession timing, war on terror, his enduring desire to break the world land speed record in a rocket-propelled Morris 1100 and so on – when interviewer Karl Stefanovic brought up the matter of 1996’s massacre at Port Arthur, and Howard’s subsequent introduction of new gun laws. “I recall the extraordinary outpouring of amazement and grief in the country,” said the PM, “and I knew out of that there was an opportunity to grab the moment and to bring about a fundamental change in gun laws in this country.”
And why might Howard have wanted to do this? “I did not want Australia to go down the American path. There are some things about America I admire, there are some things I don’t, and one of the things I don’t admire about America is an almost drooling, slavish love of guns. I think they’re evil.”
Two things. Firstly, Howard again here demonstrates his uncanny ability to reflect mainstream Australian opinion; most Australians, across the political spectrum, share Howard’s loathing of guns and think the US more than a little weird for so embracing them. Secondly, Howard is entirely wrong.
Guns aren’t evil, as anyone who has defended their life with one can tell you. I recently had cause to be contacted by authorities who asked if I might feel safer with police patrols outside my house or, should the need arise, a brief relocation to somewhere unfindable. The offer – unsolicited, very much appreciated and not taken up – wouldn’t have been worth even a second’s consideration if I was allowed to keep a decent firearm. Bad guys turn up? Bang. Maybe one extra bang, to make sure. Goodbye, bad guys.
“Aha!” you’re likely saying. “But what if the bad guys were also allowed to have guns? Not feeling so tough now, are you, Mr Trigger-Happy Clint Eastwood Wannabe!” So what’s changed? The bad guys already have guns; it’s part of being a bad guy. If you’re the sort of person who’s inclined to use a gun to murder someone, you don’t generally worry about breaking a few gun-ownership laws along the way. Excessive gun laws – such as we have in Australia – merely concentrate gun ownership in that sector of the population you’d least like to own guns. Say we had similar gun laws to many US states; would you – I’m talking to the ladies in the audience – be scared to have a gun in your house? If so, perhaps you’ve shacked up with the wrong partner. Do you let the guy drive? Carve roasts? Use your credit card?
Speaking of illegal guns, there’s been remarkably little follow-up to a Sydney Morning Herald report published in the wake of the Cronulla riots. “About 200 men had assembled outside Lakemba Mosque,” it read, “some armed with Glock pistols.” Back in 1996, Howard wore a bulletproof vest to address a crowd of law-abiding Victorian gun-owners. “I was told at the time to wear it,” he said on Today. “I’m sorry I took that advice ... I regret now having done so.” Good; but he’d possibly regret not wearing one if he was addressing the Lakemba Mosque & Pistol Association, which apparently hasn’t taken to Howard’s gun-control idea. Now, about these Glock pistols witnessed by reporters; is it too much to ask for some arrests around here?
Meanwhile, George W. Bush remains stupid. Just ask Barbra Streisand, a big-time Democrat supporter and one of Bush’s prime enemies in the war-torn fundamentalist enclave of Malibu. Recently Malibu Barbie lashed out at “C-student” Bush on her website; it turns out that people, people who have spellcheck, are the luckiest people in the world, for Barbra can’t afford it (or a proofreader) even with her zillions. Among words created by the daffy diva: “crediblity”, “curruption”, “subpoening”, “preceedings”, “warrented”, “dictatoriship”, “desperatly” and “Adminstration”. Best of all: “Irag”, which Streisand seems to think was invaded in 2001 during Bush’s bid “to national build”. The Sydney Morning Herald website suffered Streisand-like comprehension difficulties on Sunday, following Bush’s cricket-playing PR stunt in Pakistan. At one point a tennis ball bowled to the Prez so slowly it might have been delivered by Sylvia Plath glanced harmlessly off his shoulder. The SMH’s headline? “Bush felled by bouncer.” They wish.
ROTFLMAO!!!!!
The guns issue is the only thing that stops me from putting Howard on the same level as the Gipper. Howard may one of the great leaders in the war against terror, he may be the most financially sensible leader Australia has ever had.
But on guns, Howard is dead set wrong.
Yes, there are millions of firearms here mostly owned by law-abiding citizens who know how to use them. The fact is firearms are used for self-protection here millions of times each year by average citizens defending themselves against people who mean to do them harm. Most of that defense consists mainly of brandishing a weapon rather than firing it. A Northwestern University professor named John Lott has written a book called "More Guns, Less Crime" which proved that cities and states that have allowed concealed carry laws have lowered their crime rates.
Most gun homicides occur in the big American cities where handguns are strictly limited. In the areas outside the big cities there are millions of guns, but very little gun crime. Your average American midwestern city or area (where I live) with a population under one hundred thousand surely has an abundance of firearms, but is probably as safe as most European cities and areas of similar size but with guns banned or strictly limited.
The myth of the uber-violent American society with average Americans slaughtering each other with guns on a daily basis is a much-cherished myth by the foreign leftists. But that is all it is...just a myth.
Somewhere between 250 million and 300 million, to be somewhat more precise, with an addition of roughly 5 million per year. Compare/contrast with 30,000 firearms-related deaths - half of which are suicides (which will occur without guns - see gun-free Japan as an example), many of which are fully justified shootings of bad guys by either police or citizens, and many of which are various bad guys killing each other off in turf battles, etc. (hardly a bad thing, from a societal standpoint). Subtract out these and you're probably left with about 10,000 murders plus some accidental deaths. Now, that's 10,000 too many, and we should do everything to avoid/prevent every one of them - BUT it involves approximately 1 in 25,000 guns in the nation. By what standard of morality or justice would one craft a law to stop 1 in 25,000 guns from being misused by attacking/infringing/denying the right to keep and bear arms to the owners of the other 24,999 guns?
All of which is really besides the point - our guns exist (again from a societal standpoint) to serve as a deterrent to tyranny and, if need be, as a means of defeating such a tyranny should it ever arise. The 2nd Amendment isn't about hunting or recreational shooting, nor is it about self-defense against traditional street thugs (though these are good reasons to own guns), it is about our LIBERTY. No guns will eventually mean no liberty - just ask the Jews of Europe, the Kulaks of the Soviet Union, the people of Red China, Cambodia, Uganda, Darfur, Croatia, Rwanda, etc. Oh, wait, you can't - they're dead, at the hands of either a genocidal or tyrannical government, or of thugs that the government was unable or unwilling to stop.
Australia might be a nice place to visit, just as is the case with other gun-phobic nations around the world, but I'll never live there. Any government that is unwilling to allow me to defend myself, my family and my liberty is itself unworthy of trust.
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