Refugees from a stricken suburb [Arab youths target women and families in Sydney neighborhood]

The [NSW, Australia] Daily Telegraph ^ | December 14, 2005 | Steve Gee

[Clemenza]

Laws in the US vary. Typically, if a mob is charging your store or house, you can shoot. You CANNOT simply shoot into a mob. Nevertheless, in the chaos of a riot, you can get away with things you couldn't do otherwise.

[Howlin]

Dear lord.

[Clemenza]

This is supposition on my part but I would guess children and grandchildren of earlier, Christian immigrants have assimilated linguistically and culturally to the point that they would feel fully Australian. It would be only the children of the latest wave of immigrants who were largely Muslim, who would not feel this way, both because of the religious difference and because of the much shorter time their families had spent in Australia.

I lived in a neighborhood that had a large population of Lebanese Christians who came in the 1960s, along with a more recent wave of Lebanese and Egyptian Muslims who have come since the late 1980s. The Christians kept clean houses and businesses, spoke English when spoken to, and were respectful to all. The Lebanese Muslims, on the other hand, vandalized property, threw trash all over the place, and acted like thugs.

There's something about Islam...

[naturalman1975]

Do you need an application for each individual firearm, or is it that once you get your "semi-auto rifle" licence you can go out and buy a dozen AR-15's?

Your licence is good for all weapons of its class, but there are smaller fees to pay for each weapon you purchase that basically covers the registrations - it's about $9 for a longarm, and about $35 for a handgun.

And once you own fifteen firearms, the rules change - I don't own that many myself (and I have no intention of doing so) so I don't know the exact details but I know the security requirement becomes extremely high.

When you say "possible to get", how many hours of paperwork and interview are we talking about, and how much money?

The paperwork can take a few hours, and is quite complex - 12 pages or so, from memory - although a lot of those pages are explaining the other pages. Interviews - if one is needed - generally only take a few minutes.

Licence fees differ depending on the precise licence - in my state the cheapest (excluding licences for children who must be accompanied by a licenced adult shooter) are about $200 for 5 years (basic longarms) - the most expensive are about $220 for 3 years (Category E (Automatic) Handguns).

[JudgemAll]

I don't think it is a problem of race, ethny or country of origins as the paper indicates racistly. It's a question of ideology.

If they'd been Christians, you'd heard it.

I know a couple Lebanese atheists who think American women on campus are whores...and they go to bars a lot and wallow in such degrading stuff because that is their only defense in a life of flesh.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

And some wonder why Islamic culture has provided nothing to mankind but terror for the last millenium and a half.

[Heatseeker]

The irony is that many of these thugs are there because the then-government of Australia opened its doors to refugees fleeing the Lebanese civil war in the early 80's. See this page of the site of the Australian embassy in Beruit.

It is concerning to note that the recent arrests of Islamacist terrorists in Australia, who were just about to launch some large-scale attack, included a number of men of Lebanese descent.

I would be very curious as to the religious affiliation of the families of these youths. Sunni? Shia? I am assuming Sunni, yet if you look at Lebanon today the Sunni are united with the Christian groups in trying to get real independence from Syria.

[Tactical]

Lipstick on a pig! That's a hoot!

Our council a few years back, hired an artist to paint the 3 water tanks on a hill to look like a desert scenary. Cost $80,000. We could look in any direction for free and have gotten the same thing.

Then they spent $40,000 or so on season flags to hang on the main avenue street posts. You have to look for them to even notice the things. What a waste.

Since the desert Southwest only has two seasons..."HOT and COLD", I think we could figure it out on our own without having $40k worth of flags strapped to a post.

But that's just me.

[SauronOfMordor]

So what you're saying is if I'm an Australian and want to own one shotgun plus one semi-auto handgun, my approximate initial cost is $220 + $200 for the licences, plus $9 + $35 for the registration fees, = $464 initial, plus an average yearly cost of ( $220 / 3 ) + ( $200 / 5 ) = $113.33/year

The net effect would be to discourage non-highly-motivated people from going through the expense and hassle of buying firearms, plus providing a registry of highly-motivated people who would need to be watched if gun ownership was eventually banned

[naturalman1975]

No, not quite, because licences stack - that is, if you have a higher level one, you generally don't need the lower level one.

It also differs from state to state - my state has some of the highest fees - and not just when it comes to gun licences. Everything is more expensive here. I don't know every state's structure - but I know that in the ACT a 5 year licence for all categories of firearms only costs $75, for example.

[SauronOfMordor]

Thanks for the valuable info. People up here were under the impression that the new regulations effectively disarmed the Aussies. I'm glad to know that's not true