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PM shuns US 'slavish love of guns'
ninemsn ^ | Mar 1, 2006 | NA

Posted on 03/01/2006 12:40:25 PM PST by neverdem

Prime Minister John Howard says he tightened gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre because he did not want Australia going down the same path as the United States.

Mr Howard, on the eve of his 10th anniversary in office, said the nation's grief over the 1996 Port Arthur massacre had been a great opportunity to tighten Australia's gun laws.

"I would call that very definitely an extraordinary outpouring of amazement and grief in this country and I knew out of that there was an opportunity to grab the moment and think about a fundamental change to gun laws in this country," he told the Nine Network.

Mr Howard said he did not want Australia to adopt the American stance on guns.

"I did not want Australia to go down the American path," he said.

"There are some things about America I admire and there are some things I don't.

"And one of the things I don't admire about America is their ... slavish love of guns. They're evil."


TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: banglist; johnhoward
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To: Tijeras_Slim

What Slim said....


181 posted on 03/02/2006 9:54:24 AM PST by Squantos (Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet. ©)
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To: proud_yank
The Australian Bureau of Statistics counts all injury deaths, whether or not they are crime-related. The most recently available ABS figures show a total of 437 firearm-related deaths (homicide, suicide and unintentional) for 1997. This is the lowest number for 18 years.
182 posted on 03/02/2006 1:06:09 PM PST by Fred Nerks (Read the bio THE LIFE OF MUHAMMAD free! Click Fred Nerks for link to my Page.)
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To: neverdem; All
And one of the things I don't admire about America is their ... slavish love of guns.

What "slavish love of guns"?

Oh -- and here's Mike Adams' Presidential Platform Plank on the income tax:

I will begin with a proposal to allow Americans to claim their firearms as "dependents" as early as 2009. -- from his column here
Gotta love it.
183 posted on 03/02/2006 4:57:33 PM PST by FreeKeys ("God created men and women in all sizes, but it was Samuel Colt who made them all equal."- old adage)
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To: RKV

Yes, to be fair, our murder rates certainly are higher. But we also have certain constituencies of our population who are a lot more prone to kill than others (and fractions of our society that Europe simply does not have). You take those out of the equation, and we're pretty much equal with Western Europe. Even with our guns.


184 posted on 03/02/2006 10:01:35 PM PST by CheyennePress
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To: Fred Nerks
I can't believe anyone could be so ignorant. Australia has been there beside you in every conflict I can think of since World War one.

Indeed. And many of them are leaving their homeland to become *septics* here in the USA. Including one former 5th/7th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment officer who is the brother of my fiancee.

185 posted on 03/03/2006 10:55:59 AM PST by archy (The darkness will come. It will find you,and it will scare you like you've never been scared before.)
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To: manglor
Well of course you shouldn't trust australians with guns. The country was founded by criminals remember? It was a british penal colony. I wouldn't want an entire continent of criminals running around with firearms either.

More to the point, Australians never threw off the yoke of their British colonial masters the way the United States, Rhodesia and Israel did. The *Prisoners of Mother England* will likely adjust just as well to the eventual takeover of their continent by the Indonesians a few years down the road, all to the applause of their sellout pollys/ politicians.

186 posted on 03/03/2006 11:01:18 AM PST by archy (The darkness will come. It will find you,and it will scare you like you've never been scared before.)
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