Posted on 03/26/2018 1:11:11 PM PDT by marktwain
David Dunstan, an Australian farmer who defended his family from an armed intruder, may have finally gotten his three guns back. His story illustrates much that is wrong with Australia's extreme gun laws.
No one disputes the events that brought David Dunstan and his family to the attention of the authorities.
David Dunstan lives on a rural property near Bungowannah, New South Wales. It is about 10 miles outside the Australian town of Albury. At 3 a.m. on the 14th of September, 2017 he answered the door and found himself confronting a teen armed with a knife and a large club. He slammed the door shut, and called for his wife to get the key to the gun cupboard. He retrieved an unloaded .22 rifle and used it to convince the thug that he should get in a car and drive to the police station. The offender is in jail without bail. He is suspected of invading another house just before he threatened the Dunstans. From weeklytimesnow.com.au:
A farmer who armed himself with an unloaded gun to protect his family from a knife-wielding thug says he fears the justice system is “stacked against” victims. Father-of-three David Dunstan, 52, was left reeling after police turned up at his property near the NSW-Victorian border to investigate the home invasion — and confiscated the farmer’s legal firearms while they were there, the Herald Sun reports. It came after the cattle and crop farmer confronted a teen armed with a knife and a block of wood who knocked on his back door about 3am last Thursday
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Most of Australian men went to war in WWII.
They became quite bitter that the UK was willing to cede 80% of Australia to the Japanese, at least during the war.
They became U.S. partisans when McArthur said no way. We keep Japs out of Australia altogether.
Americans were heros in Australia, up until the late 1970’s.
I was told it was hard for an American to buy a beer in an Australian pub before them. The Aussies would insist on buying it for him.
Words words words.
Arm yourself. Kill anyone that tries to disarm you.
The fact that Dunstan was cleared and has had his firearms returned basically confirms this.
The problem is the process he had to go through to do so.
That's what we really need to fix - the current situation in practice makes assumptions of guilt and puts a person in a situation where they wind up being forced in practice to prove themselves innocent, rather than the situation which is still meant to apply of innocent until proven guilty.
It also leaves too much in the hands of the judgement of local police in deciding how to proceed without truly making it clear to them that their judgement will be taken seriously. Most police are actually fairly sensible in my experience - but politicians and similar interfere so much that the police feel they have to be overly bureaucratic and narrow in their interpretations when they are supposed to have discretion.
But we also knew he'd have to go through a long, complex, and overly bureaucratic process to do so. Because that's where our big problems are.
Decisions that should take days take weeks. And those that should take weeks take months.
Using a weapon in self defence is legal in Australia in particular circumstances.
The fact that Dunstan was cleared and has had his firearms returned basically confirms this.
It might have come out very differently if he said he had pointed the rifle at the miscreant, or if he had loaded it.
Political pressure was brought to bear for him.
That is not something I would want to count on.
The firearms law in New South Wales has been held, buy the Supreme Court, to only allow use of a firearm for the purpose(s) listed on the firearm license.
Self Defense is no considered a legitimate purpose.
I value your opinion, but anyone other than a police officer, or maybe a licensed security guard, who uses a firearm for self defense in NSW is quite likely to lose their license. IMHO
I agree that most police seem sensible in Australia. I think the reform proposed to add “without reasonable excuse” would be an excellent reform for the law.
buy the Supreme Court should be by the Supreme Court.
My late beloved wife argued that all the time. I argued no. She said yes. But either way, his way of life was dying. But Ladd’s speech about guns rings true even more today than 1953.
Do not think those who fought on the Kokoda Track forgot how to be men.
Dunstan's case didn't reach the courts. That's not a bad thing (certainly not for him) but the arguments made are far from the legal arguments that I believe would have been applied in court. And I think part of the reason why New South Wales police did not charge him with anything is because they knew the arguments that would have been made in court.
In court, I would expect a lawyer arguing this case to base things on the precedents of Zecivek v DPP, and R v Conlon, and they'd have won on that basis. These are still the two most important court cases in Australia concerning both self defence in general, and specifically self defence with a firearm. Both of those cases were more serious than Dunstan's - Zecivek and Conlon actually killed the people they were defending themselves against, and Conlon was drug affected (impaired judgement) and protecting his illegal drug plantation! Self defence still applied in both those cases. The Conlon case in particular is significant because it still applied even though Conlon was committing other serious crimes at the time, which means self defence continues to apply even if other laws are not being fully observed - and that has direct relevance because even a technical violation of firearms law (which could have been argued in Dunstan's case) does not extinguish the right to self defence, even if a firearm is used.
“I don’t think the Aussies ever recovered from the Boer War. They forgot how to be men.”
That’s kinda harsh. And, I can’t agree with that. I’m a Vietnam vet, served in the Central Highlands and there was an Aussie Special Op’s Team in our AO. Must say they had no issue with engaging Charles, a rowdy bunch for sure. And, by what I’ve read about them in Iraq and Afghanistan they go out on patrol with our troops and handle themselves quite well. Of the so called Coalition Forces deployed over there the Aussies and Brits are looked upon most favorably.
Yes, your are correct. I read about those cases.
Self defense is still legal.
Help me out here. Was the firearm used in either of those cases legally licensed?
Were either of the defendants charged with firearms charges separate from the manslaughter/murder charges?
I believe Zecivek held his firearm legally, and Conlon did not.
Were either of the defendants charged with firearms charges separate from the manslaughter/murder charges?
I believe Conlon was charged with firearms offences, and was convicted on those offences.
We're going back a long way here. So this is from memory of what I've been told by sources I'd consider reasonably reliable.
Thanks.
I appreciate your input.
You have a lifetime of experience, while I have only a few short months there.
But we could have let Guadalcanal alone and let the Aussies man up and deal with the Jap army. Maybe they'd have something in their culture to point to that underscores the necessity of an armed citizenry. Their legacy is a poorly led and equipped national defense. So the US taxpayer shoulders the burden.
The Aussies had taken a beating from the Japs in Burma and else where in Asia. They weren’t in any real shape to fend of the Japanese. As for Guadalcanal I think the intell was faulty. The Army and Navy thought there was a strong Japanese garrison there.
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