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I have plenty to write on the topic, but it's quite simple: Americans overthrew colonial rule because we are a different breed. It started when they tried to disarm us. This is an ancient conflict between tyrants and free peoples. If you are disarmed, you cannot force your government to adhere to those freedoms outlined in the Magna Carta and cited in word if not deed by the documents of the Commonwealth as well as the Republic of the United States of America. If you are disarmed, you will not remain free for long. It's a simple fact of life. No amount of urbanization, modernization, or "enlightenment" will protect you from the natural tendencies of authority to corrupt itself.

"I, (name), do swear as I shall answer to God at the great day of judgement, I have not, nor shall have in my possession any gun, sword, pistol or arm whatever, and never use tartan, plaid, or any part of the highland garb; and if I do so, may I be cursed, may I never see my wife and children, father, mother or relations, and lie without a Christian burial in a strange land, far from the graves of my forefathers and my kindred; may all this come across me if I break my oath." --Oath enforced on the Scottish Jacobite losers by the King's men after the Battle of Culloden Moor

You're welcome to tease us for considering ourselves as patriots only because we shoot, and you're right -- that alone wouldn't make us defenders of liberty, not by far. But in the long run, you will be happy that some of us maintain our guns, our shooting skills, and our willingness to stand against tyrants foreign and domestic.

As Australia starts to disarm, your freedoms may not be lost in this generation, but they may come in the next.

Some negative changes appear to be coming in already, for example The Australia Gun Ban Results Page claims that assaults are up 8.6% and homicides are up 3.2%. Armed robberies are up 44%! Victorian firearms homicides are up 300%, incredibly. This data is evidently from NRA Live. This may be the results of Australia's $500 million program to disarm its populace, destroying over 640,381 personal firearms. Your language of "only" the semi-automatics would suggest that you ought to find out more about this travesty before you defend it.

Today's events in Sydney would not tend to offer support for the continued disarmament of Australian society, or offer us any encouragement for encouraging any populace to reduce its arms. And you'll probably hear this again and again on FR, "Conservatives who don't shoot" are patriots without fangs.

But KangaJ is right. Most Australians, in the urban environment, did not have a gun in the first place, so never missed losing the right to have one. The ban on semi-automatics has hit farmers very hard, though. A bolt action rifle is an outdated weapon, it makes it very hard to do necessary work like eliminating feral pests.

A big difference, in Australian society, is that unlike Americans hand guns had little presence. They were rarely owned by ordinary people, only by security personell or criminals. It is very hard to get a pistol licence in Aust, and if you do, the terms are such that one cannot carry it around, it has to be locked up (so why have it?)

But at the moment, hand guns are just totally flourishing on the black market. Criminals in Sydney have them, and a large number of odd people manage to get them. There was a murder a few months ago, where a pharmacist was shot dead by a 13 year old boy who had a pistol! There is also a large number of people - especially in ethnic communities such as the Lebanese - who just decide that they would like to have a hand gun. They go out and buy it illegally for cash. As many of these are working in high risk areas such a taxi driving, and petrol stations on night shift, one can't altogether blame them.