Posted on 04/27/2016 11:00:20 PM PDT by naturalman1975
AS Australia marks 20 years since the Port Arthur massacre, guns still pose a massive threat to our nation.
There are more firearms in the country than ever before, more are imported, and owners are amassing larger arsenals in their homes.
Gun policy expert Philip Alpers, Adjunct Associate Professor at Sydney School of Public Health, warned this morning that boasts Australia has solved the gun problem are premature.
When John Howard introduced the National Firearms Act in 1996 after Martin Bryants devastating mass shooting, he swore we wouldnt go the American way, and many believe he has been vindicated.
People are so proud, in some cases, over-proud, Prof Alpers told news.com.au. They dont realise theres quite a lot of potential out there for gun-fuelled mayhem.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Guns aren't banned in Australia - though we do have some stupid restrictions - but there are a lot of people who would like them to be. And every time the myth is repeated that 'guns are banned', it feeds their belief that this is both a worthwhile and achieveable goal.
And now we have a Prime Minister who is desperate for votes, with an election less than two months away who is leaping onto the populist bandwagon - he knows conservatives are either not going to vote for him, because he's not a conservative, or are going to hold their nose and vote for him, because he's better than Labor - so he's not worried about our votes. He's lost them or he's got them - in most cases, not all. He needs an issue he can try and capture more of the soft middle with. I doubt he'll actually do anything or make any actual changes - but I'd prefer he wasn't even talking about them.
Bump for later
Gosh darnit, when it comes to terrorists we are told the laws shouldn't be harassing the majority of law-abiding asylum seekers/suspected illegal entrants.
Where would I find a synopsis of the gun regs for Australia?
I’m not doubting your word.
I simply want to see what the restrictions are.
In VietNam I had the pleasure of being stationed in close proximity to some Diggers.
They didn’t strike me as the sort that would put up with being disarmed easily.
Wasn't the buy back program really a form of confiscation since it wasn't voluntary?
Some guns aren’t banned in Australia, but most are.
Good question. It differs somewhat from state to state and most of what I see on the net is wrong or at least leaves out some important details. That's part of the problem.
Wikipedia isn't that bad. Gun laws in Australia if you read it's two first sections National Firearms Agreement and Firearms categories but I'd add the following explanation to that.
The basic firearms licence is an A/B licence - for all intents and purposes A/B weapons are treated the same, making the division between those categories pretty meaningless.
And Category C licences are not that hard to get - the Wikipedia article gives the impression they are more restricted than they actually are. Same with handgun licences. Category D licences are also a little easier to get than Wikipedia implies, but that is genuinely hard.
My own summary:
We have universal licencing and registration of all firearms. Getting a basic licence (A/B) is easy as long as you do not have a recent criminal record, getting a C or H licence is doable for most people with a bit of work. Buying a new gun even if you are licenced involves navigating a lot of pointless bureaucracy that serves no purpose, but can be done. The right to self defence is complicated - you do have the right to self defence including the right to use a weapon in self defence if the threat is serious enough but there is no right to carry a weapon for self defence 'just in case' - you need to have a reason to feel under imminent and real threat, so very few people routinely carry a handgun even if licenced.
Yes. And different licences for different classes of guns that get harder to get as the gun is deemed to be more powerful (whether it really is or not - the categories are pretty crude.)
Wasn't the buy back program really a form of confiscation since it wasn't voluntary?
For the most part it was voluntary. Most of the firearms handed in were ones people could have continued to own (although in some cases, they would have had to upgrade their licence - but they tended to grandfather most people in that situation unless a check turned up an old criminal record). The buyback didn't make any distinction between weapons handed in voluntarily or that were required to be - it was no questions asked - so we don't know the exact breakdown, but most weapons handed in were basic hunting rifles and shotguns.
Because of the laws concerning selling firearms secondhand (that already existed) and their requirements for background checks, private sales between individuals had been difficult for years, and dealers tended to give very poor prices. The buyback was a once off opportunity to get fair market price for old firearms. I took in a bunch for an elderly neighbour - a bunch of 22s he had just never got around to getting rid of even though he hadn't shot them for years. Quite a lot of people used the money they got to buy more up to date guns.
Thank You!
2. Naturalman man disagree with me, because you might have avoided confiscation if you jumped through a lot of extra hoops. but I say, yes basically non-voluntary
bttt
I've seen numbers for the US range from the 30s to the 50s. Since these are based on voluntary surveys, I expect those numbers are a lot lower than the real one.
That is why in the U.S. we refuse to have our guns registered, we know it leads to confiscation.
Hard to get exact numbers on that, but around 10% seems to be the consensus.
I told my children, and I tell my grand daughters. NEVER tell anyone, your teacher, your doctor - anybody whether your mommy and daddy, or your grand poppy owns and has guns. It is none of their business.
Wise counsel.
“threat to our nation”
Another strident pants-wetter heard from.
Well easiest thing to do is convict people there who use guns to protect themselves like in home invasions. Has happened.
Let me get this straight.
Australia is a model for gun control and confiscation because of their relatively low murder rate and insignificant number of mass murder.
But now we are being told, that Australia has more guns than ever before?
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