Australian Prime Minister has not ruled out watering down tough gun laws in order to a bill through - Polidicks

[QUOTE=catbarf;51223138]Can you cite examples of this happening? There are very few cases of police taking down a shotgun-wielding assailant when he reloads, partly because it's easy to keep a shotgun topped up, and partly because if you're staying behind cover to not get shot it's hard to tell if your attacker has run out of ammo. Modern firearms are so easy to reload that the couple seconds of delay makes no practical difference in a shootout. I can cite you actual police officers expressing this if you don't want to take it from me. The idea of a police officer hearing a pause in shooting and taking down the shooter while he reloads is more Hollywood than reality. This is a tubular magazine. You don't carry 'multiple' magazines, there's just the one on the gun. So let me get this straight- Australia's homicide rate peaked several years [I]after[/I] the ban, and continues to be higher than New Zealand's, but you call that a win because non-firearm deaths are preferable for some reason? There are a lot of interrelated factors here, but the comparison shows that gun laws do not necessarily make a country safer. Whether the homicide rate comes from firearms or non-firearms has no bearing on that observation.[/QUOTE] Its a win because gun crime is lower. Homicide rate is higher than new zealands sure but that speaks more about australias problem with institutionalised domestic and alcohol fuelled violence than it does about the efficiency of our gun laws Australia has not had a mass shooting incident since before gun laws were introduced as well

[QUOTE=killerteacup;51223194]Its a win because gun crime is lower. Homicide rate is higher than new zealands sure but that speaks more about australias problem with institutionalised domestic and alcohol fuelled violence than it does about the efficiency of our gun laws Australia has not had a mass shooting incident since before gun laws were introduced as well[/QUOTE] So you're in favor of keeping the gun laws when you know they have no real effect on crime? Why keep a feel good law in place when it inhibits a persons right to self defense and denies people a hobby? [editline]18th October 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=TheDestroyerOfall;51222909]Its harder for police to shoot and kill someone who's using a 30round magazine because he doesn't need to stop and reload as often. It also means they can carry more rounds of ammunition because it's harder to carry multiple magazines.[/QUOTE] Getting around a magazine cap takes about 5 minutes and $10 worth of tools. Keep in mind that the Columbine school shooting was carried out during the US AWB, which had magazine capacity limits. The Aurora Colorado movie theater shooter used a drum magazine on his AR-15, which jammed almost immediately so he abandoned it for one of his other firearms. High capacity magazine=/=high lethality. And after the AWB, several studies came out that said it's effect on gun crime was so small that it couldn't even be reliably measured.

[QUOTE=killerteacup;51223194]Its a win because gun crime is lower. Homicide rate is higher than new zealands sure but that speaks more about australias problem with institutionalised domestic and alcohol fuelled violence than it does about the efficiency of our gun laws[/QUOTE] 'Our gun control didn't actually do anything to address the causes of violence so sorry your wife is dead, good thing she got chopped up with a machete instead of being shot let's call that a win' You're making my argument for me. Your gun control didn't do a thing to actually address the root causes of violence, so you still have a homicide rate far higher than that of a gun-tolerating neighbor, and the best you can say is that it reduced the use of guns in crime- an utterly meaningless accomplishment when a homicide victim is just as dead regardless of the murder weapon. That's not even touching on the secondary effects like the rise of armed gangs, who have exploited the legal restrictions on guns to profit from arms manufacturing. [QUOTE=killerteacup;51223194]Australia has not had a mass shooting incident since before gun laws were introduced as well[/QUOTE] How many mass shootings did you have before Port Arthur? How many has New Zealand had? You're talking about a one-off event, it's not surprising that it hasn't been repeated.

[QUOTE=killerteacup;51223194]Its a win because gun crime is lower. Homicide rate is higher than new zealands sure[/QUOTE] :why:

[QUOTE=catbarf;51223265]'Our gun control didn't actually do anything to address the causes of violence so sorry your wife is dead, good thing she got chopped up with a machete instead of being shot let's call that a win' You're making my argument for me. Your gun control didn't do a thing to actually address the root causes of violence, so you still have a homicide rate far higher than that of a gun-tolerating neighbor, and the best you can say is that it reduced the use of guns in crime- an utterly meaningless accomplishment when a homicide victim is just as dead regardless of the murder weapon. That's not even touching on the secondary effects like the rise of armed gangs, who have exploited the legal restrictions on guns to profit from arms manufacturing. How many mass shootings did you have before Port Arthur? How many has New Zealand had? You're talking about a one-off event, it's not surprising that it hasn't been repeated.[/QUOTE] Actually no, australia had more than one instance of a mass shooting before gun control was introduced. I dont disagree that the root causes of violence need to be addressed. As i have already said if you actually read my posts, this is NZs solution and it works well for them. I think australia should implement something similar. That doesnt make a reduction in gun crime a bad thing though. Australia has problems with violence. Making guns readily available in these situations would not go towards exacerbating that. Also to say they have had no effect on homicide rates in australia is just false. See: [url]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/23/australias-gun-laws-stopped-mass-shootings-and-reduced-homicides-study-finds[/url] Im sorry but i have no sympathy for Australians who want their guns back because they want their hobby back which is just about the weakest reason ever. We cater to the lowest common denominator when we make laws and noone gives a shit you dont get to polish your gun and shoot cans on a sunday. Also i think its worth pointing out that unlike America, Australias constitution is not written, it is implied and there is no constitutional right in australia, implied or otherwise, to own a gun. Self defence is a more complicated issue, which i disagree with but if youll forgive me my eggs are going cold

[QUOTE=killerteacup;51223318]Actually no, australia had more than one instance of a mass shooting before gun control was introduced. I dont disagree that the root causes of violence need to be addressed. As i have already said if you actually read my posts, this is NZs solution and it works well for them. I think australia should implement something similar. That doesnt make a reduction in gun crime a bad thing though. Australia has problems with violence. Making guns readily available in these situations would not go towards exacerbating that. Also to say they have had no effect on homicide rates in australia is just false. See: [url]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/23/australias-gun-laws-stopped-mass-shootings-and-reduced-homicides-study-finds[/url] Im sorry but i have no sympathy for Australians who want their guns back because they want their hobby back which is just about the weakest reason ever. We cater to the lowest common denominator when we make laws and noone gives a shit you dont get to polish your gun and shoot cans on a sunday. Also i think its worth pointing out that unlike America, Australias constitution is not written, it is implied and there is no constitutional right in australia, implied or otherwise, to own a gun. Self defence is a more complicated issue, which i disagree with but if youll forgive me my eggs are going cold[/QUOTE] [URL="http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2012/08/some-notes-on-claims-about-australias.html"]????[/URL] [img]http://www.gunfacts.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/GUNS-IN-OTHER-COUNTRIES-Australia-Homicides-before-and-after-gun-ban-with-trend-lines.png[/img] [editline]18th October 2016[/editline] I can't read the full paper the Guardian cites because it's behind a paywall, but it goes against every single statistic I've read up till this point.

Okay, well that graph only goes to 2004 so idk. I dont think I will be able to convince you guys our gun control works well. I live here and was around 4 when it happened. Ive never met a single Australian who disagrees with the need for them here. We arent America so im not saying anything about how effective gun control would be in your country. I sort of need to wrap this up because i have a job, someone else can argue it

[QUOTE=killerteacup;51223487]Okay, well that graph only goes to 2004 so idk. I dont think I will be able to convince you guys our gun control works well. I live here and was around 4 when it happened. Ive never met a single Australian who disagrees with the need for them here. We arent America so im not saying anything about how effective gun control would be in your country. I sort of need to wrap this up because i have a job, someone else can argue it[/QUOTE] You won't be able to convince us because theres no solid science that proves gun control actually works. Just because you personally haven't met anybody that disagrees with your country's gun control doesn't mean that theres Australians out there who want firearm rights restored, and that also doesn't mean that your laws work. Remember that there were 3 million Firearms in Australia with 18 million people living in Australia in 1996 when Port Arthur happened. A big chunk of your countrymen owned firearms before the confiscation.

[QUOTE=killerteacup;51223318]That doesnt make a reduction in gun crime a bad thing though. [/QUOTE] It doesn't make it a good thing. A reduction in gun crime with no corresponding reduction in overall crime is worthless. It's an academic distinction. A murder committed with a knife is no better than a murder committed with a golf club is no better than a murder committed with a handgun. Someone is dead all the same. [QUOTE=killerteacup;51223318]Also to say they have had no effect on homicide rates in australia is just false. See: [/QUOTE] Lemme give you a simple image that I think speaks volumes. [img]https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/screen-shot-2012-12-17-at-4-15-03-pm.png?w=1024&h=725[/img] Firearm homicide fell after the ban at roughly the same rate it was falling before the ban. Overall homicide peaked several years [i]after[/i] the ban. Many of these modern studies have the benefit of twenty years of continuing improvement in social services and general reduction of crime-causing factors- the United States has seen a comparable reduction in both firearm homicide and non-firearm homicide despite the [i]reduction[/i] in gun control that has occurred. [QUOTE=killerteacup;51223318]Im sorry but i have no sympathy for Australians who want their guns back because they want their hobby back which is just about the weakest reason ever. We cater to the lowest common denominator when we make laws and noone gives a shit you dont get to polish your gun and shoot cans on a sunday. [/QUOTE] This is essentially 'innocent lives aren't worth your hobby' and it's a weak argument. In most of Western culture, yes, there is a point where individual freedoms are more important than a few intentional deaths. That's not something we like to say out loud, but it's a fundamental truth when there are tens of thousands of people dying every year to alcohol-related causes, when there are people being bludgeoned to death with baseball bats and stabbed to death with chef's knives, when there are people building bombs out of garden fertilizer. Nobody seeks legal restriction on these items, and the very concept of outlawing a sport, or a kitchen implement, or a garden product- none of which you [i]need[/i], all of which are recreational- just to curb a few deaths is seen as a ridiculous overreaction. In fact, you yourself just said that Australia has a problem with alcohol-related violence. If an occasional family of four getting killed by a drunk driver is an acceptable price for you to go have a beer with your friends on a Friday, I have no problem saying that an occasional gang homicide with a rifle is an acceptable price for me to go shoot cans on a Sunday. Unless you campaign for outright prohibition of alcohol, a vice which remains perfectly legal (in spite of countless deaths and families torn apart by substance abuse) solely because people enjoy it, this moralizing is hypocritical. [QUOTE=killerteacup;51223318]Also i think its worth pointing out that unlike America, Australias constitution is not written, it is implied and there is no constitutional right in australia, implied or otherwise, to own a gun. Self defence is a more complicated issue, which i disagree with but if youll forgive me my eggs are going cold[/QUOTE] I don't even argue about gun control on a Constitutional level because appealing to the Second Amendment is a pointless, tautological non-argument. I argue strictly on the basis of demonstrated efficacy and with Australia, it really isn't there. You've lost a part of your country's cultural heritage, you've given a new and lucrative business to gangs and organized crime, you've compromised what allowances for self-defense previously existed, and in spite of all this the best you can say for direct effects in the years following the ban is 'people killed each other with weapons other than guns'.

Nobody "needs" guns in the same way nobody needs a 500hp mustang that untrained drivers can't handle and end up splattered into a wall, ceramic chef's cutlery that can be smuggled past a metal detector, or alcohol that lowers impulse control and can easily poison you. Imagine trying to ban those, you'd have a shitload of people going after you for destroying their "hobbies". And do you know what happened in the 1920's when the USA banned alcohol? Organized crime picking up the demand for the product and getting rich and powerful. I've seen pictures of guns confiscated from illegal austrailian workshops; high quality, fully automatic, 30 round magazines, and silencers. That was way beyond modifying the adler from 5 to 14 shots lol.

[QUOTE=catbarf;51223539]You've lost a part of your country's cultural heritage[/QUOTE] Guns are not part of Australia's "cultural heritage" like they are in America. Most of us like our gun laws as they are.

Id prefer gun laws akin to Japan here. Nobody needs a gun, other than military and police and some rare exceptions.

[QUOTE=Tasm;51223720]Id prefer gun laws akin to Japan here. Nobody needs a gun, other than military and police and some rare exceptions.[/QUOTE] Actually a lot of hunters and people who do rural pest control do need guns to perform their jobs efficiently. Even if you want to make that argument, a lot of people don't need booze but you don't see people calling for bans on that despite it being far deadlier than any gun ever made.

[QUOTE=Cyke Lon bee;51223812]Actually a lot of hunters and people who do rural pest control do need guns to perform their jobs efficiently. Even if you want to make that argument, a lot of people don't need booze but you don't see people calling for bans on that despite it being far deadlier than any gun ever made.[/QUOTE] Why do you jump to justifying it with some obscure relation to alcohol deaths? Alchol is self inflicted. Its not murder rofl. What a dumb comparison. And nope, hunting isnt a valid excuse, there are plenty of alternatives to pest control. [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Rofl this isn't 4chan" - UncleJimmema))[/highlight]

[QUOTE=Cyke Lon bee;51223812]Actually a lot of hunters and people who do rural pest control do need guns to perform their jobs efficiently. Even if you want to make that argument, a lot of people don't need booze but you don't see people calling for bans on that despite it being far deadlier than any gun ever made.[/QUOTE] just to clarify in Australia hunters and people who do rural pest control do still have access to guns

[QUOTE=killerteacup;51223194]Its a win because gun crime is lower. Homicide rate is higher than new zealands sure but that speaks more about australias problem with institutionalised domestic and alcohol fuelled violence than it does about the efficiency of our gun laws Australia has not had a mass shooting incident since before gun laws were introduced as well[/QUOTE] That's not what your statistics say. "Gun crime" is higher than it has ever been. [url]http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2015/11/10/australias-secret-gun-problem-exposed/[/url] [url]http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/internal-rivalry-among-comancheros-led-to-gunfight-at-paesano-restaurant-police/story-e6frea83-1226226914996?nk=25014ac3ee16faa5fd8aeaf07c2e83ec-1458501664[/url] Australia's NFA did not affect homicide in any substantial way. [url]https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/miaesr/publications/working-paper-series/abstract-178.html[/url] [url]http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/jeweller-angelos-koots-admits-to-making-submachine-guns-at-his-seven-hills-home-and-supplying-them-to-bikie-groups/story-fni0cx12-1226760983916?nk=06ea73e306101522a9e2c11b3aed467e-1476838919[/url] <- Full auto MAC-10 clones made by locally in Australia.

[QUOTE=Kigen;51224153]That's not what your statistics say. "Gun crime" is higher than it has ever been. [url]http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2015/11/10/australias-secret-gun-problem-exposed/[/url][/QUOTE] [QUOTE]“The ban on semi-automatics created demand by criminals for other types of guns,” he said, adding: “The criminal’s gun of choice today is the semi-automatic pistol.”[/QUOTE] This is false. Pistols have always been strongly preferred by criminals due to their ease of concealment. Rifles, in spite of their availability, are used in an insignificant proportion of gun crimes.

[QUOTE=Psychokitten;51224220]This is false. Pistols have always been strongly preferred by criminals due to their ease of concealment. Rifles, in spite of their availability, are used in an insignificant proportion of gun crimes in the US.[/QUOTE] I'm confused. The article is about Australia. I'm trying to stay away from anything relating to the US, because that is pointless. Plus its much better to compare a country to itself rather than to another country.

[QUOTE=Tasm;51224055]Alchol is self inflicted. Its not murder rofl. What a dumb comparison. [/QUOTE] Somehow I don't think that's any comfort to the families who have lost loved ones to drunk drivers. (For the record, I'm not equating firearm homicide to drunk driving- but 'innocent lives outweigh your hobby' can be applied to a lot of things when taken literally, starting with the world's #1 favorite recreational drug)

"Gum crime" is a terrible statistic anyway. If someone robs someone with a gun, then it's "gun crime," but if you ban that gun and he robs them with a knife instead then it's not "gun crime," but the robbery still happened. If gun crime goes down but other crime rises to compensate for the fall then the country has not been made any safer. "Gun crime" by itself is a shitty, useless statistic and focusing on it alone, rather than crime overall, tells you nothing about the relative safety of a given country.

[QUOTE=Kigen;51224225]I'm confused. The article is about Australia. I'm trying to stay away from anything relating to the US, because that is pointless. Plus its much better to compare a country to itself rather than to another country.[/QUOTE] I'd imagine it was similar in pre-NFA Australia, but I don't know where to begin looking for the statistics.

[QUOTE=Tasm;51224055]Why do you jump to justifying it with some obscure relation to alcohol deaths? [/quote] Oh, so a death is fine as long as it's self inflicted? I guess you can justify gun violence now too since about half of all gun deaths are suicides. [QUOTE=Tasm;51224055] Alchol is self inflicted. Its not murder rofl. What a dumb comparison. [/quote] Yea it's self inflicted, it's self inflicted when someone drives drunk and kills someone else. I guess it's also self inflicted that alcoholism causes a lot of problems for families as a whole but since 1 person is making that decision for a group then it's justifiable. [QUOTE=Tasm;51224055] And nope, hunting isnt a valid excuse, there are plenty of alternatives to pest control. [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Rofl this isn't 4chan" - UncleJimmema))[/highlight][/QUOTE] Yea, just put out some claw traps and let animals sit and suffer for days before the hunter finds them. Or just don't hunt pest animals at all and let your farmlands and cattlefields be annihilated by vast overpopulation from wild boar and wild dogs. Or you can do alternative pest control where the animals are poisioned, so you can have dead pigeons and songbirds rain down on your cities and have secondary kill issues with larger animals you poison. Or you can just let people have firearms, give out hunting permits (which is revenue that goes directly to local govts!), and then let the pest problem solve itself. [editline]19th October 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=killerteacup;51224135]just to clarify in Australia hunters and people who do rural pest control do still have access to guns[/QUOTE] I know, which is why I brought it up.

[QUOTE=catbarf;51223539]I don't even argue about gun control on a Constitutional level because appealing to the Second Amendment is a pointless, tautological non-argument. I argue strictly on the basis of demonstrated efficacy and with Australia, it really isn't there. You've lost a part of your country's cultural heritage, you've given a new and lucrative business to gangs and organized crime, you've compromised what allowances for self-defense previously existed, and in spite of all this the best you can say for direct effects in the years following the ban is 'people killed each other with weapons other than guns'.[/QUOTE] ahaha what the fuck do you know about Australia's cultural heritage? Labeling Australia as part of 'Western Culture' and then harping on about some very American-shaded view of rights doesn't mean your close to being correct in this country's context. So why are you pontificating about a country and a culture you only tangentially know?

[QUOTE=download;51220716]:rolleyes: It's called a murder rate. It's adjusted by population and is usually in the form of x per 100k people per year. Please don't be so incredibly ignorant. [editline]18th October 2016[/editline] And New Zealand's murder rate is still lower than Australia's.[/QUOTE] i think new zealands has to do with their standard of living though, crime there is low in general because they have low poverty

[QUOTE=Sableye;51225165]i think new zealands has to do with their standard of living though, crime there is low in general because they have low poverty[/QUOTE] The new zealand argument is apples and oranges [QUOTE=Kigen;51224153]That's not what your statistics say. "Gun crime" is higher than it has ever been. [url]http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2015/11/10/australias-secret-gun-problem-exposed/[/url] [url]http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/internal-rivalry-among-comancheros-led-to-gunfight-at-paesano-restaurant-police/story-e6frea83-1226226914996?nk=25014ac3ee16faa5fd8aeaf07c2e83ec-1458501664[/url] Australia's NFA did not affect homicide in any substantial way. [url]https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/miaesr/publications/working-paper-series/abstract-178.html[/url] [url]http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/jeweller-angelos-koots-admits-to-making-submachine-guns-at-his-seven-hills-home-and-supplying-them-to-bikie-groups/story-fni0cx12-1226760983916?nk=06ea73e306101522a9e2c11b3aed467e-1476838919[/url] <- Full auto MAC-10 clones made by locally in Australia.[/QUOTE] "Gun crime is higher than it has ever been" is a completely false statement. Don't exaggerate to prove your point. The overwhelming weight of evidence suggests that the rates of gun crime have been falling steadily (with spikes, but the trend is falling) since the ban. I posted one source but there are many more if you'd care to look. Noone's denying a black market for guns exists in Australia. This isn't a reason to legalise guns again for convenience's sake. The better management angle doesn't really work out in this situation either. I also notice oddly that everyone I'm trying to talk to about this in a thread about Australia gun laws is American? Why do you Americans have such a problem with Australian gun laws? I mean noone is trying to attack anyones egos by saying that gun control works in Australia but...the fact is it does. It doesn't work alone, its not a panacea but good policy isn't built around having a single policy that just fixes everything, and in conjunction with better policies for alcohol and domestic violence we could drop our homicide rate even more. Also I'll point out as well that while homicide rate is important obviously, australia has a huge suicide problem as well and the rate of suicides by firearm has dropped dramatically as well

i'm cool with hard gun laws in Australia thanks

[QUOTE=killerteacup;51225590] "Gun crime is higher than it has ever been" is a completely false statement. Don't exaggerate to prove your point. The overwhelming weight of evidence suggests that the rates of gun crime have been falling steadily (with spikes, but the trend is falling) since the ban. I posted one source but there are many more if you'd care to look. Noone's denying a black market for guns exists in Australia. This isn't a reason to legalise guns again for convenience's sake. The better management angle doesn't really work out in this situation either. I also notice oddly that everyone I'm trying to talk to about this in a thread about Australia gun laws is American? Why do you Americans have such a problem with Australian gun laws? I mean noone is trying to attack anyones egos by saying that gun control works in Australia but...the fact is it does. It doesn't work alone, its not a panacea but good policy isn't built around having a single policy that just fixes everything, and in conjunction with better policies for alcohol and domestic violence we could drop our homicide rate even more. Also I'll point out as well that while homicide rate is important obviously, australia has a huge suicide problem as well and the rate of suicides by firearm has dropped dramatically as well[/QUOTE] "Gun crime" is determinate on multiple factors. Also, that doesn't mean a suicide or homicide, it just means a crime involving a gun. Prohibition in any country generally does not work and just leads to more crime. Over the past decade is "gun crime" higher or lower? [url]http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2015/11/10/australias-secret-gun-problem-exposed/[/url] Doesn't matter who is arguing it really. It matters that logic and reason is being used. But ultimately, there are more legal gun owners in Australia than before the "gun ban" as people like to call it. [url]http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-28/australia-has-'more-guns-than-before-port-arthur-massacre'/7366360[/url] But what pushes the "gun crime" statistic up is gang violence. Bike gangs from the looks of things. If gun control worked then you would have seen constant reduction in "gun crime" as the guns considered illegal would have dried up. So ergo, it does not work. Also, most of your mass murders turned to arson mostly. But mass shootings have also occurred since then. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childers_Palace_Backpackers_Hostel_fire[/url] <- arson, 15 dead, unk injured [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monash_University_shooting[/url] <- mass shooting with pistols, 2 dead, 5 injured [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires#Central_Gippsland_fires[/url] <- arson, 10 dead, unk injured [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_family_murders[/url] <- hammer, 5 dead [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Hectorville_siege[/url] <- mass shooting, 3 dead, 3 injured [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers_Hill,_New_South_Wales#Nursing_home_fire[/url] <- arson, 11 dead [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Siege[/url] <- mass shooting terrorist, 2 dead, 4 injured [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairns_child_killings[/url] <- mass stabbing, 8 children dead I don't know about you, but being burnt alive is a very horrible way to go. Suicide is going back up. Hitting a 10 year high. [url]http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/suicide-rate-in-australia-reaches-10year-high/news-story/cb5d8384aadb571778775bda236f3c35?nk=06ea73e306101522a9e2c11b3aed467e-1476890389[/url] But ultimately, my point is gun control is not crime control. It doesn't have any substantial effects on desired crime statistics. So ergo, gun control is a pointless waste of time when countries can tackle root causes of crime rather than a means by which they were done.

[QUOTE=Lonestriper;51224799]ahaha what the fuck do you know about Australia's cultural heritage? Labeling Australia as part of 'Western Culture' and then harping on about some very American-shaded view of rights doesn't mean your close to being correct in this country's context. So why are you pontificating about a country and a culture you only tangentially know?[/QUOTE] He happens to be right about Australia, as someone who has lived here all my life, grew up in rural areas and was exposed to Australian gun culture at an early age. But do keep being smarmy. Australia has always had a strong "rifleman" culture outside of urban concentrations and still does in many ways.

[QUOTE=Lonestriper;51224799]ahaha what the fuck do you know about Australia's cultural heritage? Labeling Australia as part of 'Western Culture' and then harping on about some very American-shaded view of rights doesn't mean your close to being correct in this country's context. So why are you pontificating about a country and a culture you only tangentially know?[/QUOTE] Considering your country had extremely loose gun laws, akin to current US laws, with at least 3 million guns for 18 million residents, Id say that a gun culture existed and still exists to this day. The million or so firearms destroyed during the confiscation have have been replaced and the number of firearms is growing beyond that number now. The SSAA was established in the 40s and has around 200k members. Id say thats a pretty big indicator of a heritage in firearms.

People own guns ergo gun culture? Might be hard to believe but beyond being a rural necessity and a recreational niche people don't particularly associate themselves with guns or owning them in Australia, not in the way found in the US at least. Saying we lost part of our cultural heritage by banning guns is pretty hard to believe, and even if it were true there was a marked change in cultural conscious post Port-Arthur which made it untenable. I don't even mind the fact the amount of guns owned by Australians has increased, seeing as it is done under sensible laws which represent the interests of the majority of Australians. But claiming that we did the wrong thing because we previously had relaxed gun laws? Bunch of reactionary claptrap.