Gun advocate mocks Australia's tough laws

[CAMDAWG]

As much as I hated Howard for his far right-wing policies and actions, I can understand why he wore it. This did all occur with a few weeks of the Port Arthur Massacre, remember, and emotions were running high across the board, and we do have our fair share of loonies who may have gotten themselves worked up enough to have taken a shot. Insulting, yes, but practical. It's easy to get over being insulted, can you imagine what kind of police-state we'd live in now if'n someone had actually gunned the little bastard down?

According to a pollie who was around at the time in an interview I saw a little while ago on the 7.30 report or lateline or something, he had received death threats over the legislation in the leadup to that address. Now, politicians probably get death threats all the time, but when it's death threats over specific legislation that angered almost exclusively gun owners? You've got to take that shit seriously.

 

[DaGobbo]

I think comedian Robin William said it best "You have the right to bear arms or the right to arm bears, whatever the hell you want to do." If you don't like living under the draconian US laws then leave the country, come to Australia if you like we have Drop Bears.

 

[Dark Knifer]

I hate that idiots like this make the rest of us reasonable gun owners look bad.

I do agree with Cleave that the US and Australia aren't really comparable in terms of violence, but the way Cleave said it made him sound like an ass who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

Yeah seriously, there's nothing worse than presenting a good point in the least compelling way so it can be so easily shot down (no pun intended.)

America is much different from Australia a lot of ways, geographically and situationally. We're a huge country wherein lots of people have guns, sandwiched between two other large countries full of guns, one of which being extremely criminally active. Australia being an island with a couple hundred million less people living there makes enforcing gun laws much easier and more effective. Also, there's the matter of the american mentality towards guns to take into account as well. Similar gun legislature here would not go nearly the same way.

As an Australian, I agree to you.

The show was funny but the countries are rather different. Its good to learn from others but I don't think the USA would benefit with the same laws as Australia. Some tougher ones maybe but they could easily take the approach switzerland has in which train discipline into whoever wants to use a gun, that could work as well. Either way it doesn't matter as long as it makes the country safer (but I don't think that is in the interest of Mr Cleave here :/

 

[MrHide-Patten]

A US gun lobbyist has said Australia is not on the same planet as the US ...

Umm...quite. What planet does he think it's on then? Someone needs to go back to school methinks.

Don't care about US gun laws anymore. If they're happy for their children to get shot, who are we to tell them they can't murder their own kids?

Last I checked Geography is an optional class in America, because "out there be dragons".

 

[Terramax]

John Oliver should do stand-up comedy. He'd make a killing.....I mean, financially.

 

[Zantos]

Basically you need what they call a "genuine reason", so "because its cool" isn't a reason. Here's the list of reasons they accept:
http://www.police.tas.gov.au/services-online/firearms/firearms-licences/genuine-reasons/

I could have been reading too much David Thorne, but doesn't all widlife in Australia want to kill you? Like, actively out for your blood? Possibly not so much in the urban areas, but I'd have thought there would be some consideration for "I live in the middle of nowhere and everything within 50 miles is hunting me."

 

[Rogue 9]

Basically you need what they call a "genuine reason", so "because its cool" isn't a reason. Here's the list of reasons they accept:
http://www.police.tas.gov.au/services-online/firearms/firearms-licences/genuine-reasons/

I could have been reading too much David Thorne, but doesn't all widlife in Australia want to kill you? Like, actively out for your blood? Possibly not so much in the urban areas, but I'd have thought there would be some consideration for "I live in the middle of nowhere and everything within 50 miles is hunting me."

As much as I hate to pass up an opportunity to take part in one of our national pastimes (ie - the exaggeration of our wildlife), I'll play it straight this time. The creatures in Australia that are able to murderise you tend to just be the snakes, spiders and sharks which guns don't tend to be relevant in dealing with. Apart from dingos (a type of wild dog) the rest of our mammal wildlife is somewhere on the cute, furry and non-violent spectrum.

Having watched the two videos linked earlier in the thread, I honestly found the part with the American political aide more distasteful than the part with the gun nut. There will alwats be gun nuts but if politicians honestly think that being re-elected is more important than actually doing anything when they are elected, well... that's a real cause for concern...

 

[Evilpigeon]

It's always strange to me that the arguments against gun control goes something like this.

"Yes, I know we have nearly the highest murder rate in the western world but it's because we don't take care of our citizens and has nothing at all to do with guns being widely available"

Yet the gun lobby tends to be right wing and thus not in favour of welfare or proper public healthcare or anything else that might help to fix the dead-end hopelessness of life that supposedly causes this gun crime.

Stricter gun control laws aren't a perfect cure-all, it is however an effective method to reduce the amount of lethal weaponry getting into the hands of the wrong people. Combine this with a less half-arsed welfare state as well as immigration laws designed to provide citzenship and support under the law for some of those millions of illegal immigrants and you might actually go some way to fixing the problem as well as a lot of the social mess that it's tied in with.

Entitlements and government programs don't make the problem better. Besides, America doesn't have the highest murder rate in the western world, that's Honduras. Also, violent crime is a much bigger issue in European countries than in America.

First off, sorry for using an incorrect term. My correction: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/World_map_worlds_first_second_third.GIF

See the blue bit. Should have said first world, not west. Secondly, wikipedia puts the US murder rate higher than everywhere in europe except russia and a couple of other eastern european countries, typically the ones that are a complete mess like the Ukraine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Welfare decreases poverty, which decreases low level crime, gang problems etc. There's a reason beyond possible instituitional racism that 40% of prisoners in the US are black
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Race

It's because, on average white families have 20x the wealth of black ones in the US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_inequality_in_the_United_States#Racial_wealth_gap

Desperation and lack of money makes crime look like an appealing way to supplement your income. It also doesn't help when you're surrounded by other people doing the same. State welfare and support can have a huge positive impact for people at the bottom of the pile, dismissing this is moronic. What's your explanation, will people commit just as much crime, regardless of wealth? Or does giving people support somehow not increase their standard of living.

 

[BOOM headshot65]

Then you have the problem of "Someone is breaking into my house, time to get the gun........but its locked in a safe. -_-"

I had someone 'break into' my back yard yesterday afternoon.

I walked out and confronted him, as I KNEW he would not have a firearm (there was no need for me to get one of mine out of the safe).

He claimed he just wanted a drink of water after he had an accident on his bike (which had a flat tyre).

However his story did not add up and he appeared to be on meth (I think he was looking to steal a bike to replace his).

I gave him a drink of water, then told him to leave and never come back.

See the difference no one having a firearm makes?

Yea, I know what you mean. Just the other day I had someone walk up to me and say "Hey man. Can I have some money? I need something to eat." and he was acting all fidgety and was really twitchy, so he might have been on drugs. And I had no idea if he had a gun, so I shot him.


No wait, I didnt, because THAT WOULD BE FRICKING INSANE!!! Instead I gave him 2 dollors (enough for a sandwitch at the corner shop), and went on my marry way, as did he. The only, and I mean ONLY reason that I would pull a gun on someone is if they have broken into my home at night (since I would still lock my doors at night), and thats it.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

The problem is not access to guns. The millions of law abiding gun owners prove that as well as incidents like the recent Boston massacre and other mass killings which have been carried out without the use of firearms. The problem is sociological and psychological. We used to have institutions that existed solely to care for the mentally ill and prevent the violent ones from doing harm. They were mostly closed though as the conditions in some (possibly many) were deplorable and the states didn't want to pay for them anymore. Another facet of the problem is rooted in the breakdown of the family structure where it seems more and more parents, particularly those of lower income, do very little to instill proper civilized behavior and values in their children. Small wonder that we have the urban gang problems and drug issues that seem to be behind the majority of violent crimes that take place.

We need to do a better job of identifying and treating the mentally ill in the US. We also need to be building up a return to the idea that parents are responsible for raising their children to upstanding and law abiding citizens. It doesn't take a village to raise a child as some politicians have put forth, it takes parents who care enough to take an interest in their children's well-being and want the best future for them.



Oops, kinda started wandering. Main point: Stop blaming the tools and start trying to solve the real problems.

This is the biggest issue. The lack of a family dynamic. In the USA it seems we live in a society that wants to deal with symptoms not the actual problem. Much like our doctors who don't want to fix things, just prescribe drugs to make you think you're cured (yet you're still taking the drug).
And the family dynamic has been shunned in the recent years. The Government cannot care for children, the system is too bloated. And it seems we promote a society where being "16 and Pregnant" is cool. Hell its on TV so its ok, right?
As far as gun death goes, you would be amazed at how many of those statistics aren't person on person shootings but actually suicides. Just like a lot of "smoking death" statistics are just smokers who died of other causes and were lumped in to bloat the statistics simply because they were smokers, their deaths having in no way shape or form being due to their smoking habits.

 

[Floppertje]

is it just me or does 'Phillip van Cleave' sound like a bad slasher movie villain?

Is... if your avatar France from Scandanavia and the World? I've never seen anyone else that actually reads it! The only thing I don't like about it is that Canada gets relegated as hat. *pouts*


OT: That was pretty funny. I am all for gun control, and Harper definitely isn't helping us with the [b]removal[/b] of the long-gun registry. Yes, you read that right, he [b]fucking removed gun control legislation[/b]! That being said, most of us don't want to take away every single gun you own, we just want to make it so that only responsible adults can use them.[/quote]
It's actually Netherlands, but other than that, yes. I cut it from a strip where Denmark and NL gay it up during a tea party to give sister japan a nosebleed :D

 

[Thaluikhain]

I could have been reading too much David Thorne, but doesn't all widlife in Australia want to kill you? Like, actively out for your blood? Possibly not so much in the urban areas, but I'd have thought there would be some consideration for "I live in the middle of nowhere and everything within 50 miles is hunting me."

Well, sorta.

You need a valid reason to have a weapon, and you have to prove that a lesser category weapon wouldn't be better.

Living in a rural or farming environment is a reason for a Category A weapon, which includes rimfire rifles (not semi-automatic) and shotguns (not semi-automatic or pump action). In some states this might exclude lever or bolt action shotguns, not sure.

So, you live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, you are allowed a double barrel shotgun, say, provided you lock it away properly, have little or no criminal record etc. Or one of those combination rifle/shotgun survival guns.

A Category B weapon would be a not semi-automatic centrefire rifle. Those are harder to get, but not by much, I believe.

...

"You can" get a semi-automatic centrefire rifle, such as an AR-15, if your job is to hunt big game. Which it won't be so you can't.

Automatic weapons are flat out banned.

 

[Daveman]

A US gun lobbyist has said Australia is not on the same planet as the US when dismissing the success of Australian gun control laws.

It's true. What works in Australia doesn't translate very well into another country vastly larger, with actual physical neighboring nations and a vastly different culture.

I'm not arguing either side and I personally couldn't give more than one-half of two fucks about anyone mentioned in that article or their opinions.

http://www.ga.gov.au/education/geoscience-basics/dimensions/australias-size-compared.html
Not what I'd call "vastly larger". Just sayin'.

On topic: I thought it was a funny video, but I do have to concede that just because Australia did it and it worked doesn't mean the US could do it. I mean just due to the differences in competence between the countries.

 

[Zantos]

I could have been reading too much David Thorne, but doesn't all widlife in Australia want to kill you? Like, actively out for your blood? Possibly not so much in the urban areas, but I'd have thought there would be some consideration for "I live in the middle of nowhere and everything within 50 miles is hunting me."

Well, sorta.

You need a valid reason to have a weapon, and you have to prove that a lesser category weapon wouldn't be better.

Living in a rural or farming environment is a reason for a Category A weapon, which includes rimfire rifles (not semi-automatic) and shotguns (not semi-automatic or pump action). In some states this might exclude lever or bolt action shotguns, not sure.

So, you live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, you are allowed a double barrel shotgun, say, provided you lock it away properly, have little or no criminal record etc. Or one of those combination rifle/shotgun survival guns.

A Category B weapon would be a not semi-automatic centrefire rifle. Those are harder to get, but not by much, I believe.

...

"You can" get a semi-automatic centrefire rifle, such as an AR-15, if your job is to hunt big game. Which it won't be so you can't.

Automatic weapons are flat out banned.

That's an entirely reasonable approach. Is there also a limit to number of guns considered to be reasonable? Coming from the UK I'm not very up on the different international gun laws, I just know it would be very difficult for me to own one.

Basically you need what they call a "genuine reason", so "because its cool" isn't a reason. Here's the list of reasons they accept:
http://www.police.tas.gov.au/services-online/firearms/firearms-licences/genuine-reasons/

I could have been reading too much David Thorne, but doesn't all widlife in Australia want to kill you? Like, actively out for your blood? Possibly not so much in the urban areas, but I'd have thought there would be some consideration for "I live in the middle of nowhere and everything within 50 miles is hunting me."

As much as I hate to pass up an opportunity to take part in one of our national pastimes (ie - the exaggeration of our wildlife), I'll play it straight this time. The creatures in Australia that are able to murderise you tend to just be the snakes, spiders and sharks which guns don't tend to be relevant in dealing with. Apart from dingos (a type of wild dog) the rest of our mammal wildlife is somewhere on the cute, furry and non-violent spectrum.

Having watched the two videos linked earlier in the thread, I honestly found the part with the American political aide more distasteful than the part with the gun nut. There will alwats be gun nuts but if politicians honestly think that being re-elected is more important than actually doing anything when they are elected, well... that's a real cause for concern...

But I heard you had spiders the size of jeeps that feed on smaller cars and the children inside them! Damn, you guys got really good at exaggerating.

On the politicians, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few politicians that got into power with a gun restriction policy, only to turn around and say "Actually, we're in power now so we're not going to bother." Damn political U-turns.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I could have been reading too much David Thorne, but doesn't all widlife in Australia want to kill you? Like, actively out for your blood? Possibly not so much in the urban areas, but I'd have thought there would be some consideration for "I live in the middle of nowhere and everything within 50 miles is hunting me."

Well, sorta.

You need a valid reason to have a weapon, and you have to prove that a lesser category weapon wouldn't be better.

Living in a rural or farming environment is a reason for a Category A weapon, which includes rimfire rifles (not semi-automatic) and shotguns (not semi-automatic or pump action). In some states this might exclude lever or bolt action shotguns, not sure.

So, you live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, you are allowed a double barrel shotgun, say, provided you lock it away properly, have little or no criminal record etc. Or one of those combination rifle/shotgun survival guns.

A Category B weapon would be a not semi-automatic centrefire rifle. Those are harder to get, but not by much, I believe.

...

"You can" get a semi-automatic centrefire rifle, such as an AR-15, if your job is to hunt big game. Which it won't be so you can't.

Automatic weapons are flat out banned.

That's an entirely reasonable approach. Is there also a limit to number of guns considered to be reasonable? Coming from the UK I'm not very up on the different international gun laws, I just know it would be very difficult for me to own one.

I don't think so for Cat A or Cat B. Cat C (pump or semi shotguns <= 5 rounds capacity, semi-automatic rimfire <= 10 rounds capacity) you can have one of each Not sure what they'd be useful for, really. Cat D (the former with larger magazines, or semi-auto centrefires), you can only have one.

This varies between states. All the gun laws are more or less the same, they implemented these all at the same time in conjunction with the federal government, but they sometimes use slightly different rules or have tweaked them since.

 

[ShiningAmber]

How many major metropolitan areas does Australia have with populations of more 250,000 people?

Now, how many are filled with poverty and drugs?

I'm tired too of people trying to compare statistics of the United States to their country. If we gave you Detroit, Chicago and DC, you'd look like a violent madhouse too.

I live in Detroit area and our murder rate is comparable to Somalia. This does not reflect the majority of the United States, but it does throw the stats off quite a bit when you take all the ghettos we have and add them in to the national average.

Which would suggest that the problem is not guns, it's too many poor people with too much drugs with too little to live for and very little respect for life, packed much too closely together. You're gonna have a bad time.

This^^^

So tired of hearing the constant whining and comparisons. Perhaps those Australians should have an extended stay in Chicago or Detriot and come back with those comparisons again.

I lived in Australia for several years. There are night and day differences between the two countries. What works in Australia wouldn't stand a chance in the States. I'm not even from either country and can say that.

 

[Jordi]

the videos were hilarious and agrees with the points they're making.

I live in Detroit area and our murder rate is comparable to Somalia.

Do you think that maybe that has something to do with Detroit having gun control laws similar to Somalia?

Because that is kind of the crux. It's a chicken and egg problem. You think you need guns because there is so much gun violence. Others think there is so much violence because you have guns.

Ok, first of all, I don't know what the gun control laws are in Somalia... I just know it's lawless shit hole with an over-all murder rate in the high 70's per 100,000... and that's about the only thing Detroit has in common with it. (We came in 2nd in the US, with 63.5 homicides per 100,000) Detroit has no special firearms ordinances, that much I can tell you. We are actually more concerned about kind of dogs you can own. We had/have a real problem with dog fighting and pit bulls. I myself almost hit one several years back running down 8 mile. Damn thing ran straight at my car.

I don't know the exact gun laws in either Somalia or Detroit. I just know that both places have lots of guns and lots of violence. You use this as "evidence" for your thesis that the violence causes you to need the guns, but this is only a correlation; no causation is implied. Your opponents could just as easily (and wrongly) use this correlation to argue the opposite side: that the guns are causing the violence.

Second, Detroit was once the wealthiest city per capita in America in the early 1950s. While I can't even find crime statistics from back then, I did find there were 125 murders in 1964 with a population of roughly 1.6 million people. Things were already getting bad, this is 3 years before the riots, but even back then the murder rate was 7.8 per 100,000. Which means it's multiplied by a factor of 8 since then.

Yes, and the point is that if you had gun control laws, it might not have multiplied by that amount. As we can see, for instance, in Australia.

This is why it's apt to say Australia is another planet, at the very least it's an apple and the US is an orange. They don't have anywhere near the number of major cities that are also ground zero for poverty and drugs.

Why does the number of cities matter if you're just comparing one city (Detroit)?

In most places in the world, cities are the centers of affluence. Not so in America, we've left our poor, our drug addicts, to rot in concrete jungles while the wealthy have moved out.

I never said there are no differences. This sounds like a relavant difference. However, that doesn't mean that you can get no useful information out of situations that are different in this regard. There are lots of similarities too. The correct answer is not to ignore valuable precedent. It's to think "how can we change Detroit to be more like Sydney so that we can apply this legislation effectively" and/or "what needs to be changed about this legislation to account for the things that are different in Detroit".

Oakland county, which is next door to Wayne county (where Detroit is) was once one of the 10 or 20 wealthiest counties in the nation, at a time where poverty in Detroit was at record highs.

I don't see why this is relevant.

Anyway, the point of all this is the murder rate in the US is not comparable to the murder rate of Australia, not when we have 10 major cities with murder rates all north of 20 per 100,000... and that's only the top 10. Each of those cities has more murders than Australia does as a country. Is it a fair comparison? Of course it's not, it's ridiculous.

Yes, and the point is that one possible reason for the discrepancy in murder figures is that one country has gun control while the other doesn't.

Suppose for a minute that there is a second, parallel universe to ours where Detroit-2 got gun control laws and somehow they worked: murders are now down to 0. Would you then say that Detroit in our world couldn't learn any lessons from that, because Detroit-2 has an incomparable murder rate? I realize that there are other differences between, say, Melbourne and Detroit, but you can't say they are incomparable because of the murder rate, when the murder rate is the dependent variable in all of this.

So when someone posts another US bashing thread where someone said something stupid and said Australia is another planet and does not compare to the US, you'll have to excuse me if I don't bother to read the rest of the article and roll my eyes at the usual left-leaning hyperbole that I see on a forum filled with young people who tend to lean to that side in the first place.

I can understand rolling your eyes at the hyperbole in Daily Show reports. It's unfortunate that this causes a knee-jerk reaction in so many people to ignore the fact that underneath it all, they may actually have a point worth considering. You can learn lessons from similar issues in different places if you're open to it, and you certainly shouldn't dismiss it until you've actually examined the issues.

 

[SilkySkyKitten]

A full ban, such as the ones done in Australia, UK, and Japan are just not feasible, at all, as is the often repeated point that only law abiding citizens will follow the laws.

Fun fact: out of all the countries you listed, only Japan actually has a full ban. Both Australia and the UK just have very tight restrictions, nothing more than that. So, you can actually get a gun in both of those countries, it's just much harder than in the US.

Basically over here you can buy bolt action rifles, and pistols for club shooting etc. You can't have a gun 'for self defence', however the US wouldn't have to follow that if they didn't want. For us you need a legit reason such as work (police/military), club or competative shooting, or collectors (I think there are a few others but cant recall off the top of my head). Heavy background checks are done and a license must be kept upto date. They must be stored in a heavy safe or one bolted securely to the property and when being taken to a different location must be in a secured case. Ammo cannot be stored with the gun at any time.

snippy-snip

I've expanded apon it abit more, if you want more info check out these sites:
http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/services/firearms/clubs/firearms_club_approval_and_licence
http://www.atsc.com.au/pages/licence.htm
http://www.ssaansw.org.au/index.php/safe-shooting/applying-for-a-firearms-licence

Basically you need what they call a "genuine reason", so "because its cool" isn't a reason. Here's the list of reasons they accept:
http://www.police.tas.gov.au/services-online/firearms/firearms-licences/genuine-reasons/

Ahh, okay. I did kinda go "ohhh dear" when I saw you mentioned you needed a 'genuine reason', but looking through that list... it doesn't seem that bad at all still. Seems relatively reasonable, even.

Yeah, I don't see why people here keep ripping on Australia's laws at all. They seem pretty alright.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

When I went to Austrailia the border check people treated me like shit. I hadn't shaved in a few days and was wearing shorts and a vest, my brother on the other hand, the tall, clean cut, polo shirt wearing mother fucker got in without so much as a glance.

Austrailia is a little fucked up in terms of their out look on foreigners but every country is a little.

A customs guy in Australia called me a ****** once for having long hair. And I'm from Australia. So don't take it personally.