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 Dreadwinter wrote:

Asterios wrote:
well the thing with Australia is when the new gun laws came into effect there was a spike of gun crimes but eventually gun crimes reduced back to pre-gun law levels and while they have gone down a little it has not validated what they said would happen which would be a drastic drop in gun crimes which has yet to come about, that couple with their gun buy back program proved to be an utter failure with only 20% of possible guns being bought back.

my Family there do not think the laws will stand much longer.

Right, we hear all about those mass shootings in Australia all the time. What with all the guns they do not have over there.

no mention was made of mass shootings and to be honest mass shootings account for a very small portion of gun crimes, heck my own town has had more gun deaths and such then a certain night club shooting in a year and my town is not all that big.

Here is a quote from an article I found interesting, seems well written and fairly balanced (not in the Fox news way though)

Leave aside that Australia had—and has—far fewer guns and people than we do. Forget the bits about the gun lobby or Australia’s greater urbanization. The crucial point is the final one: Australia does not have a bill of rights, and that, ultimately, is the reason it was able to confiscate guns. Australians have no constitutional right to bear arms, so seizing their weapons did not violate their constitutional rights. Gun confiscation in the United States would require violating not only the Second Amendment, but the fourth and fifth as well, and possibly even the first. Progressives generally have no compunction about breaching the Second Amendment, but one wonders how many others they would be eager to violate in their quest to nullify the second. Civil war and a tattered Constitution: such are the consequences of invoking “Australia.” It is not a model; it is a mirage.

By Varad Mehta

Full article here: http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/25/the-australia-gun-control-fallacy/

Too much is made of the Civil War fantasy, but it's hard to stay away from the possibility of that happening, it's an extreme example, but other than that - the article makes some interesting points I thought.

here's some more food for thought, pretty much explains how a gun ban in the US would really accomplish nothing.

http://www.mintpressnews.com/the-facts-that-neither-side-wants-to-admit-about-gun-control/207152/

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:So just because New York cops are bad shots, it doesn't mean that every American cop is no good with a gun.

They're probably pretty representative. We'd have to comb through all officer-involved shooting reports for every county in the country for a given year to be sure, but I'd be surprised if they weren't. They're comparatively much better funded than most police departments, and the budget is the main reason why most don't do anything more than basic quals.

Vaktathi wrote:The NYPD also has both notoriously low shooting qualifications and training, as well as pistols modified to have monstrously heavy trigger pulls to simulate the old double action revolvers they used decades ago (instead of retraining on the new equipment) which results in further accuracy issues.

Everybody's got notoriously low shooting quals and training. Nobody has the budget to actually get good. It takes thousands of rounds per individual, per year, and that gets very expensive, very fast. I've yet to see a police qual that looked particularly difficult for anyone who even casually shoots.

Their trigger weight is certainly gak, but blaming bad accuracy on it is a bad habit. You can shoot the worst trigger in the world if you actually train with it.

Maybe the military should send them bullets instead of tanks.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Maybe the military should send them bullets instead of tanks.

The NYPD has an Abrams now? fething hell, I didn't know things were -that- out of control.

Still took them 16 shots to hit a guy.

well looks like Chicago which has some of the strictest gun laws and yet still stuff like this happens, furthermore Chicago has some of the highest gun deaths too, while also have the most stringnent gun laws:

http://fox40.com/2016/06/16/disturbing-video-chicago-man-gunned-down-while-broadcasting-live-on-facebook/

also from last year:

http://www.infowars.com/82-shot-15-dead-in-city-with-the-strictest-gun-laws-in-the-united-states/

Asterios wrote:
well looks like Chicago which has some of the strictest gun laws and yet still stuff like this happens, furthermore Chicago has some of the highest gun deaths too, while also have the most stringnent gun laws:

http://fox40.com/2016/06/16/disturbing-video-chicago-man-gunned-down-while-broadcasting-live-on-facebook/

The problem with local gun control is that criminals can easily acquire firearms from out of state. It's how the guys who shot up that clinic in San Bernadino acquired those highly illegal automatic weapons.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

Asterios wrote:
well looks like Chicago which has some of the strictest gun laws and yet still stuff like this happens, furthermore Chicago has some of the highest gun deaths too, while also have the most stringnent gun laws:

http://fox40.com/2016/06/16/disturbing-video-chicago-man-gunned-down-while-broadcasting-live-on-facebook/

The problem with local gun control is that criminals can easily acquire firearms from out of state. It's how the guys who shot up that clinic in San Bernadino acquired those highly illegal automatic weapons.

so even if guns are outlawed in the whole USA they can still be brought in by other countries, like they are now? or heck even from the government like the ATF's Fast and Furious operation ?

I have a question I'm not sure needs a new thread. Say England and Australia adopted gun laws similar to Texas next week. Would either country have large numbers of gun enthusiasts. I guess I'm asking is do those 2 countries not have guns still because of the government's or because the people genuinely don't want them.

xraytango wrote:
Here is a quote from an article I found interesting, seems well written and fairly balanced (not in the Fox news way though)

Leave aside that Australia had—and has—far fewer guns and people than we do. Forget the bits about the gun lobby or Australia’s greater urbanization. The crucial point is the final one: Australia does not have a bill of rights, and that, ultimately, is the reason it was able to confiscate guns. Australians have no constitutional right to bear arms, so seizing their weapons did not violate their constitutional rights. Gun confiscation in the United States would require violating not only the Second Amendment, but the fourth and fifth as well, and possibly even the first. Progressives generally have no compunction about breaching the Second Amendment, but one wonders how many others they would be eager to violate in their quest to nullify the second. Civil war and a tattered Constitution: such are the consequences of invoking “Australia.” It is not a model; it is a mirage.

The constitution is a document of law no more no less, it may be the highest in the land but it's a simple document of law all the same. It's no more above criticism and reconsideration than any other set of laws. God did not descend from the heavens and reveal that it was writ in the very workings of the universe that this shall be the way in america and no other way can be. It's fair to look at the 2nd amendment, or any other part of the bill of rights and the constitution as a whole and ask the question:

"Is this is still wholly and entirely a good idea as last interpreted? Why or why not?".

It's just not valid to answer any suggestion of things that may violate the 2nd amendment with "that violates it" because those arguments by definition are equivalent to saying that something is wrong with the 2nd amendment itself or that perhaps it's too broadly defined or loosely interpreted. I feel no great urge to go around seizing guns, but this entire line of thinking is just uselessly circular. The mere existence of the 2nd amendment in it's current form and interpretation is not justification or defense of the 2nd amendment in it's current form and interpretation.

This isn't to say I think there is any political will or broad support for in any changes to the 2nd amendment. So any discussion is going to be purely in the real of the hypothetical. The gun control debate is a non-debate, the issue has been settled. There won't be any substantive move towards gun control not in the lifetime of anyone reading this, and certainly not in the immediate future. It doesn't matter if you think gun control is a cure-all for our gun violence problems, totally worthless and pointless or something in between: It's not going to happen.

Still there is at least some value in discussing if our current course is the right one so that we might might have a bit more insight into our current situation.

 Chongara wrote:

xraytango wrote:
Here is a quote from an article I found interesting, seems well written and fairly balanced (not in the Fox news way though)

Leave aside that Australia had—and has—far fewer guns and people than we do. Forget the bits about the gun lobby or Australia’s greater urbanization. The crucial point is the final one: Australia does not have a bill of rights, and that, ultimately, is the reason it was able to confiscate guns. Australians have no constitutional right to bear arms, so seizing their weapons did not violate their constitutional rights. Gun confiscation in the United States would require violating not only the Second Amendment, but the fourth and fifth as well, and possibly even the first. Progressives generally have no compunction about breaching the Second Amendment, but one wonders how many others they would be eager to violate in their quest to nullify the second. Civil war and a tattered Constitution: such are the consequences of invoking “Australia.” It is not a model; it is a mirage.

The constitution is a document of law no more no less, it may be the highest in the land but it's a simple document of law all the same. It's no more above criticism and reconsideration than any other set of laws. God did not descend from the heavens and reveal that it was writ in the very workings of the universe that this shall be the way in america and no other way can be. It's fair to look at the 2nd amendment, or any other part of the bill of rights and the constitution as a whole and ask the question:

"Is this is still wholly and entirely a good idea as last interpreted? Why or why not?".

It's just not valid to answer any suggestion of things that may violate the 2nd amendment with "that violates it" because those arguments by definition are equivalent to saying that something is wrong with the 2nd amendment itself or that perhaps it's too broadly defined or loosely interpreted. I feel no great urge to go around seizing guns, but this entire line of thinking is just uselessly circular. The mere existence of the 2nd amendment in it's current form and interpretation is not justification or defense of the 2nd amendment in it's current form and interpretation.

This isn't to say I think there is any political will or broad support for in any changes to the 2nd amendment. So any discussion is going to be purely in the real of the hypothetical. The gun control debate is a non-debate, the issue has been settled. There won't be any substantive move towards gun control not in the lifetime of anyone reading this, and certainly not in the immediate future. It doesn't matter if you think gun control is a cure-all for our gun violence problems, totally worthless and pointless or something in between: It's not going to happen.

Still there is at least some value in discussing if our current course is the right one so that we might might have a bit more insight into our current situation.

That was a much better explanation of my point-of-view on the subject than I've managed so far.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I don't believe it's possible to actually reign in America's gun problem with how many firearms are out there. At least, not within our lifetime. What people have to remember is that mass shootings like Sandy Hook or Virginia Tech aren't the majority of gun-related homicide in the country. Most of it is drug or gang-related iirc.

I would say America's high firearm homicide rate has a lot to do with the disenfranchisement of minorities and the questionably effective War on Drugs more than a loony who got his hands on a scary assault rifle.

I think you could add in how we diagnose and treat 'loony' folks as well. We need some work on addressing mental health.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

Asterios wrote:
well looks like Chicago which has some of the strictest gun laws and yet still stuff like this happens, furthermore Chicago has some of the highest gun deaths too, while also have the most stringnent gun laws:

http://fox40.com/2016/06/16/disturbing-video-chicago-man-gunned-down-while-broadcasting-live-on-facebook/

The problem with local gun control is that criminals can easily acquire firearms from out of state. It's how the guys who shot up that clinic in San Bernadino acquired those highly illegal automatic weapons.

Both rifles used in the San Bernadino attack were standard AR15s. They were modified to remove the extra restrictions CA law has against AR15s but both of those guns could have been lawfully purchased as they were used in numerous states. Neither were fully automatic.

yellowfever wrote:
I have a question I'm not sure needs a new thread. Say England and Australia adopted gun laws similar to Texas next week. Would either country have large numbers of gun enthusiasts. I guess I'm asking is do those 2 countries not have guns still because of the government's or because the people genuinely don't want them.

As I understand it, which really isn't the best because I've never lived in either place.... There aren't and weren't really great numbers of enthusiasts. In the UK, there's farmers, competitive shooters, and maybe a hunter here or there. It's probably quite similar in Australia, since farmers have to constantly engaged in the life or death struggle of survival from the constant Drop Bear assaults.


I would estimate that the Australian gun buyback programs were pretty successful because the populace wanted things that way.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

yellowfever wrote:
I have a question I'm not sure needs a new thread. Say England and Australia adopted gun laws similar to Texas next week. Would either country have large numbers of gun enthusiasts. I guess I'm asking is do those 2 countries not have guns still because of the government's or because the people genuinely don't want them.

As I understand it, which really isn't the best because I've never lived in either place.... There aren't and weren't really great numbers of enthusiasts. In the UK, there's farmers, competitive shooters, and maybe a hunter here or there. It's probably quite similar in Australia, since farmers have to constantly engaged in the life or death struggle of survival from the constant Drop Bear assaults.


I would estimate that the Australian gun buyback programs were pretty successful because the populace wanted things that way.

This. The majority of our population do not want guns. We don't have mass proliferation of guns so our criminals, for the most part, do not have guns. This means that outside of specialist officers our police force does not carry guns and we don't feel like we need guns to protect ourselves, instead making use of things like cricket bats and cups of scalding tea.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

yellowfever wrote:
I have a question I'm not sure needs a new thread. Say England and Australia adopted gun laws similar to Texas next week. Would either country have large numbers of gun enthusiasts. I guess I'm asking is do those 2 countries not have guns still because of the government's or because the people genuinely don't want them.

As I understand it, which really isn't the best because I've never lived in either place.... There aren't and weren't really great numbers of enthusiasts. In the UK, there's farmers, competitive shooters, and maybe a hunter here or there. It's probably quite similar in Australia, since farmers have to constantly engaged in the life or death struggle of survival from the constant Drop Bear assaults.


I would estimate that the Australian gun buyback programs were pretty successful because the populace wanted things that way.

actually ranchers in Australia will fight for their guns, nothing like a Croc or two chomping down on your cattle to irk you some, or a goanna trying to eat your dog as a snack or meal.

then there is the classic Dingos after their babies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

yellowfever wrote:
I have a question I'm not sure needs a new thread. Say England and Australia adopted gun laws similar to Texas next week. Would either country have large numbers of gun enthusiasts. I guess I'm asking is do those 2 countries not have guns still because of the government's or because the people genuinely don't want them.

As I understand it, which really isn't the best because I've never lived in either place.... There aren't and weren't really great numbers of enthusiasts. In the UK, there's farmers, competitive shooters, and maybe a hunter here or there. It's probably quite similar in Australia, since farmers have to constantly engaged in the life or death struggle of survival from the constant Drop Bear assaults.


I would estimate that the Australian gun buyback programs were pretty successful because the populace wanted things that way.

This. The majority of our population do not want guns. We don't have mass proliferation of guns so our criminals, for the most part, do not have guns. This means that outside of specialist officers our police force does not carry guns and we don't feel like we need guns to protect ourselves, instead making use of things like cricket bats and cups of scalding tea.

or just maybe, just maybe it might be a sign of the times in the past couple years most countries have seen an uptick in crime (even UK https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/21/england-wales-homicides-rise-knife-gun-crime ) they may not be big upticks but an increase is still an increase, the issue is it could be because of over crowding and such, guns have been around for awhile and the guns being used now a days have been around quite a while too, but up until say 9/11 any form of mass shooting or such was very rare and a terrorist attack on US soil even was practically unthinkable and maybe happened what once? the issue as I see it stems from the internet, lets face it people want their 15 minutes of fame and back in the 70's and before people rarely heard about all the school massacres (oh yeah school massacres are nothing new, been going on for a couple of centuries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States and thats just the shootings), now a days things are all over the world as soon as they happen and groups like terrorists or troubled teens want to get their faces out there and its easy to do these days with the internet, blaming these instances on guns is a fools errand, its like blaming the car for someone who kills a person with one, do you see people calling for the banning of cars? no and yet cars have been involved in some very serious deaths and injuries with some people driving cars thru farmers markets running over people and such. so why blame a tool in one instance and not another?

This is a question I propose to those of you who support gun control or banning of guns, why are you wanting guns to be banned and cars not? both items have secondary uses, in fact last year more people were killed because of cars then because of guns, in fact just the first half of last year 19,000 people died because of car accidents just in the US, so it begs the question why are cars not banned? since gun control advocates seem to think it is the tool not the person responsible for the deaths, so with that same reasoning cars should be banned too.

I wasn't talking about self defense. Just in general would guns be popular as far as shooting, hunting, or general entertainment if they were allowed.

yellowfever wrote:
I wasn't talking about self defense. Just in general would guns be popular as far as shooting, hunting, or general entertainment if they were allowed.

so Kangaroos are not hunted?

yellowfever wrote:
I wasn't talking about self defense. Just in general would guns be popular as far as shooting, hunting, or general entertainment if they were allowed.

Guns are allowed in the UK, they just aren't very popular.

The restrictions are no pistols, rifles can only be bolt action, shotguns cannot be self-loading, and you have to have a "proper" reason for needing the weapon, such as culling deer, shooting partridges or target shooting. In other words no "entertainment". If people want to have fun with combat pistol and so on they use air guns or airsoft.

Also you have to be of good character and not have a criminal record or mental health problems and so on.

Once you have got a licence you have to store the gun and ammunition securely in locked cabinets. The police are entitled to check this.

Obviously from the US point of view the key problem with this is the idea that the police (i.e. government) check the licensing conditions.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Obviously from the US point of view the key problem with this is the idea that the police (i.e. government) check the licensing conditions.

They key problem, actually, is long before that; it's the complete disregard for the right to self-defense.

Seaward wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Obviously from the US point of view the key problem with this is the idea that the police (i.e. government) check the licensing conditions.

They key problem, actually, is long before that; it's the complete disregard for the right to self-defense.

We don't need them for self defence.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Obviously from the US point of view the key problem with this is the idea that the police (i.e. government) check the licensing conditions.

They key problem, actually, is long before that; it's the complete disregard for the right to self-defense.

We don't need them for self defence.

I suspect Lee Rigby would not have minded having a gun, or minded if some of the folks who helplessly watched him get hacked to death had had a gun.

I would say target shooting is entertainment. You answered my question in your first sentence. I wasn't asking about the regulations. Just wondering if guns would be popular if given a chance.

 CptJake wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Obviously from the US point of view the key problem with this is the idea that the police (i.e. government) check the licensing conditions.

They key problem, actually, is long before that; it's the complete disregard for the right to self-defense.

We don't need them for self defence.

I suspect Lee Rigby would not have minded having a gun, or minded if some of the folks who helplessly watched him get hacked to death had had a gun.

You think he would have saved himself with a gun? You do know they ran him over with a car travelling at 30 to 40 miles per hour before killing him with the knives and cleavers, right? Not to mention that after they had killed him they made no other threatening action until the police response arrived, something which definitely wouldn't have been the case had people started shooting at them.

Also, if we had guns here then they probably would've had a working gun rather than a non-functioning revolver. So the net result probably would've been more people dead.

yellowfever wrote:
I would say target shooting is entertainment. You answered my question in your first sentence. I wasn't asking about the regulations. Just wondering if guns would be popular if given a chance.

Well, they were given a chance before laws banning them came into play over there.

The US has (at least) .98 guns for every 1 person. The only country that's ever come remotely close was, IIRC, Serbia, at .58. Britain and Australia were nowhere near us even when guns were legal. (Yeah, yeah, I know you can still technically have a .410 with its breech welded shut if you wait twenty years and promise to never vote conservative or whatever.)

So no, it's extremely unlikely that any of the Commonwealth nations would have anywhere near the popularity of guns if they were suddenly easily available.

The UK also has some fundamental differences that work to make firearms much less popular. There's a lot more people packed into a lot smaller are in terms of proportional population density, making it hard to find places to shoot. They also have had severe restrictions and different social attitudes in place for well over a century. By and large you dont gave to worry about cross border cartel activities and the like the way many places in the US do, though I will note that Northern Ireland is an exception, and thus its still legal to possess handguns there and acquire carry permits.

Speaking as an Australian who enjoys shooting, likes to hunt, etc (not someone going on about dingoes eating babies or anything else stupid) it really isn't that necessary to own a rifle to shoot. Most of the time, to shoot, you'd want to have a mate who was out west (or east in Perth I guess...shudder) in the bush who owns land with a roo/pig/cat problem. You'd talk to him, organise a time, then go out, do your rooing, take the pelts and eat the ones you got/take the left overa back for his dogs.

Thing is, there are good odds your mate out west owns a few firearms already. So you can do the exact same thing for the cost of some ammunition and time zeroing one of his weapons to you. Which is, at least in my circles, the way we do it. So not many of us would probably buy a firearm, at most we'd mostly end up buying our own rounds rather than giving our mate some cash to square things up.

Hope thst helped clarify at least one of the (seemingly) common mindsets here.

Thanks guys. That's what I was wondering

 motyak wrote:
Speaking as an Australian who enjoys shooting, likes to hunt, etc (not someone going on about dingoes eating babies or anything else stupid) it really isn't that necessary to own a rifle to shoot. Most of the time, to shoot, you'd want to have a mate who was out west (or east in Perth I guess...shudder) in the bush who owns land with a roo/pig/cat problem. You'd talk to him, organise a time, then go out, do your rooing, take the pelts and eat the ones you got/take the left overa back for his dogs..

I always found roo meat too dang sweet for my tastes.