Civilian Disarmament in Australia

Civilian Disarmament in Australia


On November 5th, Australian authorities announced that "most semi-automatic handguns and all large-caliber revolvers will be banned from all but military, law enforcement and security purposes," reported the November 6th Sydney Morning Herald. This "could result in a national handgun buyback scheme … similar to that introduced for military style long arms following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre."

Australia’s accelerating drive to disarm law-abiding civilians tracks perfectly with the UN’s anti-gun program, adopted at the 2001 Conference on Small Arms and Light Weapons. The UN’s intention is to disarm everybody except UN personnel, and national law enforcement and military personnel acting under the world body’s direction. The use of gun turn-in and "buy-back" programs plays a central role in this global gun grab.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/20...o24_disarm.htm

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(TheNewAmerican is published by the john birch socity so please take it with a grain of salt)


We have a number of Australians here, i was wondering how they felt about this. personally i would find it rather dis-comforting, haveing people with guns telling me i shouldn't have any.

One of my greater concerns with things like this is...

Yes, legal gun owners will have to sell back their arms and buy ones that are not restricted.
Many people like to hunt or just pop off a few rounds into targets after a long stressful day.

It is the illegal gun owners that will not sell back their arms.
Most of the time, its the illegal gun owners who are using the arms for illegal purposes.

By doing this, it will make the criminals feel almost invicible because they KNOW that anyone they try to rob or kill will not be able to put up a fight...

It just doesn't make much sense to me.

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semi-automatic handguns and all large-caliber revolvers

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The only three civilian uses for firearms that I can see are for shooting as a sport, general use on a farm (e.g. putting down animals), and home defense. You can use a standard rifle (still permitted afaik) for these things - you may need a shotgun on a farm as well (also permitted). Personally I see no requirement for a civilian to own a semi-automatic handgun or a large-caliber revolver. From what I understand about the US, some people feel very strongly about their 'right to bear arms', but it's a different story over here.

I wouldn't agree with complete disarmament (as seems to be the UN's goal), simply because the uses mentioned above are valid (IMHO) and with proper licensing guidelines, can be controlled and monitored properly.

Firstly, I am in an occupation that requires me to carry a side-arm and has a propensity to have me in situations where the possibility of looking down the wrong end of one of a gun is very real.

I started out when I didn't have to carry a gun and life was so much nicer then, much less violent, yes, incidents involving firearms existed but they were very rare. Since this time the increase in gun ownership has led to an increase in violent crimes. Armed holdups were extremely rare and made front page news when they happened. Now they are common place.

Criminals have always existed, as with anything they are creatures of adaptation and survival and will "rise" to the occasion to carry out their deeds. If they expect resistance they will plan to be adequately "tooled" to overcome this resistance. Therefore if they expect a gun at the other end they will raise the "barriers" to overcome this, if desperate enough.

Secondly, many firearms I have taken from people were once generally in the hands of so-called responsible gun owners who have failed their community by failing to adequately secure their weapons and the criminals have had little or no problems in obtaining them i.e from burglaries, stealing them from cars etc ....

Firearm incidents I have been involved in have also come about from legal owners who have resorted to using their guns .... domestic situations etc ....

At the end of the day the incident that has brought this to a head was a student who walked into a University and shot and killed people with handguns he was licensed and allowed to own. Incidents I have read from the US seem to have a similar trend in that kids walking into schools and shooting people have generally done it with guns that have taken from their parents or relatives homes.

There is no point in blaming the licensing authorities and procedures as one can not tell what is going to take place in a persons life that is going to "tip them over the edge" some years down the track and make them resort to something like this. These situations can not be foreseen.

I agree with powertoad, people living in surburbia have no need for firearms (I would go one further and say a gun of any type), a criminal is less likely to use one against you if it is known you are unarmed. Personally, I would rather lose a bit of insured property than my life any day. I refuse to have a gun in my house.

phishphreek80, if someone has to go hunt and kill some defenseless animal or pop a few rounds off after a stressful day ..... really needs a bit of help and probably not the type of person who should own a gun in the first place.

I am not against firearm ownership, primary producers (farmers) require them as a tool of the trade, sporting shooters have a right to persue their sport, but all of them have a responsibility to all of us to make these guns all but impossible to steal.

Sorry, but this is something I am fairly passionate about - for obvious reasons.

I dream of a day when I dont have to carry one at work anymore, but I know its just a dream.

I know some of my comments may not sit well with the "right to bear arms" brigade, but I am prepared - I have a ballistic vest on :)

Sounds like an eminently sensible idea.

Living in the UK, where gun control is extremely strict, it seems that this is one of the places our law is actually reasonable (don't even go there on investigatory powers ....)

I am sure that most residents of Austrailan towns and cities won't complain about not being allowed the various types of gun banned by this act.

As far as criminals still having guns, while this is true, in our country it does seem that gun control generally has kept the amount of shootings less that it would maybe have been otherwise, and certainly a lot lower than in for instance the US.

With all respect Phat_Penguin, I have to take the opposite end of the argument. I am an avid outdoorsman who lives in suburbia. I own a .45 semiauto pistol and a small .22 "bellygun" (which is strictly for self-defense) I carry the .45 when im outdoors in the woods, camping, fishing, hunting, etc. Also, I keep it available for self-defense. I am one of the responsible gun owners. As the saying goes, when guns are outlawed, then only the outlaws will have guns. Let me just state a statistic that came out several years ago. I don't know where to find it know, but I do know i read it. The country with the lowest crime rate, at the time of this study, was Switzerland. At that time, (I don't know if it is still true) all adults over 18 were required to own a gun of some type. (Any Swiss people that care to correct me, feel free) The low crime rate (which i understand was less than a percent) was attributed to this requirement to own a gun. Maybe, and i think it is true in my area, if people know you are armed, you are less likely to be mugged or broken into. I know that if they tried to take away our guns here in Oklahoma, it would be very very difficult and there would probably be a small scale war, with all our ranchers and the like out here that use them all the time....I for one, would not give up my guns (one of which is an heirloom) without a fight. This may upset some people, but hey, we all have our opinions right?

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‘‘I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.’’
‘‘To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.’’

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— George Mason

Conf1rm3d_K1ll that’s exactly what I thought when I read it. I still do, but I was wondering if that was just because im an american. I mean this country is not that old and we follow the teachings of our founding fathers who were revolutionaries They where worried about oppressive forces sneaking into government and enslaving us so they gave us the ability to rise up against it, if that ever happened.

I also agree with you th3>klutz, in fact ill go as far as to say that an armed society is a polite society, people even drive more friendly in an "armed" area. But why does that only seem to be true here?