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Glenn Reynolds is published in the New York Times. Subject: gun laws. Sensible gun laws.
In a word, Dan- NO.
There are no votes in freeing up gun laws in Oz and there are a million screaming moonbats who think that anyone owning a pea rifle is a potential mass murderer. Political suicide.
I give it ten years before private (legal) ownership of firearms is either totally outlawed or made so onerous as to make it almost impossible for Joe Public.
Naturally, this will not inconvenience the Men of No Appearance who will continue to brandish their illegal/stolen guns outside the Presbyterian Church during the Friday seething session.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 01 16 at 09:51 AM • permalinkA good article. And a good point. Laws encouraging or requiring private gun ownership are a signal to criminals: don’t screw with this community!
We need more such laws.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 16 at 10:33 AM • permalink#4, don’t you know that among the Lefties Port Arthur was planned so that John Howard could convince the States to introduce gun laws?
Ash_
You’ll probably find that the “Howard Ordered the Port Arthur Massacre to Disarm Us” theory emanates from the extreme right. Leftoids picked up on it because it fits their litany that Howard is the devil incarnate. Another case of Blair’s Law in action.
I disagree with Howard on many issues. The most serious one being gun control laws.
Come to one of our dozens of annual gun shows in a big old exhibition hall here in Texas: Thousands of handguns, rifles, and shotguns, and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition covering a couple of indoor acres, constantly looked over and handled by thousands of unlicensed, unofficial people.
You’ll never see more politeness on display in your whole life.
There’s never been anything like a hostile shooting at one of these. I can’t even remember any accidents.
So many guns, so little danger.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2007 01 16 at 11:53 AM • permalinkIn follow-up:
I just read about Port Arthur here. It appears none of the man’s victims were armed.
He would’ve gotten some of us in similar-type locations in Dallas, but likely not many before a peaceably armed citizen took him down. Gov. Bush signed a concealed-handgun law in 1995 to make that outcome possible, in response to this tragedy.
How does that argument for stricter gun control go, again?
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2007 01 16 at 12:33 PM • permalinkReynold’s piece will doubtlessly result in many a wet undergarment on the upper West Side this morning.
I don’t know what advice to give our Aussie friends regarding their problem of creeping gun-grabberism. The only effective answer I have ever heard is very old and cannot be improved upon: “Molon Labe”.
Tim Lambert is over at Ace of Spades telling the benighted Americans how foolish they are.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 16 at 03:13 PM • permalink#10, Rittenhouse, your second link was flummoxed. Here’s the correct Luby’s massacre link.
I used to think gun-control restricting ownership was a good idea, but the ensuing years and compilation of facts have changed my mind. I believe wholeheartedly that an armed society is a polite society, and the dropping gun-related crime statistics in the US seem to bear that out.
Sensible Gun Laws?
A great idea once you’ve located some sensible Politicians and Police!
Until then there is no such thing as Sensible Gun Laws!
That’s where Australia started in the 1930’s with Handguns and the 1950’s with long-arms.
Look where the hell we are now!
I don’t know why people get so uptight about the concept of No Gun Laws.
The worst elements of society are armed to the teeth right now!
What difference will having No Gun Laws make?
Rebecca, Rittenhouse, here’s the right one. (I think.)
Posted by ElectronPower on 2007 01 16 at 04:40 PM • permalinkWikipedia moves stuff around without warning. Thanks, everyone, for trying with the links.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2007 01 16 at 04:54 PM • permalinkGun Laws
No Political traction in Australia?
No Liberal State Government in power during 1996 is still in power. Nor do the Libs look like winning a state election anytime soon.
This will not change within the next 10 years unless they say a big SORRY and REVERSE what they did. (Largest private property confiscation in the Western World).
This would get the moonbats shrieking. However in the privacy of polling booths mainstream Australia would take a different view.
The National Party is almost dead. That’s what you get when you start yelling at your heartland and telling them to get with the program (Tim Fischer).
Barnaby Joyce openly says that the 1996 Laws were the worst thing that happened to the Nats and that they should never have supported them.
If Federal Labour weren’t such a bunch of nut-jobs then JWH would be out on his arse in the blinking of an eye.
From what I’ve observed many voters want to have their cake and eat it to. They want to pay back the Libs but they don’t want to screw the country at the same time.
At some stage circumstances will be right to do this. Of all the Political issues this one will have a Political memory not of years or decades but GENERATIONS.
There will definitely be Political consequences for 1996 & 1992, but only when the time is right.
When it is right, the Libs will be scratching their heads trying to work what went wrong, trying to work out what the Nats already know.
I know what happens. If you use this:
{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luby’s massacre}
(without the {} brackets) in your browser, you’ll get there. Don’t copy and paste, it won’t work! You must type it yourself. If you use the %$#@*&^ link, it somehow mangles the url.Posted by ElectronPower on 2007 01 16 at 05:09 PM • permalinkOnce again, gun laws are not and never will be the issue in Australia until its citizens are given clarity on the right of self defence. As it is today if you use a baseball bat to defend yourself you are likely to be charged with a criminal offense yet ownership of baseball bats is not illegal. Australian governments continue to insist that only they have the right to defend you, despite the evidence and body count to the contrary. Would that young boy in Griffith have been beaten to death if the had a. the right to self defense and b. a gun? I don’t think so.
#24 triticale
What? Lambert cherry-picked a couple of (contextually speaking) isolated incidents and uses those to build a hypothesis, judging the whole? Hmmm. Really? Sounds like another field where he likes to indulge in that tactic . . . could it be . . .
. . . not Glowball Warmening???
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 16 at 07:32 PM • permalinkWe had an attempted break-in last May, at 4:30 a.m. - and we were at home. I remain convinced that the reason the perpetrators didn’t come on into the house is that they were looking through the window from the front porch and saw my husband standing amid the broken glass with a 12-gauge shotgun in his hand.
I cannot imagine being prohibited by law from defending my family and my home.
That pesky bunch of bad links are trouble. I found a reasonable explanation of the Waco Luby’s Massacre via Dogpile Search at Answers dot com. Google should yield similar, but that’s on you, as I refused to use Google (China censorship work).
Gerry
“Guns don’t kill people” - Yes they do. That’s why they’re so useful. They are also excellent for vermin control and celebrating hangings of dictators.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 16 at 08:37 PM • permalinkIt’s notable that the biggest casualty tally in Texas wasn’t Lubys, but in Waco*, mostly at the hands of the federal department charged with firearm control.
*And yes, I know the BDs were crazier than the brain flukes swimming around the hypocanthus of Taj Bin al Hilaly, but it’s notable that this organisation, on the orders of a left/liberal Attorney General managed to bump off 3 times as many individuals as the fruitcake in Killeen, while trying to disarm them.
Anyone can get a gun in Australia if they really want one (just not legally). We have three on our boat, all unlicensed because my husband is a Vietnam Vet on the usual medication that VVs take and therefore cannot pass the psychological test for licensing (besides, one of the guns is way illegal in Oz and would never be permitted in any circumstance). We need these guns because we sail a lot in international waters to the north of Australia where pirates are a problem. We obtained the arms easily through a pawnbroker acquaintance for the correct amount of cash.
I cannot imagine being prohibited by law from defending my family and my home. - texasred
I seem to remember two things from my Criminal Law class. First, if someone tries to get into your house, you are not allowed to use deadly force unless they’ve actually entered the house with the exception of one state: Texas. If they’ve cross your premises with intent to harm or steal, you can shoot away.
Second, if you have a reasonable belief that someone is trying to seriously harm or kill you, you cannot use preemptive aggression against that person with the exception of one state: Texas. You can go and kick that mother’s ass.
Evidently, one should never mess with anyone in Texas.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 16 at 09:51 PM • permalink#31 mareeS. Please, for your own wellbeing, never mention that again.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 01 16 at 10:16 PM • permalinkBut criminals are likely to suspect that towns with laws like these on the books will be unsympathetic to malefactors in general, and to conclude that they will do better elsewhere.
In that case, it works until almost all towns have those laws. (I’m a fan of evolution, and BTW stop abusing antibiotics. Routinely using them on cattle? Bloody stupid.)
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 01 16 at 10:28 PM • permalinkI’m proud to say that Kennesaw, Georgia is my home town. Sensible gun laws!!!
Posted by nofixedabode on 2007 01 16 at 10:40 PM • permalinkUntil then there is no such thing as Sensible Gun Laws!
Well, there was one: “...the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.”
RebeccaH—Bad advice, any competent forensio investigation will reveal that was done.
Oh, and god forbid you ever do have to shoot someone in your own defense, because now you’re on record as having been taught to alter evidence.
People, there is some shit you don’t want to say on the internet. OKAY?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 17 at 12:16 AM • permalink#40 Couldn’t agree more. Although the fact that US citizens have a right to carry guns does not, in itself reduce crime (this is not an argument against them). If you are intelligent and you have a gun and take proper precautions about safety and you know your legal rights in your jurisdiction regarding their use, more power to you.
In Australia and the UK to all intents owning a gun is possible but difficult as their is a presumption by the police that you are a risk and you will be subject to a certain amount of harrasment (from personal experience). Here most personal injury is carried out either randomly ie by gangs or drunks late at night, or by “people of no description” who mostly kill each other or the most lethal of all, domestic violence.
In most of these cases having a gun present, even if allowed is problematical I mean do you take a gun to a pub? Police are no help as they are in the business of arriving after the fact. Studying the risk factors is a big part of a peaceful life. How much do you want to be at a pub when it closes? How important is it to walk around by yourself at night in a risk area? Lots of things can be done and these should be passed on to your kids.
#33, most boaties who sail in international waters own firearms. Most professional fishermen also. We keep ours well-secured in an un-obvious hull space that is still readily accessible. We never bring them ashore. The fact remains, life at sea is different to life on land because out there you can’t phone the police. Firepower makes all the difference.
#24:
Tim Lambert is all over the place picking the same nit. Of course, if, instead of looking at two tiny communities, he looked at was happened to big cities and entire nations when they impose victim disarmament, the outcome wouldn’t be so uncertain.
Pretty much his MO from talk.politics.guns.
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2007 01 17 at 11:07 AM • permalinkRebeccaH, my dad gave us the same advice - on the prairies of Montana & Alberta, where armed society was the norm. Ditto, he wasn’t terribly seriously worried about us actually having to do so. Thugs preferred the suckers in the cities.
I was looking into Second Amendment Sisters…wallet’s kinda thin these days, but it’s on my list, anyway.
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It would seem that reducing gun laws is akin to lowering speed limits - any government that has the balls to attempt it, will be confronted with opponents demanding they Think of the Children.
Can anyone see a reasonable scenario where Australian gun laws might be rolled back to a reasonable level where it’s not just the criminals who have them at home?