Interesting. That is a measure far beyond anything almost any advocate of gun control has eve even imagined in America, where the debate focuses around handguns and assault rifles.
I wonder -- I have no idea -- if there existed in Australia the depth of feeling that many USers have in their attachment to their arms.
It's difficult to convey to an outsider, but you get some sense of it when the Prez, responding to a massacre inflicted with handguns, feels it necessary, desirable, politic, wise, not-to-insensitive, to begin his remarks by stating that OF COURSE he supports the right but bear arms, BUT we all join in mourning this terrible tragedy.
Or in the slogan, widely promulgated in the popular bumper sticker, "They'll take my gun away when they pry it out of my cold, dead fingers." Or even in the heat of the rhetoric on this list about "whining liberals" or "ranting anti-gun zealots."
Or on this list, where you will find a good deal less sympathy to guns and the kind of politics that _normally_ accompany them -- right wing to far right wing -- than in most places, this again in the context of responding to a massacre. And which these comments of mine will draw, even though I haven't stated a position on gun control, and in fact regard it, although with less enthusiasm than Chuck, as a lost cause in the US, one that only stirs up far-right voters who might otherwise stay quiet.
So, anyway, your remarks interest me. How attached were Australians to their guns, how was this measure enacted and enforced, what was its reception? Please tell us the history.
--- Bill Bartlett <billbartlett at aapt.net.au> wrote:
> At 9:16 PM -0500 17/4/07, Chuck wrote:
>
> > I'm not talking about the "right"
> >to bear arms, I'm talking about the practicality of
> banning guns in a
> >society where many people own guns. It ain't going
> to happen
>
> It happened here in Australia. Self-loading shotguns
> and rifles (even
> down to pump-action shotguns and .22 calibre
> semi-auto rabbit
> rifles) were banned. A lot of people had them, but
> they were banned
> and the existing ones were destroyed. Not 100% of
> them of course, but
> I would say 99.95% of them were collected and
> destroyed. It can be
> done. You are simply wrong about it being
> impossible.
>
> Bill Bartlett
> Brackell Tas
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com