>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.
Australian gun control didn't really do much about hand guns, which were already tightly restricted. Or at least that was the perception, never taken much notice of hand-guns myself, can't think of much use for them. Anything I might want to kill with a hand-gun I can just as easily cut its throat, and with less mess.
They are talking about hand-guns again now, after this latest overseas massacre. But there has been talk before without much action. They'll probably decide to let sleeping dogs lie, until there's a serious incident.
>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.
In a different way. Some people are very into hunting and shooting and they never forgave Howard for taking away their favourite shotguns especially. But of course these are country people, who don't really count much in an urban country like Australia.
In the US, there seems to be this bizarre idea of the firearm as a defensive weapon. This isn't really regarded as a legitimate notion here, because of course shooting someone who is raiding your chook-pen is usually not regarded as a legitimate thing to do. Whereas Yanks seem to be surprised that anyone could object to blowing out the brains of a person who tries to rob them.
In summary, Americans want firearms to shoot people with. Australians don't really think of that particular purpose as a legitimate one. In fact, John Howard's new gun laws encoded that in the statutes, you now have to have a legitimate stated reason to own a firearm and self-defense is explicitly set out to *not* be a legitimate purpose. Don't bother to apply on that basis.
Yanks seem, from what I can understand, to have a completely different way of thinking about that. Blowing someone's brains out is as American as Apple Pie.
>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.
You should get yourself someone like John Howard (In fact we're about finished with him, we would be happy to lend him to you) who is anal-retentive pig headed and willing to bully everyone into accepting his way of thinking.
>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."
Even the pro-gun zealots here have no sympathy for people who want to own assault rifles. Because the pro gun zealots are mostly people who like to hunt and use guns for sport. Assault weapons are useless for that and so anyone who wants to own that sort of toy is universally regarded as some kind of nut, possibly a dangerous nut.
>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.
Well, it would have been regarded as a lost cause in Australia before the Port Arthur Massacre too.
Some jurisdictions like Tasmania and Queensland didn't even require licences for rifles.
But public opinion was easily turned around by a determined zealot like John Howard. (You sure we can't tempt you to adopt him?) ;-)
>
>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.
Well those of us who own guns are very attached to them. The reception to John Howard's restrictive gun laws was extremely hostile from us, mainly because (as you might expect of a narrow-minded suburban zealot) he went way over the top. But we didn't really count for much electorally because we are a minority. And, because most people with guns are authoritarian personalities, ie instinctively obedient to authority, they did as the new law commanded and handed over their newly banned weapons to the authorities rather than burying them.
Mind you, buried weapons can be regarded as just as safe as officially confiscated weapons anyhow. As long as they stay in the ground. There were a few old codgers, like my Queensland father-in-law who refused to hide them or hand them over, but they are a dying breed.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas