>If the guns pose no threat to would-be tyrants, why would they need to take them away?
because they pose plenty of threat to each other, which was in fact one of the reasons for the biggest change in modern Australian history, the Port Arthur massacre[1]
Australia, like many other nations does not have the same tolerance that the US has when it comes to violence.
2A was intended to allow the populace to keep government in check. In the age of muskets that was probably good thinking, but try that now and see what happens.
> How big a massacre would it take before a gun control law would be carried by a majority in the US?
A majority already does but they don't really care, whereas the NRA has a relatively small numbers of highly motivated people to push against gun control bills (I believe John Oliver made that exact point recently).
The US have already got bigger massacres than the already mentioned Dunblane (18 deaths 15 injured, 1996), or Port Arthur (35 deaths 25 injured, 1996) which resulted in significant gun control increase in the UK[0] and Australia[1] respectively.
> Other countries have NOT figured out gun control, as the recent fall of Hong Kong and imprisonment of the entire continent of Australia have illustrated.
Australia, imprisoned? Because of our gun laws?
I have access to four different shooting ranges within twenty minutes travel, and my friends go hunting every other weekend. How exactly are we imprisoned?
> Good thing those folks in Australia have retained the ability to fight their govt via the right to bear arms.... right ?
Why would violence be an appropriate response by Australians to disagreements with their country's laws?
For that matter, given how many Americans disagree with their own country's governance, shouldn't the Tree of Liberty be soaked in the blood of tyrants and patriots by now?
Or is the 2A crowd just too busy shooting at schools, mosques and watermelons to fit it into their agenda?
> all the proof one needs that tighter gun laws make for a safer place.
You can look at Australia in 1997 for good proof of this.
They banned most guns in 97, almost doubled police per capita, and crime fell. Less guns, less crime, there are definitely no examples where that is not true. Done. Proven. Full stop. Do not continue reading.
Please pay no attention that during 97 crime had already been falling in Australia. That crime also dropped in the USA over the same time period but by a greater rate with no exceptional increase in police per capita. All this despite record gun sales in the USA.
> repeatedly called for Australian-style gun buybacks, which were mandatory, which are the same as confiscation.
They were mandatory, however gun owners with reasonable reasons (i.e. hunting, sport, recreation) were free to acquire a license to keep their guns (excluding military style weapons). You can currently acquire a semi-automatic rifle (under 10 rounds) with the proper licenses and reasons (farm worker, sport etc.)[1]
- There were no repercussions for illegal guns being handed in (someone handed in a rocket launcher).
- There were no laws preventing someone acquiring a license to keep their gun if they wanted (within the laws which were introduced).
- No police invaded homes to take weapons by force during the amnesty.
Australia's gun-amnesties/buybacks were not the same as confiscation.
SIGH. This isn't true and I wish Americans would stop saying it. You can own guns down here, even keep them in your house. Sure, you're limited to bolt actions/side by sides, etc; but there is a healthy shooting community down here. For instance, I've got a mate who owns 7 rifles, the largest of which is a .338 Lapua.
What Australia did was break the 'gun culture' down here and ban semi-autos, pump actions, etc. And let's be honest, I'd take that over the 18 million ARs in circulation in the USA every day of the week. Not having semi-autos is preferable to daily shootings in the community.
> Today they have far more guns now than before the ban.
Technically true but per [0], the proportion of households with guns dropped from 20% to 6.2% and the number of licensed gun owners has dropped from 14.27% to 3.41%.
So yes, there are more guns but there are fewer people with guns.
> Australia and USA have so many differences that any comparisons are moot. It saddens me to see people trying to compare what happens on that island to what is going on in the states.
The US is different but not a special snowflake. The US is not Australia. The US is not the UK. The US is not Germany. The US is not..... The same reasoning means no country can learn from any other country unless they are virtually identical.
But how about Canada? Being similar to the US in many ways, why are their rates of gun violence much lower comparatively?
> I understand there may be less guns there, but from the stories I've seen about violence at bars in parts of Australia leading the gov to shut down parts of the cities earlier just shows that the strong violent abusive people are comfortable engaging in criminal behaviors including assaults and battery, they are not being controlled by gun laws.
And they have much fewer guns to use when acting on impulses, limiting the amount of harm they can cause. Do you think America is less violent? Remember when a single person killed 59 people and wounded 500+ more from a hotel room?
> 'Mass killings are as inevitable as lightning deaths..'
Not so.
The New York Times has referred to Australia's gun laws as a "road map" for the US, saying that "in the 18 years before the law, Australia suffered 13 mass shootings - but not one in the 14 years after the law took full effect."
> Oh, are you going to cite Australia? They collected a laughably small amount of guns from the population during their gun ban.
Gun ban?
In Australia?
That's news to me and I've lived here since 1960 and currently live next door to my father who's been here since 1935.
I'm guessing you're referring to the time when Australian Gun Laws were made uniform across the entire country .. and Queensland and Tasmania were pulled into line with other states.
Now, as before, 12 year olds can join gun clubs in Australia, and they can buy their own guns when they reach maturity - the onerous requirements to own a gun here are not dissimnilar to those required for a drivers licence or to handle poisionous or explosive materials.
Regulation works, you see from the number of mass shootings in Australia since we introduced uniform regulation, in twenty+ years we've had fewer than you can count on one had .. somewhat less than the 50+ the USofA has had in January 2023.
I agree that making guns harder to acquire doesn't stop crime - that's a foolish notion.
But it absolutely reduces gun crime by a significant degree.
For your entertainment, here's my actual real life neighbour in the West Australian wheatbelt doing his annual 5,000 yard shooting exercise.
It's worth a look for the flight path drone footage.
> If fewer guns is really not the answer, then how many guns do you think you'll need to eradicate gun violence?
Even Europe with its in my humble opinion draconian gun control has not eradicated gun violence.
If gun control is the answer, why is it failing Brazil? They are actually considering making their gun laws more in line with ours. [1] They have a violence problem that is very likely a glimpse into the future of an America with European or Australian-style gun control.
The guns are not committing acts of violence, the people pulling their triggers are. To solve the gun violence problem, we need to understand why people desire to commit an act of violence.
Australia has had zero (0) gun massacres since Port Arthur. The major leading cause of gun deaths in Australia is suicide, around 300 per year from among the ~750k gun owners in this country.
I agree that totalitarian governments have been the leading cause of death in the 20th century. But it's an orthogonal point. Look around: guns do not prevent tyranny. Neither do high explosives. What counts is institutions. The United States inherited a set of institutions (cultural norms, the rule of law) from the British that went a long way to assuring economic success and a culture of freedom.
So did Australia. Our freedom has never been guaranteed by the kind of constitutional mechanisms the USA has; it has always been reliant on culture and history. The freedom of the people of the United Kingdom is not guaranteed by any written constitution; it is reliant on culture and history. And so on and so forth. Widespread gun ownership does not banish shitty governments (ask a Saudi).
We are not going to agree, and nothing I say will change your mind. Please feel free to leave another triumphal remark below this one and let's both get on with our lives.
> It seems like a regrettable situation where your distrust of your fellow citizens
It is other way around. People who want gun bans do not trust the fellow citizens and hence want to restrict their freedom of owning firearms. Gun lovers on other hand are some of the nicest people around, we want everyone women, lgbtq, blacks, whites, asians and everyone to own firearms and we trust them to be responsible for it.
Pride part :
1. I come from a long line of fighters. Weapons are part of our lifestyle and no government or law can stop my family from being armed. (Though we will always obey law).
2. Guns are a symbol of individual freedom. There is an inherent responsibility to protect one and their private property and community. I will not hesitate to use violence to fight a tyranny.
Australia is practically under house arrest today and we see articles like :
>I doubt that anyone in Congress would have the courage to do what Australia did.
I doubt anyone in Congress has such disrespect for the values many Americans hold in regard to firearms, and the validity many Americans still find in the 2nd amendment.
> I live in a country where having guns is naughty
I'm guessing Australia and if so I'd amend that to mention that you're living in country where guns are regulated and licenced, where 12 year olds can join a pistol club, where a firing system capable of 1 million rounds per minute was invented [1], and where my next neighbour shoots 24x24 inch targets at 5,000 yards (five thousand yards) [2].
Guns don't shoot people, naughty people shoot people (and thus should be treated as drunk drivers are treated and prevented from operating a gun or a vehicle).
> Political power grows out the barrel of a gun, all power does.
I disagree. That sounds more like a military junta than a government.
> If you have 2 groups of people, one group armed and one unarmed, which one is in charge?
Insufficient information.
The members of government are, by and large, unarmed - and certainly unarmed when in Canberra. Our defence forces have a whole bunch of firearms, yet answers to and obeys the lawful orders of the government.
because they pose plenty of threat to each other, which was in fact one of the reasons for the biggest change in modern Australian history, the Port Arthur massacre[1]
Australia, like many other nations does not have the same tolerance that the US has when it comes to violence.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australi...
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