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Australians give up 51,000 illegal guns as govt stands by tough laws

chadskin

Member
Australians turned in 51,000 illegal firearms, ranging from 19th-century weapons to a rocket launcher, during a three-month amnesty that ended on Friday, and which Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said had helped avert Las Vegas-style mass shootings.

The cache, representing about a fifth of illegal firearms, was collected during Australia’s second amnesty since its worst ever massacre, when a lone gunman killed 35 people in the island state of Tasmania in 1996.

There has not been a mass shooting since the then conservative government banned all semi-automatic rifles and semi-automatic shotguns that year, and introduced tougher background checks on gun purchases.

The firearms gathered in this year’s amnesty will be destroyed. Those who still own such guns face jail time, and the government is pushing for harsher penalties for gun traffickers.

“Every single one of those 51,000 guns could be used, could have been used in a crime where Australians could be killed - now they can‘t,” Turnbull told reporters in Sydney.

“The killer there had a collection of semi-automatic weapons which a person in his position would simply not be able to acquire in Australia,” he added.

Turnbull was referring to the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, when Stephen Paddock, 64, armed with numerous assault rifles, fired this week on an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and himself.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ns-as-govt-stands-by-tough-laws-idUSKBN1CB06I

Now about those deadly animals...
 

Rmagnus

Banned
Sigh what have they done. The only way to stop a mad man with a gun is a good man with a gun. How will they hunt! What about when I wanna to go to range and practise?
 

Majine

Banned
Australias wildlife:

3eNbZ.gif
 

elyetis

Member
Time to re re re rewatch John Oliver's Australia & Gun Control's Aftermath & Gun Control & Political Suicide.
 
Yo whattttt?

Good on the dude for rescuing his dog. Gotta admit though punching the Kangaroo may not have been smart or necessary. Kind of like the way as soon as he does both him and the Kangaroo look at each other as if to say "did you really just fucking do that?".

Like you can almost see the guy mentally saying to himself well this wasn't exactly clever.
 

Wilsongt

Member
They have deadly animals because they don't have guns to shoot them, obviously.

Winky face. Slash s. End sarcasm.
 
something something US politician saying there's no evidence that gun laws work something
This depends on which lens you view this through: Australia in a vacuum or compared to the rest of the world. The homicide rate worldwide in civilized countries dropped about the same rate as Australia's did after the gun ban, guns allowed or not.

Vacuum:
It works.

The whole:
Society changed.

I'm all for more regulations and bans on specific items but you can't view every instance in a vacuum, you'll miss a lot this way. 2 huge problems in the US are lack of proper healthcare as a pre-screening tool and no national registration. Proper healthcare, especially for the mentally ill can prevent folks with clean records from buying weapons who are a danger to themselves and others. Proper registration would cut down on straw purchases and illegal gun trades. Those two alone would make a difference, as a start. I'd like to see a lot more than that but those are two big ones.

Just my .02
 
Proper healthcare, especially for the mentally ill can prevent folks with clean records from buying weapons who are a danger to themselves and others.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/

Four assumptions frequently arise in the aftermath of mass shootings in the United States: (1) that mental illness causes gun violence, (2) that psychiatric diagnosis can predict gun crime, (3) that shootings represent the deranged acts of mentally ill loners, and (4) that gun control “won’t prevent” another Newtown (Connecticut school mass shooting). Each of these statements is certainly true in particular instances. Yet, as we show, notions of mental illness that emerge in relation to mass shootings frequently reflect larger cultural stereotypes and anxieties about matters such as race/ethnicity, social class, and politics. These issues become obscured when mass shootings come to stand in for all gun crime, and when “mentally ill” ceases to be a medical designation and becomes a sign of violent threat.
 
So you're saying people can never be found unfit to own a firearm?

You're also suggesting from the bolded I'm racist, sexist, bigoted, etc?

I have 2 family members with mental illness. It's not a copy/paste article for me. One of them functions 100% on the face, but has "snapped" with all sorts of wild actions and thoughts. Thought her house was bugged when the temp sensor on her water heater broke, claimed her neighbor was spying on her, that she was being watched by "figures", etc. No prior outward signs.

How about you type what you are alluding to in your own words.
 

Dingens

Member
You know... if the US can't ban guns due to their preacious 2nd ammendment, then why not just ban ammunition?
People may stock up on it, but they will run out eventually + the thought of running out may even make them think twice if they want to "waste" a bullet to shoot some neighbourhood kid in the back.

In short, let them have their guns, just take their bullets
 
You know... if the US can't ban guns due to their preacious 2nd ammendment, then why not just ban ammunition?
People may stock up on it, but they will run out eventually + the thought of running out may even make them think twice if they want to "waste" a bullet to shoot some neighbourhood kid in the back.

In short, let them have their guns, just take their bullets

We can make changes to the constitution, it was even recommended that we do so as society changed. The right just has a selective memory and it's convenient to hide behind it when really they just want to protect their financial interests and re-election chances because the NRA will run a smear campaign against them and turn their base away if they agree to gun control. That's why even modest gun control laws have always failed.
 

Fledz

Member
You know... if the US can't ban guns due to their preacious 2nd ammendment, then why not just ban ammunition?
People may stock up on it, but they will run out eventually + the thought of running out may even make them think twice if they want to "waste" a bullet to shoot some neighbourhood kid in the back.

In short, let them have their guns, just take their bullets

Or you know, create another amendment? Maybe amend the current amendment? I wasn't aware that constitutions weren't allowed to be touched.
 
Or you know, create another amendment? Maybe amend the current amendment? I wasn't aware that constitutions weren't allowed to be touched.

The older a often-used document gets, the harder it becomes to convince anyone to change it in any way.
Look at the bible.
The first two amendments are already on their way to being treated like the work and word of God.
 

Mohonky

Member
Just so you guys understand this;

There are actually MORE guns in Australia now, than when Port Arthur occurred which was when we went from 'everyone has a right to a gun' to 'you don't have a right to a gun and more so we will decide which guns you can have'.

Because people get confused by the whole 'Australia banned guns therefore only criminals have guns' bullshit. Between sport shooting, hunting and farmers we do in fact have more guns, we just have more stringent controls on checks, honus of owners to show they have a legitimate use for (I need to protect mah freedoms isnt a legitimate reason, sorry) and safe storage and discipline of ownership of guns.

The amnesty are more for people who have guns but no use for / unregistered or its a gun that cannot be registered because it would be illegal. Its part a buy back for some weapons and a 'no consequences' for turning in a weapon that has long been prohibited, or both.
 

Garlador

Member
Or you know, create another amendment? Maybe amend the current amendment? I wasn't aware that constitutions weren't allowed to be touched.

The last time we passed an amendment was over 25 years ago.

We used to do it so much more frequently.
 
We have our own problems sure but yeah, the Simpsons taking the piss out of us was frankly hubris.

I rewatched a bunch of old Simpsons epispdes, and boy, they are hilarious in their portrayal of the US.
Watch the episode where Lisa writes a speech about the US and how great they are. After being disillusioned initially, the whole moral is "the US are awesome".
 

-Stranger-

Junior Member
Port Arthur happened when i was a kid.
The killer was mentally ill and just strolled in an bought weapons.

martin-bryant_ct300x300.jpg


I'm glad they were banned.
There is just no need for majority of civillians to have guns.
 

mnannola

Member
I just can't see this working in the US. Hell you could probably find 50,000 guns in a small Texas town. How would you get people to comply with giving up their guns? No one even knows who has guns, or how many they have. Would it require police / ATF agents to go through everyones house and search for firearms?

I'm all for stricter gun laws, just not sure how something like a firearm ban would actually work.
 

RMI

Banned
I'm all for stricter gun laws, just not sure how something like a firearm ban would actually work.

offer the buyback for a period of time, and then criminalize possession of unlawful firearms after the amnesty period. There is no expectation that every gun must be off the street. Criminalizing other things (drugs, child pornography, whatever else) didn't immediately cause those things to vanish from society, but nobody stopped and said "you'll never get rid of ALL the kiddie porn so WHY EVEN BOTHER?"
 

Madness

Member
I just can't see this working in the US. Hell you could probably find 50,000 guns in a small Texas town. How would you get people to comply with giving up their guns? No one even knows who has guns, or how many they have. Would it require police / ATF agents to go through everyones house and search for firearms?

I'm all for stricter gun laws, just not sure how something like a firearm ban would actually work.

Yep. Gun control will never work in the country that exports more guns than any other, that has the largest number of registered gun owners, where it is easier to buy a gun than get a credit card.

And you always have someone say it is their god given right to protect and feed their family and how they are responsible ans not criminals. Adam Lanza's mother was a legal gun owner. Stephen Paddock was a legal gun owner. The Wisconsin Sikh temple shooter talked about how he hated being blamed as a responsible gun owner. Everyone is a responsible gun owner until they aren't.

Murdered kids changed nothing in the US. Nothing will change again because they are so brainwashed by the culture of guns. Even people who don't own guns admit they'd like to have one.
 
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