i live in australia and if you think tightening gun laws will help your mistaken?

Question

we had a massacre in tasmania about 11 years ago where i think 36 people were killed. gun laws were dramatically changed. did it make a difference. no. just made the crimonal gange richer by selling underground.

Answer 1

no it wont just like what she said "NO! All that does is take the guns out of the hands of the law abiding citizens. If someone wants to get a gun, they will. Like you said, all it does is increase the illegal sale of weapons."

Answer 2

So everone is saying gun laws are useless and don't work, because criminals still get their hands on guns, this may be true, so what do we do? Do we just throw our hands up and say 'you win criminals' and then allow guns to be brought at any Coles or Woolworths!

No! because if a thug is walking down the street with a gun and police have a suspicion about that person, least with tight gun laws that thug would be taken off the street and charged, whereas with no gun laws that thug would be allowed to procede, and the police could not take their gun away from them.

It is not citizens responsibility to protect themselves it is the governments. So by no means should anyone carry a gun on themselves, or any weapon for that matter! Because during the heat of an argument a gun would seem quite useful, and this is the time when people are not rational, so taking away as much guns as possible will do something.

Answer 3

I also live in Australia and my household was one of those that had a couple of firearms, the males in the family were not impressed.
But the fact is there are fewer gun related incidents since the restrictions on firearms.
Yes criminals will always get what they want but here if they one and they are caught they are off the street. it also stops the impulse buying and going out to shoot someone.

As for the Australian constitution not saying anything about the right to have a gun there has been a lot of debate about that over the years. WW1 a lot of soldiers took their own firearms with them.
So I agree we are better off with Gun control. And yes you can knock me bag me but it is my democratic right to be able to voice my opinion. the same as it is yours if you do not believe in gun control.

Answer 4

I do not own a gun, but here is food for your thoughts:
I used to live in Switzerland.

Switzerland does not have military conscription, but "worse" their's is a militia army: Translation, every male Swiss citizen must serve a few weeks in the military, every year. There is also an obligation to keep physically fit. If you cannot fulfill that duty --for whatever reason-- then you pay a penalty tax.
In addition, there is also an obligation to maintain your sharp-shooter/ gun control skills. Translation, you must go to the range with your personal assault rifle every few weeks or so and prove those skills. Every male Swiss citizen keeps that assault rifle and a few rounds of ammunition at home.
If you are an officer in the Swiss Army, you must also have a hand-gun, again at home.

As they say, "it is not the guns, but people who do the killing". Less facetiously, the Swiss social fabric and family structures are apparently such that catastrophes do not happen often.

Answer 5

Absoloute nonsense the Australian figure is sooo often misquouted by the American lobby movement. i live in both countries (because of my parents) and let me make one thing clear australia's per capita murder rate is around the same rate as the Northern European countries. Also australians never had or never will have a constituniol right to bear arms it simply is not part of the culture there as it is in the USA and even before the handback gun ownership was never a common occurence as in the states and restrictions were in place even then.

Answer 6

I belong to the NRA here in America and their monthly magazine gives updates on countries like yours that thinks gun control will keep guns out of the hands of criminals. And country after country who tried this just shows what a failure gun control is. Australia, England, Japan, right here in America and the list goes on. Funny how no body brings up Sweden where EVERY male goes into the military, trains to be a solider and then goes home WITH HIS WEAPON. I mean here's a country were people have fully auto weapons, grenade launchers and so on yet has the LOWEST crime rate in the world. Maybe the low rate is due to the fact no criminal will try anything stupid. And you are correct about making criminals richer. Guns can always be gotten, legally or illegally and a black market will always be there. Look how well prohibition worked in the USA. It caused the crime rate to sky rocket, organized crime was firmly established and you could still get a drink when you wanted. Ban booze, ban guns, ban drugs, ban prostitution, ban rape, and so on and so on. Only a fool will believe banning something works.

Answer 7

What do you mean it didn't make a difference? Australia currently has less than 300 gun-related deaths each year, and the number of deaths each year has *halved* since the Port Arthur Massacre and the tightening of gun laws. Here are the statistics:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/02/1072908906612.html

If the number of gun-related deaths has *halved* since the imposition of tighter gun controls, I would hardly say that that's no difference! And there hasn't been another incident in Australia like that since those gun laws were tightened... but there have been several, including Colombine, in the USA, in the last few years.

Answer 8

I could not agree more... All the legislation is nothing more than grandstanding, and makes no difference what-so-ever to a would-be criminal... Toughening up gun laws will only make the black market richer... while, at the same time, disarming upright citizens who only would consider gun use as a last resort method to protect themselves and their property... This event is truly tragic, but in the end, it is always a person committing the deed, whether it was done with a knife, gun, or rock, is irrelevant.....Guns are nothing more than tools, no better or worse than the people who choose to wield them...

Answer 9

I agree. Here in the States, we have a constitutional right to bear arms. With rights also belong responsibilities. To bear arms, you must use them and own them responsibly.

I don't believe gun control laws do anything except make law-abiding citizes jump through hoops to exercise their rights. It does not do anything for the criminals who carry weapons. If you are a motivated criminal, you will have a gun or a weapon regardless of the law. Criminals don't abide by laws. And guns do not kill. People kill. The gun is only an instrument by which to kill and there are many instruments that you can kill with--guns, knives, bare hands, bombs, the list goes on.

Answer 10

Bollex, theres over twenty two thousand death's a year by gun shot in the usa. Tighter law over there would make a huge diffence but in Australia theres practicly no guns at all, i think that make a humungus differnce over here compared to over there by about 22000 deaths!