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Old September 26, 2018, 02:18 PM   #1
DaleA
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LA Times says Australian Gun Control might not work in US

Here’s a link to the LA Times article.

http://www.latimes.com/science/scien...26-story.html#

The article quotes a study in the American Journal of Public Health written by Stuart Gilmore and some other folk working in Tokyo Japan.

The article points out that all the reductions in homicides and suicides in Australia might NOT be due to the Australian “National Firearms Agreement (NFA)”.

The Australian NFA banned the possession of automatic and semiautomatic firearms in all but “exceptional circumstances” and resulted in about 700,000 guns being turned in to the authorities.

While an acknowledgment that the Australian gun control program might NOT be the “silver bullet” that would solve America’s “gun violence problem” is a welcome breath of fresh air if you read to the bottom the article the authors of the study concludes that the US would need even MORE gun control than the Australian NFA.

Quote:
“It is imperative that this political moment … not be squandered on a law that will have limited impact,” they wrote. “To achieve real, sustained reductions in the majority of causes of firearm-related mortality, the United States needs a broader, more comprehensive range of gun control measures than those in the NFA.”
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Old September 26, 2018, 07:16 PM   #2
Bartholomew Roberts
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Confiscating 700,000 guns wouldn’t even get all the AR15s sold in the last year off the market. Not to mention that slight population difference. There is a big difference between passing a law and enforcing it - not that enforcing gun laws has ever been much of a priority.
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Old September 26, 2018, 07:31 PM   #3
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Deporting the illegal gang members, getting mental health care to those who need it, and keeping criminals in jail would go a long way to reducing gun crime a lot.
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Old September 26, 2018, 10:59 PM   #4
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If you look at the statistics the murder rate in the USA has declined by a higher percentage than that of Australia since their gun control laws. In fact murder rates throughout the world has declined since the mid-1990s.

Amazing stuff, that Aussie gun control!
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Old September 27, 2018, 12:09 AM   #5
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Since neither legal nor illegal gun owners are going to turn them in, what's the point? Most buy back programs get beat up old guns that probably aren't worth the bounty. I've got two I'd love to sell to some silly liberal politician.
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Old September 27, 2018, 07:25 AM   #6
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Re: Australian government's money-for-guns plan in 1997.

I’m happy to sell them my guns. At my price.

But the cost to each of you US Taxpayers personally will be financially significant.
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Old September 27, 2018, 07:53 AM   #7
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Since the US doesn't have registration at the national level, very few in Free States will have any impetus to turn in their guns. That is why the other side wants to get some form of national registration in place, starting with national background checks where data is kept and not supposedly purged like NICS.
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Old September 27, 2018, 08:27 AM   #8
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I am not interested in even listening about one new gun law, until the Hughs Amendment is repealed, until silencers are declassified, until the '89 import ban is repealed and until a new Federal law makes alll state and local gun laws which are more restrictive than the Federal laws Unconstitutional.
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Old September 27, 2018, 08:37 AM   #9
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Culture plays such a huge part in the efficacy of any law.
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Old September 27, 2018, 04:14 PM   #10
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Quote:
Culture plays such a huge part in the efficacy of any law.
Example: many of the Swiss have fully auto weapons in their home but it doesn't cause problems there.

BTW a gun control person explained the Swiss situation to me. It's true many Swiss have fully auto weapons in their homes but the AMMUNITION for the rifle is in a SEALED container. And the seal must NOT be broken except in case of a national emergency. (And this might be an example of why it is fruitless to argue with gun control folk.)
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Old September 27, 2018, 07:28 PM   #11
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Quote:
It's true many Swiss have fully auto weapons in their homes but the AMMUNITION for the rifle is in a SEALED container. And the seal must NOT be broken except in case of a national emergency.
Maybe SOME of the ammo is sealed for emergency use only, but not all of it is. I visited Switzerland in the 70s, and while I don't know with certainty what the practice is today, back then both the rifle and ammo were kept at home, and they were expected to be used a couple times a year in practice.

Didn't cause mass murder then, isn't causing it today.

Does your gun control friend actually think a seal on a container will prevent someone with murder as their intent?
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Old September 27, 2018, 08:34 PM   #12
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What I find hard to believe is that the Aussies went along with turning in their firearms!

Sadly, I'm willing to bet that at least 90% of Americans would do the same thing! That or they would turn in friends, family and neighbors!

If you don't think it happens, look at places where they have water conservation laws in effect. They have hotlines to turn people in that wash their cars, water their lawns...

Out of the remaining 10%, very few would resist and the others would try and hide their firearms. One day we are going to have another civil war in this country. When it's over the U.S. will no longer exist.
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Old September 27, 2018, 08:56 PM   #13
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It didn't work in Oz and it won't work here.
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Old September 28, 2018, 12:05 AM   #14
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Quote:
Does your gun control friend actually think a seal on a container [of ammunition] will prevent someone with murder as their intent?
They did think this. They said the seals on the ammunition containers were inspected on a regular bases. They said if the person broke the seal on the ammunition container they would be in big trouble with both the Swiss military and Swiss civilian legal system.

However, this was just one person and even I would not claim they were representative of the gun control movement. And of course you only have my recollection of this being said...there isn't hard evidence.
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Old September 28, 2018, 01:31 PM   #15
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I talked to a number of Australians due to work. In general, they thought our kind of gun ownership was for 'nutters'.

I also read quite a few Australian gun owners who thought the buy back was great as it allowed to get money from old guns to buy new bolt guns.

Last, the Australians defended gun ownership as being part of their chosen 'sport'. Males are supposed to have a sport and they argued you couldn't take their sport away. Didn't work.

That's why the Modern Sporting Rifle mantra is useless as a 2nd Amendment rationale.

As far as the Swiss and the rifles at home:

1. They have a low suicide rate with the guns but the new regs supposedly cut it down even lower. I have the study somewhere.

2. A Swiss friend of my daughter's found having the gun at home was pain the butt. So, while anecdotal, not all of them love having the gun.

3. Their low crime rate is due to demographics and economics and not because of folks running around with full auto bursts on crooks.
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Old September 28, 2018, 05:44 PM   #16
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Put me in a country with the right culture, and I will be willing to consider giving up most of my guns.

America will never be that country, although parts of it are not bad.

Last year I moved away from Miami. That place will always be dangerous, and many areas are only safe for certain ethnic groups (to which I don't belong). I now live in a part of Florida which doesn't have any real ghettos, so I never wonder if it's a bad idea to get out of the car, and I don't worry about going places at night. If I lived in Idaho or Maine, maybe I wouldn't carry at all.

I used to live in Eastern Kentucky, where white people from my own dysfunctional demographic had a tendency to shoot each other over trivial things. My second cousin emptied three guns into his brother over an inheritance. I would carry if I lived there now.

If I lived in Switzerland or Austria or Norway, just to name examples off the top of my head, I would feel pretty safe without guns.
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Old September 30, 2018, 06:17 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DaleA View Post
Example: many of the Swiss have fully auto weapons in their home but it doesn't cause problems there.

BTW a gun control person explained the Swiss situation to me. It's true many Swiss have fully auto weapons in their homes but the AMMUNITION for the rifle is in a SEALED container. And the seal must NOT be broken except in case of a national emergency. (And this might be an example of why it is fruitless to argue with gun control folk.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaleA View Post
They did think this. They said the seals on the ammunition containers were inspected on a regular bases. They said if the person broke the seal on the ammunition container they would be in big trouble with both the Swiss military and Swiss civilian legal system. . . .
I have some significant reservations about this gun control person’s claims. I’ve lived in Germany for a total of about 3 years, and traveled to Switzerland a few times. While I've never discussed this with anybody from Switzerland that I can recall (and my German probably isn't good enough to read the law properly), I have discussed this issue with Germans with whom I was traveling. (Most of whom were absolutely STUNNED by American gun laws and gun ownership, to be frank.) I’ve never heard it claimed that the Swiss had to keep their ammunition in a sealed container that was inspected regularly. I have heard that the Swiss were expected to maintain some proficiency with their rifles, but I don’t know (anything even close to) the exact legal contours of that.
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Old September 30, 2018, 11:43 AM   #18
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Australia was a penal colony, America was an experiment in personal freedom, what worked for one ain’t going to work for the other.


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Old October 1, 2018, 09:53 AM   #19
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Quote:
Australia was a penal colony, America was an experiment in personal freedom, what worked for one ain’t going to work for the other.
Here, we go to gun stores and we listen to firearms instructors. I wonder what self-defense classes are like in Australia.

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Old October 2, 2018, 12:53 PM   #20
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Quote:
I wonder what self-defense classes are like in Australia.
That would be "lob them upside the head with a bottle /can of Fosters!!"
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