Attitude about guns in Australia

[Hdonly]

I belong to an MG car forum and the subject of owning and carrying guns came up. I am really surprised at the number of negative comments coming from people in Australia. I just would have thought that they would be a little more pro personal freedom thinking. I used to think when I was younger, that I wouldn't mind living there. Now I think, "Not so Much".

[JERRYS.]

they've got it inbred in them from their colonial days when they were a prison colony. of course they weren't allowed to own guns and even after they became free they still had an over reaching government telling them that they couldn't be trusted.... forward to modern times when the government told them to turn in their guns or go to prison if caught with them, they capitulated.

[Hal]

You recently joined.....

Had you joined TFL back in 1998 - the Port Arthur incident in Tasmania - was discussed in depth back at that time.

PA happened in 1996 & was a game changer for Oz.<-- ~ 25 years of constant anti gun propaganda has been pounded down the throats of the good people of Oz.

Extreme sweeping gun control was pushed through.

Prior to that - OZ was very pro gun. Movies such as Mad Max & Crocodile Dundee - didn't raise any eyebrows.
Neither of those movies would stand a chance of being made today.

Very sad....

[mehavey]

Much as I like our mates from Down Under, there is an innate inertia associated with being/considering one's self as a Subject of an established Class order of government...vice that of Citizen in whom The People commonly consider themselves the very basis of that government authority.

BTW: that cultural basis and that common thought can be lost ...as The People evolve into governmental dependency rather than strict self reliance.

Need I say more ?

[shurshot]

Mad Max: Fury Road, was made in 2015. Plenty of guns in it. Not as good as the original Mad Max or Road Warrior, but pretty good. That being said, yes, it appears that many of the Australian people have been homogenized and turned into disarmed sheep. Another generation or two and that will be the USA.

[Brit]

Possibly Shurshot.

The main point we will not be here. But I do not think so, we still will have the constitution.
I lived in Australia, in and around Sydney NSW. 1965 till 1968, emigrated from the UK. Supposed to stay, a Wife who hated Aus, the minute she stepped off the Ship, the Australise, Chandris lines. Used to be the SS America. 5 weeks on the Oceans. Two children too.

The Aussies were a fine group of people. I could have stayed, but did not, we all boarded the SS Oreana a P and O Ship. 15 days later, arrived in Vancouver, by train to Orlando. Spent an adventurous 36 years in Canada. With a second wife, moved to Florida, to join my US Boy, then a Citizen.
Now my wife and I are both citizens, the legal way! And 8 grandchildren! Spread all over Canada and the USA! We met a Cable Guy yesterday, who has never been out of Florida! Never seen Snow. I for one do not miss the 6 months of winter.

Sitting behind me, a Glock 19 4th Gen, on the bedside table the 3 green dots of the TruGlo night sights, glowing. Till holstered. Another free day in the USA.

[Bowdog]

People can become sheep and follow the BS trail. I would never ever think of moving out of the USA. I will not ever vacation out of the US. I did move from upstate NY to the free state of Tennessee. Gun laws where just one reason. There where many. Very happy now.

[Skans]

Anyone who's government prohibits them from having what you have will have a negative opinion of the fact that you have it or can have it. Pure envy.

[doofus47]

HDonly.
How does it feel to be stupider than someone b/c you own something they don't?

People own firearms for all sorts of reasons.
I know people that shot clays in high school very seriously who never picked up a boom stick after graduation.
I know people who have guns only for hunting.
I know people who have guns only for target competitions. (Full disclosure: They have nicer guns that are more accurate than mine...)
I know people who buy guns only for self defense.
We have read about people who buy guns b/c the world is going to end tomorrow. I can't say I know those people, but there might be some over lap with the self-defense group.

To assume that someone who owns a gun is somehow of a particular personality type ("a low self esteem incel" or "a loon like in the movie Taxi Driver") is a bit presumptuous. One might say such behavior is a tad bigoted, if one thought about such things much.

Well, tell them that they changed your mind on the subject, make new Internet friends. Give them a bit of a pride boost. Just recognize that you will probably never see them in real life, and you would probably not associate with such types in real life, so who cares.
Keep 'em talking cars and everyone is happy.

[Kevin Rohrer]

This is government-sponsored, social conditioning. People like the ones the OP named are programmed to dislike and be fearful of whatever their Government tells them to dislike.

Last year I talked w/ some Aussies who became horrified when I told them I once worked at a nuclear weapons storage and maintenance site. I thought to myself, "You stupid f---. If it weren't for our nukes you people would be speaking Japanese, or Russian, or Chinese". Sheep.

[Brit]

Kevin.

My Son owns a successful Security Company. At one time I did a few shifts for him. Not on a regular basis, more a panic job filler.
One interesting one, a Jewellery Store, a chain. They never had security before, lest alone an armed one.
My first day, an English Lady, with her 12? year old Son. Hand to face, mouth wide open, shocked voice! "Is that a real firearm?"
"It most certainly is Marm, and it is fully loaded," Said I with my Liverpool accent (She was from somewhere posh!) I was what is known as a Scouse.

Her Son wanted to hold it! I let him look at my spare magazine. As she left looking for the Manager. He came back looking a bit amused. "This Gentleman is Licenced as an armed Security Officer, and is required to be requalified in the use of that Glock pistol, every year" "Reference him being from Liverpool in England?" "He is a US Citizen." She took her son and left.

She could not leave until I pressed the door release.

That same Gen 4 Glock 19 is sitting in the right-hand pocket of my track pants, still looks like new. And still loaded!

[SIGSHR]

I wouldn't take comments on a car forum-especially when made behind the shelter of a screen name-too seriously. People forget that in many countries-and I include those of the Commonwealth-there really is no 1st Amendment either, and people learn there is a Party Line and in public at least you have to adhere to it. I also note that countries whose culture and politics are skewed to the Left are always trying to create what I call Left Wing Macho-New Soviet Man, if you will.

[stinkeypete]

Some comments above are factually inaccurate. You can talk with Australian sport shooters that know exactly how things are in Australia, or at least give a much more informed opinion.

[Buzzcook]

People in Australia still own guns. At least one posts to this forum.

I think you would find Aussies would take exception to any claim that they were sheep.

[spacemanspiff]

I would hazard a guess that any country that had to fight for their freedom is going to have citizens that value armaments moreso than citizens of countries that never had to fight similar battles.

That doesn't make one country right or wrong in their attitudes about firearms. It just means that the value system will be different.

[Armybrat]

To each his own. They are not us, and most of us are not them.

Both my Brit friends (make & female) had a hoot shooting my AR & some handguns while visiting us here in Texas.

To the OP - I belonged to the MG Car Club in Austin in the 1990s when I still owned a nice 1974 MGB. Sold it in 2000.
My first car was a used 1960 MGA Roadster that I drove for 3 years in the mid ‘60s. Fun car for a college kid in those days. Sold that one in 1967 when marriage loomed.

[Brit]

Army Brat.
When I immigrated, with my family to Aus. 1965, so-called a permanent move? My wife drove me nuts for 3 years, then we moved to Canada. New Wife now.
The first little car we bought, a Morris Minor, 4 cylinder engine, 1949 vintage! No idea how many miles on it, the battery was near as big as the engine! Had to start it with the crank first thing in the morning, then starter button. Never spent much on it, till the exhaust pipe fell off in the middle of Sydney one Friday at midnight! Met a lovely Greek couple on the SS Australis. They boarded at the Port for Athens, Piraeus.
They intended to buy a Sandwich shop in Sydney and did. His name was a mile long! When asked his name at his first job, he got a long stare... "You start on Monday Dennis!" even his wife called him Dennis!

[Pond, James Pond]

I belong to an MG car forum and the subject of owning and carrying guns came up. I am really surprised at the number of negative comments coming from people in Australia. I just would have thought that they would be a little more pro personal freedom thinking. I used to think when I was younger, that I wouldn't mind living there. Now I think, "Not so Much".

Coming from a society that has similar views as those you've described, having held those views at one time and having since discarded them once a motive to educate myself arose, I think the biggest reason for the negative opinions you've described has two causes: an utter lack of knowledge with the individual, underpinned by a constant stream of inaccurate information by the only sources that do cover firearms: namely the press and the entertainment industry.

That's not to say that everything that is said is wholly wrong, but the drip-drip accumulation of incorrect statements, misunderstood facts, misrepresented stats (be they through laziness or overconfidence in one's knowledge of a subject) results in a knowledge-base that has little value in the real world and therefore leads to misguided opinion.

If everyone actually had and accepted the facts, I think a lot of people might change their opinions and those opinions would be far more closely aligned, whether they had any interest in firearm ownership or not, rather than the polarised extremes we see today.

IMO, the current coronavirus circus is a fine example of the same pathology, if you'll excuse the pun.

[Pond, James Pond]

People are satisfied with being told but rarely fact check anything.

That applies to almost anything that isn’t an interest to the individual. This has appeared to be the case for the Brexit referendum, countless elections across the world: Western or otherwise.

People believe what they hear and swear by what they want to hear...

[Fishbed77]

Mad Max: Fury Road, was made in 2015. Plenty of guns in it. Not as good as the original Mad Max or Road Warrior, but pretty good. That being said, yes, it appears that many of the Australian people have been homogenized and turned into disarmed sheep.

That movie was filmed mostly in Namibia, and was aimed at a much more global audience than the low-budget original film.

[Pond, James Pond]

there is an innate inertia associated with being/considering one's self as a Subject of an established Class order of government...vice that of Citizen in whom The People commonly consider themselves the very basis of that government authority.

Is that based on empirical data or rather a personal opinion?
I ask as it’s not an assertion I can relate to from any personal experience.