HS and other Australians - what are the similarities?

B

Battler

New member
Americans take heed too.

I try to inform those around me that sucky things happened in Australia and it's going the same route here.

However, a few things were different - antis (and irrational morons) here faced different challenges - for example, Australia didn't have to resort to suing gun makers (fascism), they just banned stuff (i.e. communism sufficed).

I am too young to remember all of it, and left a bit before Port Arthur (I don't even want to VISIT my relatives, now). But I want to set people straight. I realize there was a lot of "having to go to the police station" to it, and that handguns were screwed a long time before rifles. . . . was the licencing for rifles fairly recent (i.e. inside last 20 years)? Reason I want to know is that the key to bringing gunowners into fearing for their rights is making the duckhunting boobs understand that they're next.

Was there ever the equivalent of the background check? Or just local police approval?

I remember hearing it discussed around me and I wasn't interested as I should have been at the time. I know it was incremental, one problem in the US is that they think it was all done at once, and by not sharing Australians' most recent fate instantly they're somehow avoiding it.

One thing I know though, this "cold dead fingers" thing will die down, people who are licenced feel more "priveleged" than like they have a right - licencing changed the mindset from the gun being a symbol of freedom to "please don't take my gun I need it to punch paper".


Any insight appreciated, I don't think anyone else on the list will be hurt by understanding the firearms prohibition a little better.

thanks,
Battler.
 
The one thing I keep thinking about if it happens here, is will I comply? I doubt it. My wife says that I'd be insta-felon, but who cares? The only reason I worry now about being a felon is losing the right to KBA's. I'd not only not comply, but I'd start doing little things whenever the opportunity presented itself to hinder the folks trying to make us all slaves.
I wonder how the avarage Australian feels now. I'd feel raped. Guns were at least as much a part of their culture as it is ours. I still believe that the biggest mistake was that they never totally parted with UK. They became a common wealth nation, and that meant that nothing changed but the flag. They need their own Constitution, and need to add the Right to Keep and Bear Arms to it. I sure hate that it happened there though. The way things are going, it'll happen here too if more folks don't get out there and vote.

------------------
Find out just what the people will submit to and you've found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows or with both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
Frederick Douglass, Aug 4 1857
 
Understand the nature of incrementalism - Australians are still allowed to own guns - some Australians can own certain types of guns.

How many illegal full-autos do you own? I would imagine none. You tolerate a limited exercise of your rights to not go to jail. And think of what people would think (even fellow gun owners) when they see you on the news being carted off to jail.

Which is exactly my point - who will do illegal things/go to jail and who will just tolerate bolt-action rimfire?

Incremental, incremental - now a semiauto ban would be unpopular; but it will be the same later for semis as it is now for fullauto. If you don't have fullauto now you will not own semis.

BTW - with respect to voting, you don't want more people voting - the majority will clamor for every incremental step - none of which will be banning all guns, just a little "reasonable" restriction on what to own. The second amendment isn't about democracy, it is about limiting what the majority can do to the minority (people who are pro-RKBA.)


Battler.



[This message has been edited by Battler (edited May 12, 2000).]
 
Battler:

An interesting question, because the Australian States all had different legislation.

I'm from Western Australia, which reputedly had the toughest gun laws in Australia, so I can only speak with experience from here.

Firearms were licensed here from the 1930s, and autos were totally banned.

You required "need and reason" to obtain a licence. You had to satisfy the local police station as to those requirements. Some stations were easy, some bloody nigh impossible. Country was easier than city. Generally speaking, you had to have permission from a landholder to shoot on their property "for the destruction of vermin".

Firearms were classified "high power" or "low power", based on velocity!! A .222 was a high-power, a .444 a "low power". Getting a "high power" firearm was significantly harder than a "low power".

You had to state (under penalty) whether you had any offences against your name. This includes traffic violations and even parking offences.

For handguns, there was a background check which took about a fortnight. In 1975 I applied for a licence for a .22 Beretta handgun for target shooting. I was berated (in public) by the police a week later for "lying" on the application. I had failed to mention a parking infringement in 1968. They made me re-apply and wait another fortnight.

The police (via the government) could, and did, arbitrarily ban firearms by type or make.

For example, in 1968 (from memory), the Ruger Mini-14 was banned because of its "devastating" firepower!!!!!

Handgun hunting was banned here for many, many decades.

All firearms had to be licenced. The definition of a firearm was expanded to include air rifles; they were treated the same as .22 rimfire.

BB guns were banned.

Ammunition could only be purchased for calibres for which you had a licence; ditto reloading supplies. You were required to sign an Ammunition Register, into which all your personal and licence details were entered -- you the signed for each purchase.

Note that all this was well before Port Arthur!!

Yes, it was definitely, in our case, incremental. "Rights" were removed one at a time, often years apart, and always you were reminded, "Firearms ownership is a privilege, not a right".

With regard to us becoming a republic and a new Constitution, please understand that the accepted new Constitution for when that happens specifically and purposely contains NO reference to any right to self-protection or firearms ownership. You need to understand, too, that the general public was given no input into what was to be included in the new constitution; this was done for us by a Government-appointed committee who "understood these things better" than we the unwashed public ever could.

B
 
Hell, I already AM an "insta-felon", right here in the good ole' U.S. of A.

You see, I carry concealed WHEN I WANT TO. With no permit. Can't get one in the socialist paradise of Wisconsin anyway.

I no longer give a sh*t. How long before this is the prevailing viewpoint? And since I'm already a felon, what would it matter if I (someday) got an "unregistered" select-fire rifle? Like Harry Bowman said, "After the first one, the rest are free."
 
Funny, I thought "high power" meant non-22rimfire.

I'm from rural Queensland, and it seems it was less strict (I remember shooting a legal Mini14 and I wasn't even BORN in 68!!) Still, this sounds mostly the same, only the dates are different - and of course recently they made the states' laws more "uniform".

The "showing need for licence" came up in QLD in 93 I think. I THINK you could shoot where you want up until Port Arthur (after which you actually couldn't shoot ANYWHERE).

Americans think the "second amendment" is protecting them have their heads up their a**es. The gun-ban two-step is the same, only the dates are different.

(Don't get me wrong, our only hope here in the states is for the second amendment to be recognized - it's a kind of all or nothing). Although with current sentiment, if it were actually used to strike down unconstitutional laws, there's enough support to get it stripped from the bill of rights. Well, I mean have its wording stripped from the bill of rights, the only part of the constitution I haven't seen shat on since I got here is the 3rd (I think, you know, that one that you don't have to provide lodging for soldiers).


Battler.
 
Gun Laws can come and go--some guns that were
banned in the past aren't now.
All I would like to add is that there are plenty of "illegal" guns here and their owners won't hand them in no matter what the
law says.
The important thing to bear in mind is that "Registration" comes first and "confiscation" comes second--If you don't
register them then it's harder for the Feral
government to get them.
 
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