If I understand it correctly, the bulk of all this craziness is because of one horrible, horrible incident in Australia.
If only some Aussie had taken that clown out at the start (IOW, been able to defend themselves) they could have saved 2 dozen+ lives.
If I understand it correctly, the bulk of all this craziness is because of one horrible, horrible incident in Australia.
The path to all the restrictions was all planned out far in advance, waiting for a good “trigger”. Never let a crisis go to waste.
When the Port Arthur massacre happened, Prime Minister Howard had everything lined up to move with record speed to essentially rewite the Australian Constitution to ban lots of guns and most weapons, and change from a relatively moderate gun control system to perhaps the most restrictive in the Western World.
George Soros had his representative Rebbeca Peters lobbying and pushing for this legislation long before it happened.
BB guns are regulated the same as 12 gauge double barreled shotguns. Slingshots are considered “prohibited weapons”. Everything has to be at the permission of the State.
You have to apply for an application to get a firearms license. Then you have to apply for permission to purchase every gun. Nothing is permanent, renewal happens regularly and you can be denied at any stage.
The media were completely behind Prime Minister Howard. Australia has no Second Amendment and refuses to acknowledge an “Englishman’s right to arms”.
If not for Port Arthur, another “trigger” would have been found.
No. While what happened was a severe overreaction, it wasn't an overreaction to one incident. It was a series of incidents between 1987 and 1996.
We've just had the thirtieth anniversary of the first of them.
It was a series of single gunman massacres across the country.
The first was the Hoddle Street Massacre of 9th August 1987. A man named Julian Knight who had just been kicked out of the Australian Army academy Duntroon shot and killed seven people on Hoddle Street in Melbourne, Victoria. Knight claims to have suffered some sort of psychotic episode - personally I think he was just angry at the world and the disintegration of his dream to become an Army officer and wanted to go out in a blaze of glory - but he dropped the round he kept for himself and once the police realised he was out of bullets, they didn't shoot him. He is still in prison and will hopefully never be released (because he was 19 and therefore a 'young offender' under Victorian law, the Judge was obliged to set a parole period - he's now eligible but successive governments have said they will never let him out.
On the 8th of December 1987, a failed law student, Frank Viktovic, entered the offices of the Australian post office at Queen Street in Melbourne, and shot dead eight people. Again, frustrated failure. Viktovic committed suicide by jumping from the building after he was successfully disarmed by three men who fought back.
On the 30th August 1990, Paul Evers killed five people in a spree shooting at an apartment block in Surry Hills, Sydney. He was a paranoid schizophrenic and is now back out in the community, albeit under supervision.
On the 18th August 1991, Wade Frankum shot and killed seven people at a shopping centre in Strathfield, near Sydney before taking his own life. His motivation has never been clear.
27th October 1992, Malcolm Baker killed six people in a spree shooting in New South Wales. His victims weren't random - he just seems to have decided to kill everybody he had a grudge with who he could get to.
There were other mass shootings over this period as well, but these are the ones that together with the Port Arthur Massacre of 28th April 1996 where Martin Bryant killed 35 people, ultimately lead to the changes in Australian gun laws. It wasn't just Port Arthur.
And the fact is, we haven't had a similar incident since. I actually think it is difficult to argue with the idea that changing the law did make this type of crime less likely. They were happening repeatedly - they stopped.
However, having said that, the changes that were made went far beyond what was necessary. Restricting easy access to semi-automatics would have been enough. The laws went far, far beyond that.
While they are not as restrictive as is sometimes claimed, they are more restrictive than was justified or necessary to achieve their supposed aim.
And while they may have stopped that one class of crime - they've done nothing with regards to any other crimes, which are far more common.