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Australia's Gun Problem

theprestige said:
Fair enough. Can you recommend some way for me to distinguish a true claim, presented as you have here, from a false claim presented in the same way?
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1. The Greens are complete moonbats, totally divorced from reality. Treat any claim they make with scepticism.
 
Noztradamus said:
1. The Greens are complete moonbats, totally divorced from reality. Treat any claim they make with scepticism.
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Really? You think so? Pre-judge much?

They seem to be making inroads in NSW and other places. So is it because the tens of thousands of voters who voted for them have all gone simultaneously raving moonbats as well? Or is it perhaps because they may be making more sense than the mainline parties, who have gone even more moonbats than the Greens?
 
arthwollipot said:
The problem is that the Greens aren't demonising licensed and responsible gun owners.
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What about Bob Brown? Green party right? Was he misquoted?

http://www.watoday.com.au/world/no-guns-in-the-glovebox-greens-20080924-4n7j.html
Greens leader Bob Brown said today there were 300,000 hand guns in Australia and it was time for a dramatic reduction.

"The people who require a (hand) machine gun be carried around available to them, in the glove box or whatever, is very, very limited in a peaceful society like our own," he said.
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As far as I know handguns and machine guns are controlled differently in Australia. They're not really the same thing over there are they? Why would Brown equate handguns to machine guns if not to demonize them?

Ranb
 
devnull said:
One of the biggest problems australia has with guns at the moment is because of the constant demonising of firearms, not enough people have them at a time when farmers could really use a hand. There's a massive fox/feral cat/feral dog/etc problem looming and nobody is doing anything because apparently guns can only be used to kill people.
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That's simply not true. There are tonnes of licenced shooters. There are even shooters licenced to shoot pests in urban areas and around the city.
 
When it comes to gun crime, Australia never really had high crime rates (Even in the 70s, there wasn't anything on the level of Harlem). Then again, they never had an ethnic minority which was enslaved for centuries and subject to economic and legal segregation for a century afterwards, then incarcerated at a high rate.
 
Ranb said:
As far as I know handguns and machine guns are controlled differently in Australia. They're not really the same thing over there are they? Why would Brown equate handguns to machine guns if not to demonize them?
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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or simple error. Perhaps he misspoke. He was clearly talking about handguns, so the reference to machine guns is clearly a slip of the tongue, which was corrected by the editor.

For you to attribute a simple slip of the tongue to a deliberate attempt to demonise indicates a whole lot more about you than it does about the speaker.

Anyway, that article is from 2008 and Bob's retired from politics now.
 
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Ranb said:
What about Bob Brown? Green party right? Was he misquoted?

http://www.watoday.com.au/world/no-guns-in-the-glovebox-greens-20080924-4n7j.html

As far as I know handguns and machine guns are controlled differently in Australia. They're not really the same thing over there are they? Why would Brown equate handguns to machine guns if not to demonize them?

Ranb
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The Greens are complete moonbats, totally divorced from reality. Treat any claim they make with scepticism.

I believe I mentioned that
 
Noztradamus said:
The Greens are complete moonbats, totally divorced from reality. Treat any claim they make with scepticism.

I believe I mentioned that
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Didn't the Greens recently disavow a local affiliated group for saying something moonbatish?

If you believe the Australian Greens are completely lunatic, I can only assume that you haven't been looking at anything they've said recently, on any subject. I don't necessarily agree with all of their policies - for example, I believe that they should rethink their policy on nuclear power - but I don't think it's fair to characterise the entire party as moonbats.
 
devnull said:
One of the biggest problems australia has with guns at the moment is because of the constant demonising of firearms, not enough people have them at a time when farmers could really use a hand. There's a massive fox/feral cat/feral dog/etc problem looming and nobody is doing anything because apparently guns can only be used to kill people.
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At the moment, these are accepted reasons for issuing of gun licenses in NSW:
  • Sport / Target Shooting
  • Recreational Hunting / Vermin Control
  • Primary Production
  • Vertebrate Pest Animal Control
  • Business or Employment
  • Rural Occupation
  • Animal Welfare
  • Firearms Collection
It seems to me that around half of the acceptable reasons are intended for exactly that kind of thing.
 
Brian-M said:
At the moment, these are accepted reasons for issuing of gun licenses in NSW:
  • Rural Occupation
It seems to me that around half of the acceptable reasons are intended for exactly that kind of thing.
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Several years ago, my brother, who is retired but has a ten acre hobby farm got a shotgun license in two weeks to shoot feral animals. This is in Victoria. If you can demonstrate a need to own a gun, it is a remarkably easy process to get one.

With me, living in beautiful downtown Lara, with no feral animals around, and the worst risk being swooping magpies in the late spring, I cannot justify owning a gun. And I don't care.

Norm
 
NWO Sentryman said:
When it comes to gun crime, Australia never really had high crime rates (Even in the 70s, there wasn't anything on the level of Harlem). Then again, they never had an ethnic minority which was enslaved for centuries and subject to economic and legal segregation for a century afterwards, then incarcerated at a high rate.
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Nup, never happened. :rolleyes:
 
arthwollipot said:
Didn't the Greens recently disavow a local affiliated group for saying something moonbatish?

If you believe the Australian Greens are completely lunatic, I can only assume that you haven't been looking at anything they've said recently, on any subject. I don't necessarily agree with all of their policies - for example, I believe that they should rethink their policy on nuclear power - but I don't think it's fair to characterise the entire party as moonbats.
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+1

They actually have a policy on firearms which is not particularly insane and is readily accessible. Would anyone like the link or shall I leave it to you? FYI, it does not advocate taking every firearm in the country down to and including cap-pistols and melting them down to make crap street "art installations". People may not agree with the Green policy but they are up front with it and will discuss it with you in a sane fashion if you ask. Give it a try!
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
To point out that there aren't a lot of gun nutters in Oz?
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Oh there are definitely some! And they come out with the same "you can pry my gun from my cold dead hands" stuff as we hear from overseas. But they do get laughed at a lot.

Here's the thing: Australia has plenty of guns, there are laws about them and licensing, there is a criminal element who don't play by the rules (duh!), we agree there are legitimate reasons for owning them and many people do indeed use them for work and play.

The difference with the USA is not the guns per se. It's our attitude to them. Somehow we just don't have much of that quasi-religious personal possessiveness about them. Our guns are usually obtained for specific purposes, more or less, not as some God-given right.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Oh there are definitely some! And they come out with the same "you can pry my gun from my cold dead hands" stuff as we hear from overseas. But they do get laughed at a lot.
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I didn't say there weren't any. I "know" one, lives in an exhausted opal mine. Ex-Royal Marine.
Here's the thing: Australia has plenty of guns, there are laws about them and licensing, there is a criminal element who don't play by the rules (duh!), we agree there are legitimate reasons for owning them and many people do indeed use them for work and play.
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Like most of the planet. Well done.
The difference with the USA is not the guns per se. It's our attitude to them. Somehow we just don't have much of that quasi-religious personal possessiveness about them. Our guns are usually obtained for specific purposes, more or less, not as some God-given right.
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The problem is that we don't have guys with bandoleros full of hollow-point rounds and eleven hand guns strapped on every available spot walking the streets here. There is just a segment of the community, ammosexuals I call them, that are compulsive about guns in the same way some teen age girls think Justin Beiber can sing.
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
I didn't say there weren't any. I "know" one, lives in an exhausted opal mine. Ex-Royal Marine.
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As long as all he's doing is pinging rabbits and foxes with his ex-military licensed rifle, then he's welcome to hold onto it for as long as he wishes. Actually a Royal Marine would be well trained in proper weapons handling, so I would be even less worried about him.

Like most of the planet. Well done.
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Not quite most of the planet, no. Gun ownership and carry is just as much a part of the culture and "manhood" in many places around the world. The USA is not unique in that respect.

The problem is that we don't have guys with bandoleros full of hollow-point rounds and eleven hand guns strapped on every available spot walking the streets here.
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Sorry but you do. Not every guy nor every street in every town. I know that argument by Google is not very convincing, but seriously...this is a thing.

There is just a segment of the community, ammosexuals I call them, that are compulsive about guns in the same way some teen age girls think Justin Beiber can sing.
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We call it Arizona and Texas. I've seen it first hand.
 
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Norman Alexander said:
As long as all he's doing is pinging rabbits and foxes with his ex-military licensed rifle, then he's welcome to hold onto it for as long as he wishes.
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No, he's a serious gun nutter. We argue about that for fun. :D
Not quite most of the planet, no.
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As you like it.
Sorry but you do. Not every guy nor every street in every town. I know that argument by Google is not very convincing, but seriously...this is a thing.
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You admit Argumentum ad Google is flawed.
We call it Arizona and Texas. I've seen it first hand.
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I once had two highway patrol cars see me safely out of Arizona, but for the most part you don't see a lot of guns even there. The rational people simply don't find it useful.

Good ISFers, don't put too much faith in the image of the US you get from the media. They don't report on people who aren't afraid and get home safely every night.
 
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