So only the good people can’t get them but the bad people still can? Poor people can’t protect themselves but rich people can because of course they’re better than us? Sounds like a good plan I guess.
But I was led to believe that was impossible, that if you make them illegal nobody but the police (who we all trust, right?) will have them.
Well, since you can’t get rid of them, and since “guns for everybody all the time” is a strawman that actually means “guns for people who haven’t proved themselves to be a danger to themselves or others yet,” I’m gonna say I prefer the “innocent until proven guilty” model.
That still isn’t “everybody,” all felonies, DV misdemeanors, adjudicated IVCs, children, and drug addicts (admittedly self reported on that one, but still), all bar you from gun ownership even in the land of 600,000,000 guns (not an exaggeration). Actually I even think for nonviolent felons there should be a path back to gun ownership and voting (they also lose that right, as fucked up as it is), and some violent misdemeanors should be added to the list (something like simple assault can be the result of just a fight, but robbery or aggravated battery otoh should probably be on there even in places where it isn’t a felony, and it should probably just be a felony in those places too but what can ya do.)
And yes, criminals gonna criminal, but I’d prefer that if they can just get them anyway, so can I. If even in Aus the criminals can still get them, then the US has no hope that we can stop it either. You’re an island with 90% unusable territory that only has to control the ports and you still have smugglers, we can’t even control our ports either much less the two big ass land borders and we never will, we will always have smugglers.
Are you rich and powerful? Because if so you could get one yes.
I couldnt get a gun. I couldn’t just nip round my mates house and nick his dad’s. They are rare and expensive and risky af to own. Not just anybody can have one. I bet most people in the West outside USA havent even seen one. You’re not going to need one to defend yourself from one because the people who actually have them aren’t going to risk getting caught for a simple mugging, and theyre not walking around constantly strapped in case they lose their temper at some mundane shit.
If you want a gun to protect yourself from guns, you’re already living in Breaking Bad.
Edit to add : im not Australian but I assume its the same everywhere where the bad has worked
Something about stabbings and kidnappings was mentioned earlier? Guns aren’t only to protect against guns, in fact the only time I’ve ever had to “use” a gun for self defense it was because a guy pulled a knife on me. “Use” because I only had to show it, not shoot it, thankfully.
But they can come in handy, even for us lesser people, the poors, even though I don’t make meth, it’s all made in the surrounding rural towns and trafficked here.
Good people can get guns but it takes effort and people who bother aren’t the social media butterfly type. The bondi shooting guns were legally obtained by one of the terrorist the laws have already been adjusted and are under continuous review. Basically everyone who owns cattle or other livestock has a gun for taking care of snakes and putting down injured animals. For suburban guns you can google your local gun club then go join if you jump through the hoops you can then start shooting and then work your way up to ownership. Most people that are in gun clubs are actually cops, military or in some other way work around weapons because the average person doesn’t care about owning or shooting guns. It’s really a general matter of the people with the temperament to own a gun in australia are also people with the temperament that doesn’t make social media posts about it.
To be clear, we have more guns now than we did in the 1990s. The big thing that changed was casual, unregisted, random firearm ownership, especially around the major cities. If you were rural you didn’t have much of a change, just registering your guns and vetting rid of any that were no longer legal like sawn off shotguns etc. For someone such as myself living in a major city while growing up I just didn’t see guns. Not until cops started carrying guns, which was a mistake in my opinion.
So we didn’t ban guns. We regulated them. The average person could gain access to a firearm by going through the process of licencing, registration, and so on. The average person couldn’t be bothered and just didn’t. We don’t really have handguns here for the most part, our gun culture is much more focused on rifles and shotguns, things that are useful for hunting and pest control.
Now the criminal side has always had guns. They won’t obey the laws for theft, violence, extortion, drugs, and so on, so why would they obey for guns? The handy thing is they would not have registered guns and if they get caught with those they get serious time, so they only carry when they really think they need it. That means fewer gang members running around with guns most of the time, so fewer options for things to go south all of a sudden in a crowded place. A targeted attack though is still a thing and yes, a drive by shooting is still a thing here, just rare. I was living two blocks down from one in the early 2010s in Melbourne, but that is honestly the rare case that it actually happens.
Given the rise of tobacco as a black market though, we are getting way more violence. The war on drugs is fought on both sides, and society is the bystander.
Drive by shootings? In Australia?! How is that possible, didn’t you guys ban guns 30yr ago?
Super bad guys still get guns. The rich and powerful, good or bad, can have whatever they want.
So only the good people can’t get them but the bad people still can? Poor people can’t protect themselves but rich people can because of course they’re better than us? Sounds like a good plan I guess.
But I was led to believe that was impossible, that if you make them illegal nobody but the police (who we all trust, right?) will have them.
I see what you’re saying, but the answer isnt actually “guns for everybody all the time.”
Criminals gonna criminal.
Well, since you can’t get rid of them, and since “guns for everybody all the time” is a strawman that actually means “guns for people who haven’t proved themselves to be a danger to themselves or others yet,” I’m gonna say I prefer the “innocent until proven guilty” model.
That still isn’t “everybody,” all felonies, DV misdemeanors, adjudicated IVCs, children, and drug addicts (admittedly self reported on that one, but still), all bar you from gun ownership even in the land of 600,000,000 guns (not an exaggeration). Actually I even think for nonviolent felons there should be a path back to gun ownership and voting (they also lose that right, as fucked up as it is), and some violent misdemeanors should be added to the list (something like simple assault can be the result of just a fight, but robbery or aggravated battery otoh should probably be on there even in places where it isn’t a felony, and it should probably just be a felony in those places too but what can ya do.)
And yes, criminals gonna criminal, but I’d prefer that if they can just get them anyway, so can I. If even in Aus the criminals can still get them, then the US has no hope that we can stop it either. You’re an island with 90% unusable territory that only has to control the ports and you still have smugglers, we can’t even control our ports either much less the two big ass land borders and we never will, we will always have smugglers.
Are you rich and powerful? Because if so you could get one yes.
I couldnt get a gun. I couldn’t just nip round my mates house and nick his dad’s. They are rare and expensive and risky af to own. Not just anybody can have one. I bet most people in the West outside USA havent even seen one. You’re not going to need one to defend yourself from one because the people who actually have them aren’t going to risk getting caught for a simple mugging, and theyre not walking around constantly strapped in case they lose their temper at some mundane shit.
If you want a gun to protect yourself from guns, you’re already living in Breaking Bad.
Edit to add : im not Australian but I assume its the same everywhere where the bad has worked
Something about stabbings and kidnappings was mentioned earlier? Guns aren’t only to protect against guns, in fact the only time I’ve ever had to “use” a gun for self defense it was because a guy pulled a knife on me. “Use” because I only had to show it, not shoot it, thankfully.
But they can come in handy, even for us lesser people, the poors, even though I don’t make meth, it’s all made in the surrounding rural towns and trafficked here.
Good point and well made. I guess theres no such thing as a perfect system, just a series of trade offs.
Good people can get guns but it takes effort and people who bother aren’t the social media butterfly type. The bondi shooting guns were legally obtained by one of the terrorist the laws have already been adjusted and are under continuous review. Basically everyone who owns cattle or other livestock has a gun for taking care of snakes and putting down injured animals. For suburban guns you can google your local gun club then go join if you jump through the hoops you can then start shooting and then work your way up to ownership. Most people that are in gun clubs are actually cops, military or in some other way work around weapons because the average person doesn’t care about owning or shooting guns. It’s really a general matter of the people with the temperament to own a gun in australia are also people with the temperament that doesn’t make social media posts about it.
To be clear, we have more guns now than we did in the 1990s. The big thing that changed was casual, unregisted, random firearm ownership, especially around the major cities. If you were rural you didn’t have much of a change, just registering your guns and vetting rid of any that were no longer legal like sawn off shotguns etc. For someone such as myself living in a major city while growing up I just didn’t see guns. Not until cops started carrying guns, which was a mistake in my opinion.
So we didn’t ban guns. We regulated them. The average person could gain access to a firearm by going through the process of licencing, registration, and so on. The average person couldn’t be bothered and just didn’t. We don’t really have handguns here for the most part, our gun culture is much more focused on rifles and shotguns, things that are useful for hunting and pest control.
Now the criminal side has always had guns. They won’t obey the laws for theft, violence, extortion, drugs, and so on, so why would they obey for guns? The handy thing is they would not have registered guns and if they get caught with those they get serious time, so they only carry when they really think they need it. That means fewer gang members running around with guns most of the time, so fewer options for things to go south all of a sudden in a crowded place. A targeted attack though is still a thing and yes, a drive by shooting is still a thing here, just rare. I was living two blocks down from one in the early 2010s in Melbourne, but that is honestly the rare case that it actually happens.
Given the rise of tobacco as a black market though, we are getting way more violence. The war on drugs is fought on both sides, and society is the bystander.