Gun advocate mocks Australia's tough laws

[Vausch]

Eh, that's fine.

I'll just be over here enjoying my comparatively low murder rate and complete absence of gun massacres in a country where someone firing two shots (from a bolt-action rifle) into someone else's garage door is enough to make the papers.

Question: How hard is it to immigrate to Australia and how are your opportunities for mechanical and electrical engineering jobs?

Dude, are you kidding? Mechanical Engineers get PAID in Australia, move out to the north west, get a job in Oil, Gas or Iron Ore industries, and you will be making +$200k ($AUD - which has been trading higher than $USD for over a year).

You'd be set over here mate!

Also, when you don't have everyone packing guns, it makes the few people with guns (criminals, bikie gangs etc) scared to use them. Our police SWAT team equivalents get really bored and will break out the armor transports and shotguns if even a single handgun makes an appearance in a threatening manner (Note: Appearance, you don't even have to fire it)

Well I still need to finish school. I'm thinking of finding some scholarships and getting a student/work visa. Considering my other options are pretty much all party schools, I think it's the best idea.

 

[spartan231490]

ah yes, it was in the other post I made, the one that you blatantly ignored because it didn't fit with your agenda, where posted the raw data and sources. Like 1.5 million defensive gun uses each year.

What agenda? I'm not participating in this debate. I saw you berate someone for using emotional "think of the children" nonsense, then scrolled up to see you do the exact same thing. It's cute you think I have an "agenda" though; put your tinfoil hat down.

I'm calling you out on being a hypocrite. That's all.

you don't read too well, I wasn't berating anyone, i was pointing out that anti-gunners don't have a leg to stand on. In that same post, I linked the sources you ignore that make my argument not an appeal to emotion, but a solid logical argument based on the fact that guns cause more good than bad in this country. Not on pure emotional outcry.

 

[KnowYourOnion]

Oi, u wna go m8? Cum ovr ere an say that 2 my fac, cheeky c*nt.

No but really, I sort of agree with Mr. Van Cleave. Switzerland has a massive level of gun ownership because the vast majority of people undergo compulsory military training and can keep their guns afterwards. Not quite the same percentages as the USA, but drastically lower gun crime. Which means basically that there are countries with both attitudes towards guns that manage to be fairly peaceful. The difference is that people are less sensible with them in the US than they are in Switzerland. You can't copy paste methods from other countries to sort out your own national problems, you need a tailored approach.

It is pretty hilarious though that the "criminals will get them anyway, why not Zoidberg everyone" approach, taken to its logical conclusion, is you might as well legalise everything because criminals don't follow laws.

Interesting (but rather dull) fact: Switzerland has a ridiculously high gun homicide rate, but a low crime rate in general which is why gun advocates wheel it out as their gold standard.

They always fail to ask why Switzerland has a fundamentally low crime rate yet murders are almost always committed with a firearm.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

snip

Interesting (but rather dull) fact: Switzerland has a ridiculously high gun homicide rate, but a low crime rate in general which is why gun advocates wheel it out as their gold standard.

They always fail to ask why Switzerland has a fundamentally low crime rate yet murders are almost always committed with a firearm.

As I said, they're sensible with them. If you're going to commit a murder, a gun is one of the better ways to do it. It sounds like common sense to me that if there are guns everywhere, the percentage of crime that involves guns is going to be higher, regardless of the total crime committed. But if you wouldn't otherwise intend to commit a murder, having guns (and ammunition, which as I have been reminded helpfully, is actually pretty securely restricted in Switzerland) widely available is a good way for things to get out of hand.

 

[imagremlin]

Well, I'll say this.

I moved to Australia from third world (and the qualifier is generous these days) Venezuela eight years ago. It did feel like another planet.

 

[pearcinator]

Well, I'll say this.

I moved to Australia from third world (and the qualifier is generous these days) Venezuela eight years ago. It did feel like another planet.

But Australia and USA are quite similar. It would feel like a different planet if you went to the USA from Venezuela too.

 

[spartan231490]

you don't read too well, I wasn't berating anyone, i was pointing out that anti-gunners don't have a leg to stand on. In that same post, I linked the sources you ignore that make my argument not an appeal to emotion, but a solid logical argument based on the fact that guns cause more good than bad in this country. Not on pure emotional outcry.

You used a fallacy and you won't admit it. I shouldn't really have expected anything else, but that's the internet I suppose.

No, I didn't. I made a logical argument based on numbers.

 

[spartan231490]

you don't read too well, I wasn't berating anyone, i was pointing out that anti-gunners don't have a leg to stand on. In that same post, I linked the sources you ignore that make my argument not an appeal to emotion, but a solid logical argument based on the fact that guns cause more good than bad in this country. Not on pure emotional outcry.

You used a fallacy and you won't admit it. I shouldn't really have expected anything else, but that's the internet I suppose.

I mean, go read the post. I made a statement that amounts to "there exists" and then proved it with real life examples. That's not appeal to emotion. That's how you prove a there exists statement. That post wasn't even a part of my argument for guns, I was reacting specifically to what the guy said. In my posts where I made an argument for guns, I didn't mention any of those examples, I just used the data. That's not appeal to emotion, I don't know how you can have such a misconstrued notion of appeal to emotion, it's the idea that your argument is invalid but sounds good emotionally. that is not true of any of my posts.

 

[captaincabbage]

First off, as an Australian I can honestly say that I'm glad we "aren't on the same planet", otherwise I'd have to break out my 'I-don't-want-to-live-on-this-planet-anymore' .img.

Secondly, I don't like John Howard. Never have, never will, but goddamn do I respect the man, because he got shit done in this country.

Finally, I agree that Australia and the U.S aren't comparable in terms of crime to a large degree, but when it comes down to it it's only due to America's vastly larger population. It's no "worse" an issue in the U.S than it was over here, it's just more widespread of an issue.
Seriously, during the enactment of our gun control scheme in the '90s it's easy to forget that we were stripping gun owners of the exact same types of guns that are so widespread in the U.S now; semi-auto rifles and pistols.

Oh and for the record, I somewhat agree-yet-disagree on the whole "comfortably racist" thing. On the one hand pretty much all my friends and I (in a group of nine of us, two are African, one Indian, one Greek, and one Japanese) none of us have any problem with casually calling each other 'gooks, niggers, curry-munchers, crackers or Greeks'. I entirely agree that it is casually racist.
However, on the other hand I honestly feel like that's exactly why we're not racist. Because we've stripped the harsh meanings from these terms and never use them in a derogatory fashion.

Shit, I dunno, maybe we are just comfortably racist, I don't fuckin' know. ;P

 

[Jacco]

How many major metropolitan areas does Australia have with populations of more 250,000 people?

Now, how many are filled with poverty and drugs?

I'm tired too of people trying to compare statistics of the United States to their country. If we gave you Detroit, Chicago and DC, you'd look like a violent madhouse too.

I live in Detroit area and our murder rate is comparable to Somalia. This does not reflect the majority of the United States, but it does throw the stats off quite a bit when you take all the ghettos we have and add them in to the national average.

Which would suggest that the problem is not guns, it's too many poor people with too much drugs with too little to live for and very little respect for life, packed much too closely together. You're gonna have a bad time.

THANK YOU. I've been saying this for years and people just don't seem to get it.

 

[Jacco]

You're right. Australia has eliminated its gun problems, its social healthcare problems, and its livable minimum wage problems. Notice that they haven't established Sharia law or killed small children with unmanned attack drones.

The United States also has about 14 times the population of Australia. The logistics of such measures simply don't translate.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Whatever you say, I'll be happy living in my country that doesn't have a fetishistic attitude to guns and has a much lower murder rate.

I don't even think it's gun laws that are the problem in America, it's the weird idolization of their gun rights that makes people really want to have and use them. I'm glad Australia doesn't have a culture fixated on owning things that are only useful for killing.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The United States also has about 14 times the population of Australia. The logistics of such measures simply don't translate.

Why not?

Now, certainly there would be lots of other factors, but as well as 14 times the population that need a solution, the US has 14 times to population to provide one. I don't see why scale should be such an issue.

 

[Jacco]

Whatever you say, I'll be happy living in my country that doesn't have a fetishistic attitude to guns and has a much lower murder rate.

I don't even think it's gun laws that are the problem in America, it's the weird idolization of their gun rights that makes people really want to have and use them. I'm glad Australia doesn't have a culture fixated on owning things that are only useful for killing.

No, it's the idea that if they can take away gun, which many people believe are guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment of the highest law our government operates on, then they can do anything they want. And many ways, that is true. If they can override the Constitution without going through the proper channels, then it sets a precedent of doing it to other more important things like free speech or free press. The reason people get so crazy about guns is because it's the current "battleground" issue.
So it's not that we're fixated on them (though some certainly are) as a culture, it's that many people fear the precedent it sets for government intervention.

The United States also has about 14 times the population of Australia. The logistics of such measures simply don't translate.

Why not?

Now, certainly there would be lots of other factors, but as well as 14 times the population that need a solution, the US has 14 times to population to provide one. I don't see why scale should be such an issue.

In terms of providing monetary support yes, but take healthcare for instance. Providing healthcare for 22 million people is far easier when you have, say, 2.5 doctors per thousand people (that's a real statistic) as opposed to 315 million with 2.3per thousand people.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Gun control does work.

I live in Finland. We have the 4th highest rate of guns per capita in the world, largely due to hunting. Around 14 percent of of murders and homicides are committed with weapons. For comparison, in america that numbers something like 68%.

See thats because we have this process where people are required by law to prove that they actually understand the laws involved with firearms. And you aren't allowed to carry this shit in public.

That's not to say it would work in america. They've largely fucked themselves into a corner with all the illegal weaponry and gun "enthusiasts" who wouldn't give that shit away. Should have been done a whole fucking bunch earlier.

 

[Raioken18]

Gun control does work.

I live in Finland. We have the 4th highest rate of guns per capita in the world, largely due to hunting. Around 14 percent of of murders and homicides are committed with weapons. For comparison, in america that numbers something like 68%.

See thats because we have this process where people are required by law to prove that they actually understand the laws involved with firearms. And you aren't allowed to carry this shit in public.

That's not to say it would work in america. They've largely fucked themselves into a corner with all the illegal weaponry and gun "enthusiasts" who wouldn't give that shit away. Should have been done a whole fucking bunch earlier.

My knowledge of Finland is a bit thin but I was fairly sure that there are still strict gun control laws, at least much stricter than in the US. To acquire the firearms license you need to undertake a safety course and provide secure storage for said weapons. Also you get an individual license for each weapon. Semiautomatics as well at other special category weapons are banned for all but the avid collectors.

Also (And I'm fairly sketchy about this but... Isn't there compulsory gun control education? Or is that Sweden?

Edit: Sorry read your post wrong. I thought you said gun control in Finland wasn't working XD.
Though I would like to know what the policy on gun control education was, did I have the right country?

 

[Raioken18]

Err... I'm from Australia, let me share a little of my knowledge.

Border security may seem racist/sexist, but it is usually about certain things i.e. baggy clothing can hide drugs and weapons, people who are strung out tend not to be clean shaven etc. So yes it is profiling, but it's not necessarily motivated by race. With that said, some of them are idiots, sorry bout that.

People here tend to use racial taunts and sometimes just swearing as a form of hazing whoever they talk to. For example, earlier in the week there was a topic about the C-word, here there are two contexts for it and you can tell by the manner in which it is delivered: "Yo C-word" is a greeting, where as "You are a C-word" is offensive.

My best mates include people from different races, so we refer to each other as black, white and yellow all the time. Combined with the above method of swearing in normal conversation to outsiders it does seem really offensive, but it's just friendly banter.

So on the outside I think Australians get a bad rep, but when it counts we'll always help out someone no matter who they are... Though I was bashed because a Muslim woman had "fallen" down some escalators and I helped her to get up, there was a large group of Lebanese men standing around not helping her that then followed me to the car park. It's not the only time, and is apparently against most middle eastern cultures to touch or talk to their women.

So maybe... it's just certain cultural values that conflict with Australian values that create a feeling of racism... anyway back on topic.

As a regular Australian. I've never heard gunfire, or seen a real gun that wasn't carried by a police officer. As for robberies with melee weapons such as knives, it is much easier to run away screaming for help. I remember the news around the time of the Port Arthur Massacre, and the strict gun laws have made everyone feel safer.

Now let me tell you about all those people who are like, criminals will always have access to weapons. Guns, being much harder to get do have a black market even here. This appears to be primarily controlled via bikie gangs. However, bikies and upper level criminal organisations have structure as well. This means that aside from bank tellers and gas station owners, few other members of the law abiding public will have guns waved at them. Police and other bikies appear to be the individuals most at risk. Mass shootings appear to be a concern of theirs and anyone of their own displaying mental health defects are neutralized (More for the safety of other members, but it provides a mental health checks as a secondary effect).

Someone outside of said organisations is going to have a hard time acquiring a weapon from them, let alone enough ammunition to be able to do anything on a large scale. Not to mention that the cost of illegal automatic weapons would be sky high due to their illegality.

3 things
1) you might want to look at my above post. feeling safer =/= being safer.

2) Australia doesn't have any landborders, I live in Northern NY and there are places where you can walk into Canada without even realize it, let alone run into border patrol, and the Mexican Border isn't a whole lot better. Combine that with extremely prolific gang violence and gang culture in our cities, and no gun ban will stop criminals from getting guns. Hell, did you know that the stop and frisk program in NYC alone catches around 6,000 illegal guns a year before they're used in crime. Even if you confiscated every legal firearm and magically blocked all importation/3d printing ect, there would still be many millions of illegal guns left in the US.

3) "it is much easier to run away screaming for help" How many police officers do you have down there, here in the US the average police response time from the 911 call(and that's if you can call) is 11 minutes. That's a long time to run away, especially for a single mother of 3 kids trapped on the second story. Also, there's more than robberies to worry about. Criminals pretty often go after the occupants here in the US, either trying to eliminate witnesses or worse.

Take the single mother of an infant who locked herself in the bathroom and called 911, was on the phone with them for 5 minutes when he broke the bathroom door down to get to her? Or the mother of three who locked herself and her 3 kids into a closet when a man with a crowbar broke into the house, who then pried open the closet door with it? What about the mother of a 6 year old who couldn't run from her stalker because he was between her and her child? What about the 15 year old daughter(home alone) who had three men chase her into her house trying to rape her? What about the woman who was being chased around her own house by her ex(who she had a restraining order against) and his 19 year old step-son, and couldn't find her garage door remote to get out of her house? You know what the amazing part of the above list is? Every one of those is a real event, that popped up quietly on the news in the last year alone. Even more amazing? Every one of these stories had a happy ending because of civilian gun ownership. You know what's terrifying? Not one of these had an officer show up in time to do anything but take a report.

I don't understand your 3rd point at all. You realize that you can still own a gun in Australia, there are just strict laws about doing so, hence each of those home invasion stories you created would have ended with the victim opening the gun cabinet. There are also other ways to defend yourself if you are really worried take some self defense classes, carry pepper spray and get a dog. Rottweilers are awesome as they are really kind and loving, but if they see their owner in trouble they lose their s***. Though don't train them to attack, they are good as is and it's pretty much all instinct, show them love and they'll protect you.

 

[spartan231490]

Err... I'm from Australia, let me share a little of my knowledge.

Border security may seem racist/sexist, but it is usually about certain things i.e. baggy clothing can hide drugs and weapons, people who are strung out tend not to be clean shaven etc. So yes it is profiling, but it's not necessarily motivated by race. With that said, some of them are idiots, sorry bout that.

People here tend to use racial taunts and sometimes just swearing as a form of hazing whoever they talk to. For example, earlier in the week there was a topic about the C-word, here there are two contexts for it and you can tell by the manner in which it is delivered: "Yo C-word" is a greeting, where as "You are a C-word" is offensive.

My best mates include people from different races, so we refer to each other as black, white and yellow all the time. Combined with the above method of swearing in normal conversation to outsiders it does seem really offensive, but it's just friendly banter.

So on the outside I think Australians get a bad rep, but when it counts we'll always help out someone no matter who they are... Though I was bashed because a Muslim woman had "fallen" down some escalators and I helped her to get up, there was a large group of Lebanese men standing around not helping her that then followed me to the car park. It's not the only time, and is apparently against most middle eastern cultures to touch or talk to their women.

So maybe... it's just certain cultural values that conflict with Australian values that create a feeling of racism... anyway back on topic.

As a regular Australian. I've never heard gunfire, or seen a real gun that wasn't carried by a police officer. As for robberies with melee weapons such as knives, it is much easier to run away screaming for help. I remember the news around the time of the Port Arthur Massacre, and the strict gun laws have made everyone feel safer.

Now let me tell you about all those people who are like, criminals will always have access to weapons. Guns, being much harder to get do have a black market even here. This appears to be primarily controlled via bikie gangs. However, bikies and upper level criminal organisations have structure as well. This means that aside from bank tellers and gas station owners, few other members of the law abiding public will have guns waved at them. Police and other bikies appear to be the individuals most at risk. Mass shootings appear to be a concern of theirs and anyone of their own displaying mental health defects are neutralized (More for the safety of other members, but it provides a mental health checks as a secondary effect).

Someone outside of said organisations is going to have a hard time acquiring a weapon from them, let alone enough ammunition to be able to do anything on a large scale. Not to mention that the cost of illegal automatic weapons would be sky high due to their illegality.

3 things
1) you might want to look at my above post. feeling safer =/= being safer.

2) Australia doesn't have any landborders, I live in Northern NY and there are places where you can walk into Canada without even realize it, let alone run into border patrol, and the Mexican Border isn't a whole lot better. Combine that with extremely prolific gang violence and gang culture in our cities, and no gun ban will stop criminals from getting guns. Hell, did you know that the stop and frisk program in NYC alone catches around 6,000 illegal guns a year before they're used in crime. Even if you confiscated every legal firearm and magically blocked all importation/3d printing ect, there would still be many millions of illegal guns left in the US.

3) "it is much easier to run away screaming for help" How many police officers do you have down there, here in the US the average police response time from the 911 call(and that's if you can call) is 11 minutes. That's a long time to run away, especially for a single mother of 3 kids trapped on the second story. Also, there's more than robberies to worry about. Criminals pretty often go after the occupants here in the US, either trying to eliminate witnesses or worse.

Take the single mother of an infant who locked herself in the bathroom and called 911, was on the phone with them for 5 minutes when he broke the bathroom door down to get to her? Or the mother of three who locked herself and her 3 kids into a closet when a man with a crowbar broke into the house, who then pried open the closet door with it? What about the mother of a 6 year old who couldn't run from her stalker because he was between her and her child? What about the 15 year old daughter(home alone) who had three men chase her into her house trying to rape her? What about the woman who was being chased around her own house by her ex(who she had a restraining order against) and his 19 year old step-son, and couldn't find her garage door remote to get out of her house? You know what the amazing part of the above list is? Every one of those is a real event, that popped up quietly on the news in the last year alone. Even more amazing? Every one of these stories had a happy ending because of civilian gun ownership. You know what's terrifying? Not one of these had an officer show up in time to do anything but take a report.

I don't understand your 3rd point at all. You realize that you can still own a gun in Australia, there are just strict laws about doing so, hence each of those home invasion stories you created would have ended with the victim opening the gun cabinet. There are also other ways to defend yourself if you are really worried take some self defense classes, carry pepper spray and get a dog. Rottweilers are awesome as they are really kind and loving, but if they see their owner in trouble they lose their s***. Though don't train them to attack, they are good as is and it's pretty much all instinct, show them love and they'll protect you.

I didn't create a single one of those stories, you could find every one of them in recent news. As for opening the gun cabinet, I don't know anything about Australia's storage laws, but most places with strict gun control have strict storage laws, meaning you'll never have the time to retrieve and load a firearm before the home invaders have reached you. Also, the argument was that you don't need a gun because you can run away, that was the argument I was addressing. While those same people might have been able to own their firearms and defend themselves with them in Australia, they wouldn't have been fine by running away.

Also, as someone who has been studying martial arts for over 5 years now, you do not want to be forced to defend yourself without a weapon, especially against someone who's armed. It's way too easy to get hurt in a hand-to-hand encounter, even if you do everything perfectly. As for dogs, that's one of the better options, but still has it's flaws. Not the least of which being that a dog can only stop one attacker.

Also, most of the weapons used in the above examples are banned in Australia.