JWH says that his clamp down on guns in 1996 was a success.
This SMH report would suggest otherwise.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/buyback-guns-in-the-hands-of-outlaws/2007/02/09/1170524303919.html

and

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/armed-and-dangerous/2007/02/11/1171128816752.html

What thoughts?

Is Mise, I presume you are a Gaelic speaker as I can say "Is mise JSP1488". Should I address you as "Is tusa"?

Anyway, the gun "buy back" was a flop. What about the thousands of Chinese SKS assault rifles that have never been traced? These were received by our government in compensation for a trade deal that the Chinese reneged on. They were subsequently sold to the public unregistered. Between the SKSs, the article you have brought to our attention and the authorities' inability to control criminal possession of guns,the whole "buy back" was a waste of taxpayers' money and only punished legal legitimate shooters.

The 2003 "buy back" was just as bad. I write "buy back" as I had to surrender a pistol to the police, not the gun store where I had bought it. Call it "confiscation with compensation". The pistol in question was a 40 calibre model with 16 shot magazines, both suddenly declared illegal. I used the compensation cheque issued to buy a 38 calibre pistol with 10 shot magazines which is still legal.

So the government decided that a .400 inch diameter bullet is unacceptable yet a .380 inch bullet is OK (five hair widths of a difference). Also 10 shot mags are acceptable while 16 shot mags aren't. The whole process was illogical. Because of the slightly lower calibre allowed, our sporting shooters cannot compete in the same class as international shooters as the cut-off point is 40 cal.

So much for being a sporting nation.

Does anyone see a sinister side to the push for gun control?

The fact that there have been no massacres since gun laws were introduced would seem to indicate that the gun laws have been successful to some degree. This may be because it has made it harder for the crazed loners who most often commit these massacres to obtain weapons, as opposed to the criminal types who often have criminal connections and know how to obtain illegal weapons but who are only usually interested in criminial pursuits like robbery where they may kill one or two but not dozens.

Loners because they are loners often dont fit in and dont have the social connections to obtain guns through the underground.

The only problem I can see with gun laws is that if you ever end up with a government dictatorship or some kind of coup the ordinary citizens have no weapons to fight with.

I suspect a lot of weapons are hidden away and will suddenly surface though.

Bombs also seem to be a weapon of choice these days

Crazed loners can still obtain guns easily. Bikers have arsenals for use and sale. Many pubs have shady dealers that can supply to order. Just a few days ago, it was on the news that a detective had lost his service pistol. I wonder who has it now. There are still countless thousands of unregistered guns around, as sharkfin pointed out by "a lot of weapons are hidden away and will suddenly surface".

As for the very existence of "crazed loners with guns", here is an interesting site, http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/palies1.htm
Read and decide for yourselves. Conspiracy theory? Maybe..maybe not.

Finally, as for the possibility of gun control leading to a government dictatorship where the citizens have no weapons to fight with, just remember........POLITICIANS LOVE DISARMED PEASANTS!

I was involved in tracing military weapons stolen from Marybyrnong Weapons cache in the seventies.It was believed yugo's held training camps around the mnt.buffalo area as their was automatic fire heard by the locals, there was no trace of those army rifles found.Where they smuggled out with the trainees to Yugoslavia? Maybe! Cover-up must have been good. Maybe they are still floating around somewhere.Just the other day a bloke got arrested for having a crossbow and a rocket launcher, what's next, a pitchfork?
This a worldwide problem that people are being disarmed and framed, all in the silent name of "crowdcontrol" and "worldorder".Call me rediculous, but is their a better explanation?

JSP1488. No, just a dabbler in Gaelic.

The reduction in calibre was a fine illustration of a group of Polititians getting, or being given, an idea and running with it even though it was flawed.
The idea was to reduce the power of pistols in the hands of licensed shooters; simplest way was percieved to be to make the projectiles smaller.

One good example was the venerable .45 Colt M1911, owners were however able to convert their pistols to .38" and many did by buying a new barrel and having it chambered for what became known as the .38JWH (no prize for knowing what the initials stand for !)
This round is more powerful than the one that it replaced.

Still John Howard regards the calibre reduction as a success; well, it's not every day that one has a pistol round named after one is it?

Bye the bye, I just measured a few hairs and those from my beard average .004" to .005", head .002" to .004". So the calibre reduction wasn't five hairs but only a couple, as I remember the average head hair is .003" in diametre.
Please excuse the use of Imperial units of measurement in this Metric day and age but the various Governments use it in relation to firearms, so I think it's only right to follow suite.