I've owned guns since I was eighteen, and learned to shoot and respect guns long before that.
One of the things I also learned; that guns on their own, harm nobody and nothing.
It's the finger on the trigger that does all the harm, particularly if that finger is attached to a nutter like Bryant!
Massacres are not committed by sane people and the law abiding simply do not go round murdering people,even if they own a dozen firearms.
During the second world war, the Swiss were not attacked, which as revealed by captured Nazi intell, was due to the fact it was a virtual armed camp.
And there is no correlation between the number of guns owned and gun crimes!
In my father's day every home had several guns.
People were trained to respect them and their lethal aspects from a very early age.
And I'm fairly certain the pro rata gun crime rate was lower then than now.
And semi automatics are not as bad as they are made out to be by the sensation seeking!
In order to kill a gun must be aimed accurately at a vital area and the trigger squeezed. That means a bolt action in practiced hands could be even more lethal and from a greater distance, than a less accurate auto!
What is not improved by their banning is the ability of the professional to cull rapidly moving feral animal populations, given the only effective weapon is an auto that enables a humane kill on every occasion, with two in the chest or torso, and immediately the animal is down, one in the brain pan.
And then we wounder why the country is now being overrun by wild dogs, feral pigs, deer, goats, camels and donkeys; and at vastly greater risk of foot and mouth epidemics, or mad cow disease etc/etc.
As usual the entirely ignorant gun hating do-gooders, do more harm than good!
Rhrosty.

The author is so far out of touch that he wrote "..... But before he [John Howard] left, he did something universally popular: he tightened gun control so much that we rarely hear now of gun-related crime."

Obviously the author doesn't read or watch the local news.
Drive by shooting is so common now in Western Sydney that single shots no longer make the news.

I wonder did he see any of the adds for "Underbelly" that recent Australian TV glorification of crime.

"As far as criminal geniuses go, Leslie “Squizzy” Taylor was a great publicist. He'd struggle to make a list of this country's top 100 crime brains but he mastered the dark arts of self-promotion, the first in a long line of "celebrity" crooks, even before Hollywood created the gangster template".

http://smh.fairfaxbenefits.com.au/ebooks/the-real-squizzy-taylor/01/index.html

The author is a bit weak on history as well.

Paul, your letter is well-intended but the people who are going to read it are as dumb as a bag full of pick handles.

They are currently trying to balance their books and they have been forced to use all their fingers and toes! If they get their books to balance, then they will start on another war, perhaps in Iran.

Violence has been part of the American Way ever since they slaughtered all the Native Indians. They tried the same thing in Iraq and Afghanistan but the wily buggers hid themselves so the slaughter was not as effective as usual.

I hope your son can grow up to be peaceable unlike the Yanks. Rootin', tootin' and shootin' is their raison de etre, lawdy, lawdy, keep the powder dry!

They also don't mind a bit of rendition and torture either or burning people with white Phosphorous and depleted uranium, yeehah!

I never had much of an opinion about guns however having seen the violent cretins attack the anti baby murder protest in Melbourne the other day and the useless police presence it makes me wonder whether decent people need them.

>>it makes me wonder whether decent people need them.<<

Nah, only psychopaths need guns.

Decent people are happy to dispatch evil with water, silver, a crucifix and the Holy Word.

Be very, very afraid of anybody who says they need a gun to dispatch evil.

Cheers,

Tony

Oh don't worry Runner, plenty of anti-abortion protesters have killed others in the name of the cause. Violence like that is commonplace in the US 'Bible Belt'.

I loved this article. The author has hit the nail on the head in his thoughts on gun control in Australia, and the uncontrollable guns in the US.

Is Mise, no matter how much 'Underbelly style' murders we have here in Australia, they absolutely pale in comparison to the US murder-by-gun stats.

We don't want that lifestyle here, so we need to keep the current strict gun laws, and in fact restrict gun ownership even further.

Anyone who likes the thought of everyone carrying a metal killing machine on their person should consider a move to the US...

Suse,

The author doesn't read the news and is weak on history; any comments on those assertions based on his writing?

By the way, what're your thoughts on the easy availability of explosive mixtures in Australia and the ease with which igniters and timing devices (both mechanical and electrical)can be obtained?

Remember the largest massacre in Australia since Pt Arthur was by fire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childers_Palace_Backpackers_Hostel_fire

The author writes fiction. He conflates the respectable, law-abiding Aussies who have the excellent character and training to qualify for a firearms licence, with fictitious Hollywood dudes, Rambos.

'Save the children', he says. But from what? Why would anyone ever want to 'save' them from this healthy sport that is non-discriminatory and where people with disabled are welcomed and can compete against all comers:

Guns the choice of non-violent nation
http://www.smh.com.au/news/shooting/guns-the-choice-of-nonviolent-nation/2006/03/26/1143330933358.html

This is an Aussie with a firearms licence,
http://tinyurl.com/Aussie-Girl-LAFO

Australian women Laetisha Scanlan and Catherine Skinner claim gold and silver in UAE
http://tinyurl.com/Aussie-Girls-Gold-and-Silver

What do 'gun control' freaks get out of deliberately conflating criminal ferals and their illegal weapons (that always were illegal), like this,

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2013/09/25/458816_crime-and-court-news.html

- with the many thousands of respectable, law-abiding citizens who are legally licensed and farm, compete in international events and cull pest animals to protect wildlife?

That is difficult to explain outside of hoplophobia, stubborn prejudice and nasty politics (eg., the NSW Greens).

Paul Mitchell got it half right when he identified Hollywood's love affair with the criminal misuse of guns. He got it wrong when he blamed the guns themselves for existing.

As a gun nut, could I correct your thinking? If the mere presence of guns in any society was related to crime rates, then every society with guns would be riddled with crime. This is demonstrably false. Gun laws are a litmus paper test of how violent a society has become. Violent communities need strict gun laws but law abiding societies do not. Australia was once a low crime society with almost non existent gun laws. Our gun laws are becoming ever more strict because our crime rates keep rising.

It's the attitudes, stupid.

Attitudes which justify violence are a product of culture. Some cultures denigrate violence and some glorify it. Western cultures generally deplore violence but this attitude is changing because our media is now the primary creator and transmitter of culture, and it is creating culture which glorifies violence and criminal behaviour.

It creates a product called a "violent movie" which is engineered to appeal to young, low status young males, the very ones who are most likely to get into trouble. This product suggests to this vulnerable group that violent men are sexually attractive to women. It glorifies youth gang behaviour. It glorifies illegal drug use. It fuels the fantasies of this demographic of low status young men who dream about inflicting pain and death on the people that they resent. It grooms violent criminal heroes to be objects of admiration who lead adventurous lives with their unspeakably sexy girlfriends. It portrays irresponsible and reckless behaviour as cool. It regularly presents the misuse of firearms to be normal behaviour.

And it gives away its target audience by always presenting its heroes as societies misfits who know much better than the rest of society that problems are best solved by using violence. Their on screen uttering have become cultural icons. "Make my day." "I'll be back." "If I want your advice, I will beat it out of you."

Crime, gangs and drugs. There are those who are attracted to crime as their vocation in life. There are those who would solve even a minor disagreement with violence. They like it, gives them a buzz and respect as they see it. Gangs give them the support to commit the crime and the pay-offs, which includes the recognition for their awful deeds.

No excuses. It is a waste of time trying to understand or reason with serious offenders. They have no principles, no ethics and they would beat and kill the granny next door if she looked the wrong way at them - or even if she didn't.

Queensland is starting to get it right, but more police are needed.

http://tinyurl.com/Qld-crack-down

The Left are concerned about the criminals rights of course.

Interesting range of comments on this piece. Who said anything about responsible gun owners not doing the right thing? We have gun laws that are tight and that's a great thing. I don't even need to talk about America's gun laws, surely? A comedian once put it that trying to buy back America's guns would be like trying to buy back its spoons. I was talking about a gun culture promoted by Hollywood when we have a culture (enforced by law) that limits gun availability. As I argued, we don't need a gun culture - and Sydney drive by shootings and any other kinds of shootings are an example of it. As long as kids grow up exposed to guns (via their massive Hollywood promotion) as a way to solve problems then we risk overturning our culture that has, thankfully, tight gun control.

People like Paul Mitchell often use the fact that the US homicide rate is five times higher than Australia, and the fact that most US states have lax gun laws, as some sort of trump card which proves that the presence of guns is the problem. But US statistics also show that if all firearm related murders were removed entirely from US homicide statistics, the US homicide rate would still be twice the Australian rate. Any person with a skerrick of objective reasoning capability would therefore conclude that something other than firearm availability must be a factor.

And within the USA, widely varying rates of regional homicide with different firearm laws once again point to cultural factors instead of simply firearm availability. Largely rural northern US states which are primarily inhabited by white people, and who have very lax gun laws, have homicide rates comparable to Australia. According to figures published by the SSAA in The Shooters Journal, Australia's homicide rate is 1.8 per 100,000, New Hampshire (with few gun laws) is also 1.8. 1.7 for Delaware and 1.1 for Vermont.

It is the cities, especially those with large populations of negro and Hispanic people (and strict gun laws) which greatly distort the US homicide rate. The US homicide rate is 9.8 per 100,000. Among Washington black teens it is 227 per 100,000.

This insistence on blaming guns as the problem allows people like Paul Mitchell to studiously avoid looking at the effects of ethnicity on crime rates. Here in Australia the same pattern repeats. In 2001 the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics reported that 55% of the handgun shootings in the entire state of NSW occurred within the boundaries of two notorious ethnic ghettoes. But you can bet that Paul is never going to mention that.

Nor is Paul going to ask himself whether massacres and steadily rising violence rates are caused by guns, or it is caused by our increasingly violent culture which conditions immature young men that think that criminality, contempt for authority, and the callousness to kill somebody, is the mark of a Real Man?

<We don't have a cigarette advertising culture in those settings. Or an alcohol one (we're not so good with the gambling).>

We don' have an alcohol advertising culture? Has this guy buried his head in the sand of XXXX island or trying to feed us the dung from certain stables in Carlton?

I live in the West Wimmera, which according to The Age is statistically the safest way to live in Victoria. And guess what we also have "More guns then people" according to the 2006 Census. And the town just down the road has the highest number of guns per person. 2.5! And yet, very little gun crime.
I myself own one rifle, a .22mag for controlling rabbits and foxes. I have no issues with Australia's gun laws, I actually like them tight, it makes it so much safer. My children (6 and 2) are exposed to shooting and guns and while they are not allowed to touch them we are already teaching them how to act around firearms, how to look after them and what we use them for. We do this because there is safety in knowledge. If my child happens to see Hollywood's dramatizing everything it is my job as a parent to teach them different.