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The Forum > Article Comments > Would a widespread right to carry arms make a community safer? > Comments

Would a widespread right to carry arms make a community safer? : Comments

By Everett Themer, published 12/3/2015

Advocates of Right to Carry laws tout study after study, all claiming to prove that enacting these laws has reduced and prevented crime across the country.

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G'day HASBEEN...

You fall into the same category as IS MISE, if either of you wanted a F/A's licence, and I was in licencing, you'd both have the thing in two minutes flat ! Regrettably there are many others out there in the big wide world, who don't share the same qualities as you and he does. You've both had extensive military training, very experienced in the safe handling of F/A's, possess good sound social maturity and judgement, etc !

But we both know there are many fundamental 'nut jobs' in our society, and I personally wouldn't want them anywhere near even a simple toy 'pop gun', let alone something equally innocuous, like a smooth bore 'Crack a Jack' .177 Air Rifle ? Something you and I and every other kid around, 10 or 12 years could've purchased new, for about 27/6 or even 30/- back in the early fifties.

Mate, I don't know what the answer is, many of our younger folk are becoming crazier as time goes by ? Just look what's happening to some of our young Muslim people ? Somehow, they're becoming radicalised, all rather conveniently in my view, then they're off to Syria or some other place nearby, to have their silly heads shot off, and the rest as they say is history.

Just enjoy practicing your 'turn in's' and 'apexing' as you dash through some of those tight mountain roads, with the top down in your 'super charged' V12 sports car ! Many of these people who are so ardently and vehemently against F/A's in the community, don't really understand the problem in my opinion ? When they're in the hands of criminals, that's the problem. Not the licit market, it's the illicit market, that's the predicament, always the criminal element ? So why punish the licenced shooter ? It makes no sense at all ?
Posted by o sung wu, Saturday, 14 March 2015 5:09:35 PM
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Jay

Your argument about Nazi Germany disarming the Jews actually validates my argument about disarming the citizenry.

Parallel with the gun-control paradigm is the belief that ordinary citizens have no business thinking that they can control their own self-defence.

I remember when I took a women's self-defence course some years ago, I was astonished at the overwhelmingly negative responses I got from virtually everyone I spoke to about it. They seemed to think that I wanted to go out and beat up every man I encountered. The idea that I just wanted to be adequately prepared in the event of being attacked was unthinkable. That course taught me a great deal about simple techniques to get myself out of a dangerous situation, but to most people I was seen as being unduly 'aggressive', especially towards men.

We have become habituated as a society to believe that the responsibility for our self-defence lies solely with our willingness to rely on the police force and the military. Yet when we look at the types of personalities that are drawn to these professions - people who are mostly aggressive, macho and ultra-conservative - this does not inspire me with much confidence.

We are told that our best 'self-defence' lies in allowing these people to have exclusive access to all forms of weaponry and population control - guns, batons, tasers, water cannons, impunity against deaths in custody and increasing surveillance of our private lives.

Rightly or wrongly, I believe that people are lazily relinquishing their right to control their self-defence, and the escalation in the fight against gun ownership is a part of this process.
Posted by Killarney, Sunday, 15 March 2015 12:41:04 AM
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This is another anti gun article where the author mixes up fact and fiction to appeal to the prejudices of his intended audience.

The people of the USA have a Constitutional right to Bear Arms. Author Everett Themer may not like that, but it just happens to be a fact. Within that country, does the carrying of firearms by ordinary citizens reduce crime? Yes, it does. In gun free countries like Britain, home burglaries are right out of control. In gun loving states like Texas, it is very low. Every potential burglar in Texas knows that if they go into a house where the home owner is home, that homeowner has a legal right to shoot them dead.

Result? Little home burglary. Capital punishment works.

There are small towns in the USA where every citizen is armed which have practically no violent crime at all. The connection between an armed citizenry and low crime rates is so strong that three towns in the USA have passed a local ordinances requiring every household to own a gun.

The famous Lott Report conclusively proved that those states possessing "right to carry" laws reduced their crime rates. The validity of the Lott report was accepted to the extent hat every state in the USA has "right to carry" laws where citizens of good character can protect themselves from citizens of violent and predatory character.

Themer claims that new items make no mention of people deterring crime by carrying firearms. He got that right. What he failed to mention is that most violent gun crime is committed by blacks and Hispanics and that they seem to have declared war on the white race. News items will always feature articles where blacks are the victims of whites, but studiously ignore that fact that whites are fifty times more liable to be raped or shot by a black, than the other way around.
Posted by LEGO, Sunday, 15 March 2015 3:46:06 AM
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Well said LEGO, but it's a bit over the top: what works are not the guns, but the BELIEF that people are likely to have them at home.

I couldn't personally comply thus live in a town which made it compulsory to have a gun. Interference of government in our lives is evil, but it goes both ways - whether in forbidding guns or in requiring them.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Sunday, 15 March 2015 6:18:08 AM
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As LEGO said "Themer claims that new items make no mention of people deterring crime by carrying firearms. He got that right."

There is also the fact that newspapers don't report successful applications of self defence; first it's not newsworthy and secondly the vast majority of cases are not reported.

This is particularly so in Australia as reporting the successful use of a weapon (of any sort) leaves the citizen open to charges of possession of a weapon.

The case in Sydney of the man who was attacked n his backyard by a known violent criminal and who, in defence, stabbed the crim (who later died as a result) is illustrative.
The defender was given a hell of a time by the Authorities as he apparently made the mistake of saying that he had the knife for self defence.

In Australia one defends one's self at peril, from the law and from the criminal.

I wonder why so many Americans hold their Constitution in contempt and are always trying to get around it?
I also wonder why so many Australians, including politicians, hold the natural right to defend one's self or family in contempt?
Posted by Is Mise, Sunday, 15 March 2015 8:54:52 AM
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Is Mise, "In Australia one defends one's self at peril, from the law and from the criminal"

That brave old chap who defended himself and tried to rescue the offender was fortunate he was in NSW and not in another jurisdiction. Elsewhere in Australia a person who defends himself or anyone else is treated worse than a criminal, being hauled off for detention and interrogation then being forced to prove under a REVERSED standard of proof that his defence was warranted and exactly measured to avoid harm to the offender.

In blunt terms the presumption of innocence 'the gold thread that runs through the legal tradition' we inherited from the UK, is DENIED to the victim of crime who defends himself and might injure (take that broadly!) his attacker in the process. Similarly if your poodle might nip your attacker it is likely to be put down by police a s a 'dangerous' dog and it is YOU who could be up for another offence and compensation to the offender who got into your home.

I do know of a case on the Gold Coast where an old lady was cautioned by police after her otherwise very docile and equally old German Shepherd leaped up and pulled an offender from a high brick fence to the ground. It was early evening and the offender, with burglary in mind, had been enjoying a view through blinds of the granddaughter in the bathroom when the dog took action to defend her. After the usual expected delay in police response the suspected offender was taken into custody by police some distance away, limping but only bruised from his fall.

The sequel was that the police were unable to proceed through lack of evidence. However that didn't stop them from giving the victim, the owner of the dog, a dressing down for her old pooch, "If it wasn't for your neighbours defending your dog we would be taking it away right now".

In Australia, 'Progressive' governments and their leftist lobbyists hold the rights of criminals dear to their hearts.
Posted by onthebeach, Sunday, 15 March 2015 1:05:05 PM
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