If the founding fathers of the US Constitution had ever seen an Armalite rifle, and what it could do in seconds to a McDonalds restaurant full of mums, dads and kids, they may have had second thoughts about the Second Amendment.

That being said, there is no correlation to firearms ownership and homicide rates within well socialised communities. If the mere presence of firearms is the cause of homicides and massacres, then every community possessing high rates of private firearm ownership should have very high rates of homicide. This is not the case and this is a provable premise.

It can be best illustrated in the case of the USA. The USA's high homicide and massacre rate is presented as proof positive by anti gun activists (another name for vegans and vegetarians) that guns cause crime. But if the US homicide rate of 9.8 per 100,000 is compared to Australia's rate of 1.8 per 100,000, a startling fact stands out. That is, that if all of the people murdered in the USA using firearms is completely removed from the US statistics completely, the US's rate would still be double the Australian rate. Obviously, something other than the mere presence of firearms is causing large numbers of people to think that killing other human beings is perfectly appropriate.

The reason for that is because western societies are changing, and not necessarily for the better. Our entertainment media through visual images, songs, and computer games are glorifying violent criminal behaviour, including drug use, misogyny, gang behaviour, and even racial hatred, to our children. Our kids are being socialised onto this violent new culture by the media, while in the past they were socialised by their parent's traditional values. Family and Christian values that stress sublimation of individual self interest for the good of the community, which have always been the keystone of our former peaceful cultures, are constantly being attacked and belittled.

Add immigration from non western countries, and left wing political organisations enthusiastically stoking racial hatred through identity politics, and western societies are growing powder kegs in search of a fuse.

Trump lovers need be reminded that there is No Right To Bear Arms in Australia, even in Queensland.

Even in the US that right was an 18th one to combat British domination - not a 20th right to mainly use guns to: commit suicide; kill family members and school kids.

I only used guns in the Australian Army Reserve - was crap on the SLR, but better on the M16/AR15 and submachine gun (almost no kick to anticipate).

Dear LEGO,

I have not read the article yet, only your comment - and I must protest, «anti gun activists (another name for vegans and vegetarians)»: I am vegetarian, I would not touch a gun myself, but I support the freedom of others who so wish to have guns in order to protect their homes.

Morality is of value only when it is self-imposed.

CORRECTION - ON ABOVE

Even in the US that right was an 18th CENTURY one to combat British domination - not a 20th-21st CENTURY right that results in guns mainly being used to commit suicide, kill family members and school kids.

Australians don't have a constitutional right to bear arms; Americans do. It's tneir problem; let them fix it, or not. Get over it! It's nothing to do with us.

It is mostly irrelevant to Australians what the US does about gun controls in their own country.

But statistics prove the most lethal aspect of firearms in the US is hand guns:
And the most high profile are military weapons, which statistically are the least problem.

How the second amendment legitimises the toxic mix of hand guns in their communities is the issue to be dealt with.

Obviously the US has an urgent need to deal with this problem, and they are. Hand gun crime is reducing as tighter gun controls incrementally creep in without much fuss.

I think gun control is a non event.

Dan

If the founding fathers of the US Constitution had ever seen an Armalite rifle, and what it could do in seconds to a McDonalds restaurant full of mums, dads and kids, they may have had second thoughts about the Second Amendment.
LEGO,
Not just rifles, Education too !

I believe in the right to bear arms/a bill of rights that would enshrine such a right.

Those that carry legal weapons/obliged to use them, must have their mental health, integrity, reasons to carry/use a firearm, tested via unbeatable space age lie detection.

I mean, a police officer shot an unarmed lady reporting a possible rape etc-etc! Underlines the fact, those we trust with lethal weapons, no safer than Joe public! Yes, the average sane citizen ought to be able to carry a weapon to protect themselves.

Imagine, a young heroic nurse running to aid a stab victim of a terrorist, being able to take out a small .22 pistol, use it on the armed maniacal attacker. How many other lives besides the heroic nurse's would've been saved?

We have laws that make drugs illegal. Have waged a losing battle against the illegal drug trade for over eighty years.

As we succeed, even worse more addictive drugs found their way onto our streets/our schools etc. With mafia-like gangs trying to control turf with drive-by shootings with illegal unlicensed weapons.

The only laws that are worth a pinch of sh!t are those that are enforceable! Hardly a day goes by that we are not assailed by yet another headline of some vulnerable elderly person mugged in their own home.

Should the criminal trespasser be injured by a citizen using force to protect themselves? Our insane laws give the criminal interloper more rights than the homeowner/landowner!

Time we were allowed to arm ourselves and defend our (castles) against unwanted trespass, be they break and enter merchants or vigilante animal activists trying to prevent a farmer from conducting lawful business!

A backside peppered with rock salt is a very valuable lesson and may even break the nexus between juvenile crime and our massive and ever-increasing incarceration rates?

Finally, women need to be able to take back the night. A concealed .22 might just allow that. Without protection, young women will continue to be attacked and murdered by the nut jobs now roaming what once were safe neighbourhoods!
Alan B.

AFL,
Amusement For Losers

Criminals can and do get to have their choice of weapons. Be it a semi-auto Armalite or an uzi with phenomenal automatic firepower. There's a black market and money talks! Rounds per minute may be quite impressive, but I'd rather a fifty cal bolt action. And a head target.

I mean, one could empty a magazine and hit nothing. I've seen a rabbit poke its head upon a military rifle range and all manner off fully automatic weaponry trained on it by experienced marksmen. Only to see the rabbit hopping back to its burrow when all the magazines were empty!

As always our gun laws are framed by those who know the least about them and fear them. We still have more homicides with knives than guns! If I was to be murdered by an armed intruder. I'd sooner be shot in the head than be stabbed in the belly and die a slow and excruciatingly pain-racked death.

Suicide? Those that attend the aftermath of such events often report the mess, such as not being able to locate the head when the victim blows the head off with a shotgun.

But have fewer problems when the victim tops themselves with legally available euthanasia. It's odd don't you think that we legalize both abortion and euthanasia, both of which may still a beating human heart.

But go ballistic when someone chooses to top themselves with a gun! He or she should have got some tablets? Right?Or Numbutol? Then it would all be hunky-dory, right? I mean there'd be no mess to clean up? Right?

Go figure?
Alan B.

Giday Alan B.

How bout sticking to your daily Thorium injections rather than writing ignorant blather on American? or Australian gun control?

Where you say:

1. "[You] believe in the right to bear arms/a bill of rights that would enshrine such a right."

Are you suggesting we bring America's system of suicide/family member gun carnage to Australia?

2. "lie detection" is about what you have done in the past not what shopping mall you intend to shoot up.

3. "Yes, the average sane citizen ought to be able to carry a weapon to protect themselves."

What the gun killing of 30,000+? sane American citizens yearly is OK with you?

4. "Imagine, a young heroic nurse running to aid a stab victim of a terrorist, being able to take out a small .22 pistol, use it on the armed maniacal attacker."

Given nurses have a Hypocratic Oath to "Do no harm." and a .22 pistol would not stop an American crim's .44 Magnum or Uzi machine gun - Are you sane old chap?

5. "Time we were allowed to arm ourselves and defend our (castles) against unwanted trespass"

We Australians already have that right

I would consign your ignorant fantasies of gun carrying Australians to the hell that is already American Gun [Out of] Control.

Avagudweekend

Pete

The role of a gun is to kill.

That is an ultimate power which must only be used in the most extreme circumstances.

The concept of state-directed killing by armed forces is one which imposes heavy moral responsibilities upon those charged with employing that warfare.

I believe that the US population lives under the delusion that ownership and use of guns will ensure their freedom from attack, a delusion fostered by a severe lack of personal ethical mores and the casual entertainment settings in which gun use plays a major role, permitting assumed freedom to do whatever they wish without accepting responsibilty for the outcome.

Well done Zeke Anderson. Great article.

You can't build the New World Order if you don't tear up the US constitution.
Gun owning US citizens stand in the way of this.

I support the US constitution for Americans and their right to gun ownership for the reasons you laid out, whilst at the same time I'm kind of glad we don't have so many guns as freely available here.

If the US collapses in the coming years, the citizens will indeed need to defend themselves.
There's been a lot of blood and killing for this Second Amendment right since 1791.
I say the people deserve to keep their guns and ride it out to the end like the Constitution intended.

For many it won't matter, because they have no plans to give them up anyway.

Space-age lie detection would allow the licence issuing authorities to actually determine who should be trusted with lethal weapons and has to include all armed services, given police forces have a record that matches (of sound mind) joe public, when it comes to inappropriate use of lethal weapons!

Yes, guns are designed to kill! But not independently by themselves!

As always, there has to be a finger on a trigger or at a keyboard in the case of remote control. no gun ever made has taken individual action to go kill someone or something.

But in the hands of a human can and do kill. And given that is so must be respected as much as say a hairdryer that can also kill if dropped into the bath. I have a veritable smorgasbord of medicines that could be lethal if overused.

Other lethal weapons in the wrong hands, include kitchen knives, axes, saws, bows and arrows, fishing spears, ropes, all manner of motor vehicles and umbrellas with sharpish tips And thorium if used as nuclear fuel in an unshielded reactor. Albeit, nobody in their right mind is ever going to operate or commission an unshielded MSR thorium reactor! Given all that is needed is a water jacket and a concrete cube. And then as safe as, even in your back yard Pete.

Sorry to disagree, Pte but we do not have the right to bear arms nor an automatic right to use them to protect life and property. And that young nurse who was sacrificed may have still been alive if she ad a .22 to protect herself with.

Do no harm, does not count when on a battlefield protecting yours or your comrades' lives! And we were and are at war with those militants that killed that young nurse, then many others!

Of course, mandatory training in the safe use and storage would be maandatory!
And you have a better weekend.
Alan B.

Australians have a right to keep and bear arms because the law recognizes that we are allowed to use sufficient force in legal self defence to overcome an attacker.

Therefore if the attacker is armed with a gun the law allows us to use a gun to overcome the attacker.

However, the law also denies us the means that it recognizes as necessary.

So our right to arms is a moral one and not a legal one, but never the less it exists.

The use of force to restrain, restrict, prevent or kill an armed intruder is not a right here, but a privilege that is tested in a court by pompous people who just weren't there!

And a fence paling, a steel picket, baseball bat or a pinball hammer in the wrong hands is a lethal weapon!

let's not forget machetes or illegal unregistered guns, the country is virtually awash with! To say that these weapons were once legally owned is a false and unproven premise by the anti-gun lobby?

The anti-gun lobby includes a highly influential and vociferous fifth column that simply do not want an armed civilian population. nor do the majority of (control freak), politicians

Imagine how different it would be if the civilian population of Hong Kong were armed with semi-automatic weapons, of those in Tibet? Or the North West of China?

Would the governments of those provinces been able to annex those so easily, or break their commitment as fast if the civilian population were armed?

The Nazi war room decided not to annex a neutral Switzerland during WW11, because it was a virtual armed camp and the terrain didn't lend itself to mechanized warfare, And they were cognisant of how the mighty Red Army fared when it tried to take over an Armed Finland just prior to WW11!

The fact that criminals have illegally intruded ought to deprive them of their, so-called legal rights and seemingly have more legal rights than their terrorised victim(s) Someone acting out whilst under the influence of ice, is a danger even to armed police! Let alone unarmed civilians or emergency professionals, Doctors, Nurses!

And would only cease to be a threat if fatally wounded! Preferably with a humane headshot! I don't see why anybody else's life should be risked or forfeit at the hands of an ice addict.

The only ones that have adequate armed protection from all the foregoing are the law-making, gun prohibiting, nuclear power prohibiting politicians, surrounded by armed protection 24/7!
Alan B.

Alan B,

"The use of force to restrain, restrict, prevent or kill an armed intruder is not a right here, but a privilege that is tested in a court by pompous people who just weren't there!"

The use of appropriate force is a right and is recognized by the Law, that is why protection of one's life is a legal defence.
Moreover, one that in NSW, requires the prosecution to prove that one was not in fear of one's life to get a conviction.
Thus placing the onus of proof where it belongs.

I believe any means to protect ones life and property are essential for the sake of life and prosperity itself.
I for one am very much in favour of the "right to keep and bear arms".
I also subscribe to the right to "shoot to kill" any intruders.
I reason that if one were allowed to kill such people, and I would suggest, going much further, such as drug dealers, Imagine what a wonderful place it would be.
Sure we would be subject to a different fear, but I can only speculate that people would not be so quick to harm knowing that their victim was "carrying", so to speak.
We had an incident here in Perth some years ago where a couple of our colourful locals decided to break into an old couples house, (I think they were under the influence of some drug or other, ice maybe?)anyway the old man retreated into the master bedroom where his sick wife lay in bed.
He ended up with a shotgun in his possession, whether he gathered it on the way or it was already there (under the bed) don't know.
These guys kept bashing at the, now locked, door where at some point the old man shouted at them to leave or he would shoot them.
Apparently that made them more determined as they began to break the door down.
I'm not sure whether the old man let one or more rounds aimed at the now broken and almost accessible doorway, killing one or both assailants, (I don't recall).
The stupid f*&king cops charged the poor old bugger with murder.
If it wasn't for the well meaning and reasonably sane public, (certainly more than the cops or the law), the old man was let off with some stupid "save face" warning by the cops and the stupid legal system.
Now the old man, in killing the scum, undertook what I call "natural justice".
Everything in life has it's faults and flaws, but we must look to reason and common sense for direction.
We mustn't take the simplistic or easy way.

AC,

I wonder what the same anti gun people would do once the Illuminati's plans for a "new world order" begin to take hold and they realise they have been conned.
I would hope that, just like throughout history, the people will rise and kill off these sick elite group of bastards with their sick world domination plans.
It is a ray of hope and sunshine and something to look forward to.
History has many records of the people rising to the challenge of overthrowing governments.
We need our guns for when the time comes for the people of the day will have to rise to the occasion.

Looking around at the behaviour of southern tourists in our supermarkets, it looks to me that they're misinterpreting the term bear/bare. They bare more than their arms ! Grotesque & even more off-putting !

In 1872 I walked into a Kmart in Brisbane & bought a 22 rifle & a 12 G shot gun. I had not bothered in owning a gun while in the navy, or since, I had considered a couple of Great Danes, & my unarmed combat training adequate to protect my property. However I was about to go sailing, "up the reef" to start with, so decided to take out some insurance.

Those guns were radially available to anyone who walked into a Big W Kmart or a large number of stores anywhere in Oz. From what I've read the murder rate is greater today, when access to guns is more difficult, than it was in 1972, when our guns were as available as guns in the US today.

So what is different today to cause this.

Well we have jammed mane more people into each square mile in our cities. Laboratory tests have shown that rats start killing each other once overcrowding reaches a certain level, could that be it?

Then again we have increased our immigration rate dramatically. We now have many more people from different cultures living together, could that be it?

It certainly can't be the availability of guns to the general law abiding population, although it certainly is not reduced to the criminal element. Could it be that the crims are more likely to use guns, when their victims are unlikely to have them?

Could it be the violence of video games & TV shows? Do shows like CSI have more gunfire than the old Gunsmoke? Is it really true we were killing each other more with guns before they were taken off most?

What ever it is, gun laws have not helped at all. It is without doubt the most stupid act John Howard ever did, & we will keep paying for it about as long as we will be paying for electing Whitlam before him.

No I'm not that old, although some cold mornings my knees do feel like it.

It was actually 1972 I walked into that Kmart.

Hasbeen,

oddly enough I was in the Gold Coast around that time, and even though I am not a shooter, at all, I found myself buying a .22 rifle.
Probably for the same reason; because we could.
To this day, I have never fired a single shot from it, nor from the other one or two guns I have.
I think one is an air rifle, the other the .22, and what appears to be a very old, "bolt action" shot gun, which I bought because of it's visual attraction.
Again I have never fired it as well.
It may sound strange but people find all manner of things attractive or collectable.
I have always been drawn to things I like, obviously cars are at the top of my list, the rest are as and where I find them.
So it is not as people choose to believe, that only a "nut job" collects guns.
This is a human norm, and we vary our choice or area of collectables, according to our level of disposable income.
Because guns have a "macho" image attached to them, maybe it helps people's self esteem to own as many guns as possible.
Ironically these types of people never actually use their guns, but simply clean/polish them and put them back on display, and simply admire them.
These are not the people we need to fear.
It is those who conceal and hide their weapons so as not to arouse any questions or suspicions, from either the good or the bad camps.
I don't believe we should be highlighting the "right to bear arms", as some kind of evil practice.
I believe mankind has the right to do whatever he wants, and as is the case, in life, "sh!t happens".
It has nothing to do with God or his will, nor any other spiritual powers or non-beings.
It's plain and simply the will of the individual.
As you pointed out, many years ago we had a much more liberal system of NO gun control, and I don't recall any problems like we are seeing today.

Stabbings are getting quite popular nowadays. Any hysterics on the horizon to ban the import of cuttlery ? Blenders could be classified as automatic weapons.
If only we had a National Service where stupidity is the target, we wouldn't have to worry about weapons at all !
All that's needed is to go out & harness common sense, plenty of it out there, just stop the social engineers from maligning it !

Gun laws today are more extensive and controversial. The right to carry arms is the inherent right in the U.S. The only way to resolve the issue is throught extensive background check and limiting the outlets selling guns. Bashar H. Malkawi (Arizona, U.S.)

Nowadays, Gun licenses appear to be approved by the same bureaucrats that approve Visa applications !