Ha ha, CJ, you spat the dummy. You call me a liar yet you accuse me of 'whingeing' but refuse to back up your accusation.
Imagine you calling me a liar - what a nasty, horrible person, to paraphrase parts of your previous posts. Also a sad, bitter, little man.
When I replied to the comment about there currently being no requirement for a psychiatric evaluation as part of getting a firearms licence with the fact that a doctor can have a licence suspended or cancelled, you labelled that as an 'obtuse response'. What a strange view you have.
I think that everyone should have a psychiatric evaluation before being allowed to post to this forum. Where would you be then, CJM?
Keep up the good work, I enjoy my daily snigger.

More people are killed by falling coconuts each year than in shark attacks.

The drive to the beach is more likely to be fatal than a fatal shark attack.

Many orders of magnitude more sharks are killed by humans, than humans by sharks.

But still we are terrified of being attacked by sharks... and we still go to the beach and play in the waves, just like their natural prey would.

I imagine guns evoke the same less-rational fears about being shot by a maniac or gangster (thanks underbelly), when the reality is a farmer shooting the odd fox/dingo/rabbit/goat etc., or some ordinary person down at the firing range shooting targets.

I'm not an expert, but there is a bit more to Port Arthur than we are led to believe, though the whole thing is still the fault of one loony. Would this loony have been prevented from doing what he did, if the same laws were in place before the incident? Who knows, but I suspect not a huge difference as he was left to do his thing for about an hour as the authorities were terrified. The average would be about one person shot every two minutes, easily achievable with a single shot bolt action rifle. Limit the magazine capacity to whatever it is these days (maybe 8?) then simply have a few spare magazines in your backpack. I am not sticking up for the loony, and I dont have any guns myself, just a kneejerk reactions by inexperienced urban dwellers and publicity-seeking politicians might not be the way forward.

I heard, a lot of the guns that the Government bought back were not actually funcional, on the news I noticed a few held together by string and stuff. Its great to be able to produce an impressive figure of guns to be destroyed, but it would be even better to know how many of these guns were capable of firing.

Powerless: << I think that everyone should have a psychiatric evaluation before being allowed to post to this forum. Where would you be then, CJM? >>

My best guess is that I'd still be posting, while you wouldn't be able to post your insane conspiracy theories and other irrational comments. An added benefit might be that you might have your deadly weapon/s confiscated.

Chris Per - I agree that psychiatric evaluations aren't precise. However, anybody who wants to join the police or the armed forces has to undergo one, so all the more reason for those who want a licence to play with deadly weapons to have one, in my opinion.

Tell us, gun enthusiasts - have any of you ever actually known anyone who was murdered with a gun? I suspect your attitudes might be different if you had.

It is a pity you can't bring yourself to regard licensed firearms owners as the normal everyday people that they are.

Why continue to direct such irrational malice and spite towards them when there is no evidence of wrongdoing on their part and the licensing process has certified that they are fine, upstanding, responsible members of society?

They are obviously not the criminals you are worried about, so why do you fear and sledge them and not the criminals?

I have known two murderers, a survivor shot in a murder incident, one victim of murder (not firearm murder), and several suicides. I have also known people who were family of suicides and a housemate of someone who was killed by Cooke the serial killer. In line with the statistics, some used firearms but most did not. I have known former soldiers with active combat experience too. People are all around us wiht these terrible kind of experiences.

Remember about gun control enthusiasts, the reason they sledge shooters (not criminals) is because they are really enjoying the emotions of self-righteousness. That enjoyment is enabled by a self-serving 'belief' that they are doing it to prevent violence.

Gun deaths have traditionally been very low in Australia. The numbers were trending down before Howard and after and there is no link or benefit from any of Howard's redundant bureaucratic paraphernalia.

There is a lot of hysteria created from the sensationalist treatment by the media of any firearm incident the world over. That is to increase media audiences and sell advertising.

The CJs and the anti-gun zealots who catastrophise about:

- the farmer having a needed tool to cull feral pests and euthanase terminal animals;

- the hunter who assists conservation and reduces taxes by taking a deer from the forest to eat; and

- the polite grey haired old chaps who shoot service rife competitions on Saturdays;

really need to have a glass of cold water and get a grip on themselves. Least of all they could attack the criminals not the normal, respectable and very ordinary people who appropriately qualify for licences and as is the case with so many owners, have used them lawfully for decades.

Importantly though, the police weapons branches and local police stations have better things to do than maintain records and surveillance of ordinary citizens who are licensed and law-abiding and to make random flying visits to their homes to demand inspections.

It is astounding for instance, that in a supposedly free country like Australia, ordinary citizens are required to report in person to their local police station to be quizzed by police to get a government form (available on the government site). So much for civil liberties.