I knew you wouldn't let me down, CJM. Maybe I should give up shooting for fishing, considering how easy it is to attract bites.
I see that you are still whingeing about gun murders as in 'have any of you ever actually known anyone who was murdered with a gun? I suspect your attitudes might be different if you had'. Have you ever known anyone killed in a traffic accident? If so, do you still drive? Or is that too 'obtuse' for your limited intellect?
Why do you think that I shouldn't have guns? Would it make you feel safer?
I like how 'odd social misfits who join clubs where they shoot at pretend people' have morphed from a previous post to 'gun enthusiasts'. Maybe you've finally digested my post on the vast diversity of people who are gun club members. Remember? Doctor, lawyer, paramedic, STAR officer. Also some serving army and RAAF members, civil servants, a plumber, some engineers etc. Sound dangerous?
As for your claim that anyone who wants to join the armed forces has to have a psych evaluation, did you make that up yourself? Anyone in the know will say that you are an idiot for suggesting that.
What a clown. CJ Morgan, the 'C' is for Crusty.

Whatever you say, Powerless. It is my opinion that you're one of those "odd social misfits who join clubs where they shoot at pretend people", and I think you're exactly the kind of gun nut for whom the current regulations are designed - although it worries me that someone who has displayed the sociopathic sentiments that you do is still permitted under current regulations to own a semi-automatic pistol.

That is, of course, why I think that Severin's suggestion of psych evaluations for those who want to play with deadly weapons has merit. When was your last one again?

Perhaps you could expand on your conspiracy theory about the Port Arthur massacre to illustrate my point.

Others - how many massacres like Port Arthur or Hoddle St have we had since the current regulations concerning firearms were implemented in Australia?

C J Morgan,

Heh, heh, your prejudice is showing. Otherwise why would you so pointedly disregard the abundant peer reviewed evidence that has been cited in preference to recycling discredited claims from an anti-gun activist?

Wikipedia:
"Data interpretation of trends in this study differs from other authors, while clearly being based on the same data. Media reports gave Professor Chapman wide publicity while failing to reveal his involvement in gun control activism. Since then, it has been revealed in a Senate Inquiry that Chapman's research was fast tracked for publication by the journal Injury Prevention, bypassing the standard peer review process."

Why would an academic, in this case a sociologist with a PhD on the semiotics of cigarette advertising fail to declare his anti-gun activism and bypass the standard peer review process?

John Howard was very effective at wedge politics and self-serving spin, but the public deserves better than emotional appeals and prejudice, otherwise problems such as violence and criminal behaviour remain unchallenged. It is reprehensible that the public purse was plundered for no good return, then and now.

Have you looked into the mechanism and motivation by which massacres occur? Typically an earlier act is partly imitated - its called a copycat crime or 'contagion effect'. Paul Mullen, Professor of forensic psychiatry, has published on this so you can see the references yourself.

The media and activists with sensational stories and stunts actually teach the potential perpetrators how to do it, and that is why they often occur clustered in time. The Port Arthur massacre was a copycat following Dunblane and Hoddle Street, and activists and media gave the incentive and then instructed in getting illegal weapons for staging a massacre.

We are told by authorities (AIC) that about 40 to 60% of the target guns were concealed and not surrendered in the 'Buyback'. Therefore, semi-auto guns still exist in the community, there are order of one hundred thousand of them, and that many less law-abiding people possess them. Why then has there been no massacres (of four or more) since?

The nearest event, in which five people were shot and two killed, was the 2002 Monash event. This followed weeks of publicity for the Washington snipers, and NCGC claiming that semi-auto handguns were easy to get in Australia. The media and NCGC activists gave incentive and instruction to the killers.

The numbers of guns are still the same in Australian society. Washington sniper-style attacks don't need semi-auto guns, and a WW1 .303 or 1873 Winchester is still effective enough for massacres for those so inclined. The toxic anti-shooters like John Crook say we shooters are violent, and we have effective guns just as before. Yet massacres have stopped COMPLETELY in Australia. WHY?

The only explanation is that the massacres were caused by social contagion effects independent of Australia's ordinary shooter and gun ownership culture. The media with NCGC used to tell people massacres were easy; and when they won new gun laws, gave the public impression that the dangers of gun massacres were now 'fixed'. They stopped teaching it as easy.

So I take it that you both acknowledge that Australia hasn't experienced a firearm massacre like Port Arthur or Hoddle St since the current regulations were implemented in 1996?

Nice try though, ChrisPer. Undoubtedly there was something of a 'copycat' effect in the Port Arthur massacre, but it's hardly a sufficient explanation. Bryant had to be able to purchase his guns and ammunition without having a gun licence in order to carry out his horrific crime. To say that "the media and NCGC activists gave incentive and instruction to the killers" is complete bollocks.

There have been numerous reports of international shooting sprees perpetrated by deranged killers since 1996, yet Australia hasn't experienced any 'copycat' examples. I think that restricted access to weapons and ammunition is very likely a factor, despite your obtuse protestations.

It's interesting that you mention the 2002 handgun murders at Monash University - which led to the further tightening of restrictions around handguns (about which Powerless didn't whinge...). You neglected to mention that the perpetrator was both mentally ill and had owned and purchased the five handguns he used in his murders legally. I understand that he was also a member of the Sporting Shooters Association.

Of course, such information clearly strengthens the case for requiring those who want to play with deadly weapons to undergo regular psychiatric examinations. Better still, just ban handguns altogether for non-security applications.

Cornflake - I haven't referred to Chapman at all, so your entire ad hominem rant about him is redundant. I've drawn my own conclusions on gun control on the basis of publicly available information and my own experiences. Mind you, given that you are someone who frequently and spuriously accuses others of ad hominem attacks, your hypocrisy is mildly amusing.

I'm away for the weekend, so I'll leave you 'gun enthusiasts' to it.

C J Morgan

To my knowledge there haven't been any panthers discovered in the Blue Mountains since Howard's laws either. Fortunately too there have been no bombings either. Chalk both up to Howard's 'initiative'

You mean didn't slavishly followed the discredited Chapman article? No jelly bean then for being equally desperate to find something, anything to support Howard's wasted billions.

Just keep on repeating how it is all your belief and you have faith in Howard, because the parallels in your behaviour with your hated religious 'fundys' you are forever trashing is very funny indeed. Or is it solely through prejudice that you and Howard are joined at the hip?

Heh, heh, CJ has spoken: it is 'ad hominem' to ask why a senior academic rushed to public publishing of his controversial conclusions without subjecting them to peer review and didn't at the same time declare his anti-gun activism.

Once people used to get underground 'mutton' from the field to eke out their budget. Since Howard found such ordinary people to be very, very dangerous and took their pea rifles away to stop them becoming mass murders there has been an explosion in rabbit numbers and the SA government is encouraging the use of poison gas, dynamite and explosives made from nitrate fertiliser. In CJ's nutty anti-gun religion, greater proliferation of the use of poison gas and explosives is much safer than someone with a scatter gun getting rabbits for dinner. Oh, the danger and inhumanity of rabbit hunters with pea rifles and the missus at home chopping taters and onions for the harvest!

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/10/australian-farmers-told-dynamite-rabbits/?test=latestnews