Cornflower- it's not that criminals will use licensed weapons, its that idiots could, and as examinator said, in largely irrelevant circumstances to warrant ownership.
My point about the rates of violence actually has TWO points, which I will repeat only once more;
1- assault on innocent parties is very, very LOW. Therefore the risks of allowing widespread gun ownership compared to the stricter licensing laws we have now are, to me, rather skewed.
2- assault involving TWO willing participants over grievances are very, very HIGH. Not a good demographic to allow loosening of gun laws.

For me, I'm more worried about law-abiding but irresponsible users or agro knuckleheads and vigilantes in this country than I am over the possibility of an armed burglar conducting a home invasion for crack money.

So again, I would need an alarming shift of crime rates and general public conduct and culture, along with licensing protocol that would make ours seem more like the Canadian circumstances than those of the American Mid-West; before I would lean towards ownership rights.

King Hazza, "Cornflower- it's not that criminals will use licensed weapons, its that idiots could"

Where are the numbers to support that contention?

Before Howard, firearms ownership in Australia was already subject to licensing. Peer reviewed research has failed to show any appreciable gains from the $1billion of taxpayers money wasted by Howard on bureaucracy, paper and a buy-back. Worse, as a result of Howard's 'initiatives', hundreds of trained police in weapons branches across Australia now waste their days monitoring reputable, law-abiding people who have licences, keeping their personal data on computers as 'persons of interest' and making random inspections at their homes.

What Howard did was grandstand about firearms and play on people's fears and prejudices to win an election.

If you are concerned about violence and God knows from what you say there seems to be a lot of it in your neck of the woods, you should support what I am suggesting:

- that reducing violence be the goal, not blowing more government money on fraudulent, political diversions like 'gun control, 'knife control', 'bikie control' and so on.

..ie Goal is to reduce violence, do a comprehensive risk analysis and take the treatments from there. Too obvious, but not the 'law and order' BS that politicians are so fond of and gets us nowhere.

examinator, I agree the headline was over the top hype. The whole point was to expose over the top hype of Gun Control Australia by posting their exact words. They are not rational.

King Hazza, many reasonable people including perhaps a majority of shooters agree with you on much of that. If we could step away from 'argument from ignorance' to 'argument from evidence' about how people behave, it would be a vast improvement. For instance, the evidence is very clear that licensed firearms owners are far less likely to commit violence or gross carelessness than the population at large. Almost all of the serious offenses involving firearms involve unlicensed people with previous records of serious violence.

Chris Per- this is what I'm talking about, and laws would have to guarantee that guns would be resticted to only very sensible people indeed.
My concern are laws that would broaden access.

Chris Per,
So you accept that you lied and misrepresented in your headline and opening post. Yet you say it was not to slag the Liberals. What rubish!

I am surprised that your post was allowed in the first instance.

I once submitted an article regarding FGM in Aus which was rejected because I did not provide evidence of it occuring here.

Now I gave the moderators that evidence , by way of NSW Parliamentry hansard and media articles and it still was rejected. I expect there was a reluctance to overide the initial moderators rejection.

Your article should not have been accepted as you deliberately set out to deceive readers.

In my view you should have been required to present of your claims up front.

Correction,
The last sentence of my post should read:-

In my view you should have been required to show evidence of your claims up front.