increasing gun ownership is not the way to build safer communities.
Pelican,
Agreed but an increase in licensed gun ownership with no persecution for using it in self-defence would create safer communities. Just imagine if Police, Security & Army couldn't defend themselves ?

You are way off the mark, suzeonline. There is more to Bob Katter than you think. But just to put you straight on the term "red neck".
The term was coined in Scotland centuries ago by those who resisted oppressive church behaviour. The would-be reformers wore red neck scarves to distinguish themselves (or make sure they didn’t shoot the wrong person). Hence they called themselves “red necks”. Many Scots migrated to the U.S. and they were a dominant ethnic group in many of the coal mining towns of the Appalachians. In the late 1800s, there was a lot of labour strife there, and the companies called in Pinkertons men to suppress the workers. It was pretty horrific – villages burned, women and children killed indiscriminately. The miners (many descendants of the Scottish “red necks”) who opposed the bosses and their hired thugs wore the red neck scarf again and termed themselves “red necks”. Only later was the term given other meanings. So - suzeonline – the “red necks” have always stood up for what was right. There is no shame in being a “red neck”. It is only those who are poorly educated who think it is useful as an insult. You had better hope that if you ever need someone to stand up for you, there will be a “red neck” there to protect you.
Bob Katter is no fool. The more parties we have the stronger our democracy will be.

Less than 1 percent of imports are checked, and of those, if you happened to stumble across one, do you know how difficult it is to tell one disassembled firearm piece mixed in with legitimate engine/plumbing/etc parts?

What about our huge border? If America can't close their border to drugs with a trillion dollar military, do you think we can close our borders to guns from PNG with exponentially more area to cover and exponentially less expenditure?

What about the fact that you don't need a gun to do damage to the public? You only need a basic education, or access to a library, or an internet connection and you can take out entire buildings with bombs - in fact Taliban and the like do this all the time without any of these things.

The fact is the limitation of firearms has naught to do with how safe you are. More people are killed playing sport every year than by firearms. More people die slipping in the shower. What do you want to do, ban information? Ban education? Ban leisure? Ban surfaces that are slippery when wet?

This "save us from ourselves" attitude is nothing short of pathetic, and your knee-jerk emotional anti-gun rhetoric is but one embodiment of this. Laws you know nothing about, about a subject you know nothing about, and you have the gall to call law abiding firearms owners savages? Gun laws make you feel safer, nothing more. If the laws have no impact on safety, then why ban them?

Road deaths stand at ten so far for the holiday weekend.

Had half this number been shot the Greens would be screaming for the banning of all firearms, and so would the rest of the anti brigade.

However most, if not all, of them own cars. . .

ChrisPer
We may disagree but I refute the assumption that there is any hatred or notions of superiority towards gun owners or those defending the rights to own a gun. One could argue the same about the constant disparaging remarks about inner city urbanites and non-rural people as though somehow this means one loses the right to comment. Gun ownership is not a rural issue only, in fact it is more relevant to cities as far as crime rates.

I grew up in the tropics and spent time in the outback and have relatives and friends living in rural Australia. I don't see them as inferior to me in any way.

My view is based on the statistics when comparing crime rates here and in those countries where guns are a big part of the culture.

I would not say Katter is a nice bloke but as with most Party structures, he probably won't be the only member influencing policy. His belligerent style will probably be reigned in by others. I actually like a couple of his ideas regarding foreign ownership and free trade but as yet not much in detail to really make any valid assessment.

The State of Maine in the USA has no gun laws to speak of, there is no registration, licences etc and people wear pistols openly without restriction.
Crime rate is lower than Australia.

Mexico and South Africa on the other hand have very strict gun laws but their crime rate is greater than that of the USA.

Perhaps there are other factors involved.