Paul you tell us that some people are not mentally equipped to have a gun. Then you go on & prove in your post that this is right. I would hate to see people like you with anything more dangerous than a butter knife, you would be sure to hurt yourself.

Yes rehctub, I have owned guns for 60 years. At 15 I was a cadet platoon commander overseeing 30 cadets on the rifle range, after having trained them in the safe operation & handling of weapons.

At 20 the country was supplying me with an aircraft carrying both machine guns, & rockets. I wonder if that qualifies me to be considered safe with a pea shooter?

You are right about our kids. My son, until recently, was training officer cadets, before they went to Duntroon. He had us horrified with his description of their behavior on the range.

He said some of them tucked the butt of a Steyr under their arm, looked over the barrel, & thought they were aiming. After being trained before going to the range, he then found about half of them were shutting their eyes as the thing went bang.

As a qualification he added, "Oh, & most of the girls were worse".

John Howard has certainly robbed us of the ability to rapidly raise train & deploy a citizens defense force, such as we did to defend New Guinea. In the 40s most kids could shoot a rabbit if it was silly enough to sit still. Today most of them could not hit a tin shed, even from the inside.

It is easy to see how civilisations fail, as they become soft & flabby.

I don't know how any reasonable, thinking person could ever imagine that an offender might first check Howard's 'gun control' laws to see what is permissible and allowed.

Imagine the gang member saying, "Gosh, this law I'm reading says that the new gansta gun I imported is illegal, so that puts the kybosh on enforcing that drug territory, boss".

and

"Bro, we really have to put off that shoot-up of the rival bikies clubhouse, because we surrendered our kick-ass weapons in John Howard's 'Buy Back'".

As for John Howard's threatening meme of 'US Gun Culture' that is coming to get us, that is beaut for concealing the inconvenient truth that the huge majority of US gun crime and crimes of violence generally is black on black, in defined areas (guess!) and involve gangs and drugs. Social problems.

In Australia where gun crime has always been rare, the violent crime, including with weapons, involves gangs and drugs.

<Ethnic crime: Two more killed in Middle Eastern bikie gang war
On Monday July 29, 2013 two Middle Eastern males with links to bikie gangs and terrorists were killed just kilometres - and minutes - apart, becoming the latest victims of Sydney's out-of-control gun violence.
..
One former counter terrorism officer, who asked not to be named, said the gun culture had become so ingrained among Middle Eastern males in southwest Sydney that they have taken to settling so-called “honour” disputes with guns.

“The culture is all guns and drugs. If someone looks at your wife the wrong way, you shoot them. They think they’re bulletproof and they have this wilful disregard for authority.”
..
The State Crime Command’s Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad launched Operation Apollo in February 2013 to try to get on top of gun violence. They have arrested more than 320 people, laid more than 600 charges, and seized more than 80 firearms.

But the shootings continue.>
http://australian-news.net/articles/view.php?id=146

If truth ruled in social discourse and in politics, and laws were based on evidence, the response to violent crime would be very different indeed and it would have a chance of working.

The leftist political 'Progressives' who much prefer to make more las to control ordinary law-abiding citizens and to burden police with busywork, might look to their own political 'initiatives' over time and the unforeseen negative consequences of their social policies.

Not something the ABC 'fact checker' might identify of course.

Ahh Bruce your logic is faulty !

There are elephants in Sydney !

Meanwhile the road toll creeps inexorably higher without hardly a whimper...gun buyback was a fascist plot carried out by Dr Rebecca Peters et al.

Allegedly Rebecca Peters is connected with the Soros organisation, which is reputed to always be interfering in the domestic politics of other countries.

George Soros,

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/business/worldbusiness/24iht-soros.html?_r=0

and,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros

A billionaire dealer in international currencies. You wouldn't even feel his hands in your pockets before *whooshka* and your superannuation savings have disappeared into thin air! The smoke and mirrors of international currency dealing.