G'day there SUSEONLINE...

Much of what you say is correct. Borne out by crime figures. Fortunately, it's the crooks that do the most damage with guns, rather than licenced shooters.

I personally don't like hunting. I see no need for it. A couple of my long standing friends (all ex. now retired coppers) are avid hunters, with one of 'em, keen on Ducks (shotgun) and vermin 'grunters' (centre-fires). And whenever his wife allows him, up to the NT, he'd take his, big .458 Ruger Tropical S.S. seeking out Buffalo ? The same bloke, left the 'Prang Gang' (Accident Invest. Squad) because he couldn't stomach doing Fatals, day in and out ? His great love of hunting, or guns for that matter, didn't mean he was a raving psycho or weird in some perverse way ?

Nevertheless myself, I'm no hunter ! But I do enjoy the engineering features of a well designed and well mfg'd. F/A. I thoroughly enjoy punching holes in paper too, both with HG's and rifles, not to mention my beloved 870P, which we're no longer permitted to possess, thanks to a particular 'looney tune' now a resident in Risden Prison, in Hobart Town ?

Concerning your issues of Shooting in the Olympics, well that particular discipline has been around as long as the Olympics themselves. Not only your traditional free pistol and rifle (precision shooting), many involving the fairer sex too, but other cross country (in snow) where a F/A is carried and used as part of the event. Sorry, I have to disagree with you on the Olympics issue unfortunately SUSEONLINE.

FOXY...

As you say the consider F/A ownership a 'right' ? One of their amendments concerning 'the right to bear arms'. However, overtime I've seen the meaning of this amendment thoroughly dismantled only to be instantly reconstructed again - naturally by lawyers and academics.

The only positive thing that I can add to that proposition - one should never permit a lawyer to get anywhere near anything worthwhile ? Lest it all somehow disappears forever into the perpetual ether ?

Hasbeen's post reminded me of something my father told me.
When he joined up in 1915 a lot of those in his battalion where from the country.
They taught the army instructors how to shoot.
In Belgium they did not like wasting ammunition and mainly operated as snipers.
When the Americans arrived they were very green and the Aussie country
hicks were allocated the job of teaching them how to stay alive.

A sidebar, my father was shot in the knee and was lying in no mans land
when a couple of German soldiers came along. Looked at him picked him
up sat him on his rifle and carried him into the Australian lines and surrended.

Cossomby, "The landholder was deeply critical of pig-shooters who came onto the property without permission."

I totally 'get' that your creative anecdotal tales are ad hominens to poison the well against hunters universally.

However you really need to take a bit more care when drafting with that poison pen.

It is blindingly obvious is it not that anyone who would go onto a property illegally is first a criminal. That the said persons were ignorant and committed other offences is rather predictable where they already had scant regard for the law and others.

I will leave the other creative yarns for others.

This is the problem isn't it? That to make a case against hunters or gun owners as a group you and control nuts find it necessary to conflate the relatively small number of criminals and unlicensed offenders (also criminals by definition), who are already doubly offending by even touching a firearm, with the many thousands of good respectable citizens who have never offended and are certified to be so by character references and police checks.

Frankly I wonder how many here could satisfy the requirements for a car licence if the same standards were applied to motor licences too. There is a good argument for doing so and we could all sleep safer at night.

Suze, I'm not against laws that co trol how we store and use guns (with exception for farmers) but I do believe owning a firearm is a right of anyone who has not committed a crime.

My brother and I both grew up with guns and also learned how to use them safely. My son fired his first shot when he was 13 and to this day is a crack shot and very safe with a gun. He would also be in the minority of those who would not have to be taught the very basics should we ever need to defend ourselves. Most of our people would not only be clueless with regards to firing a gun, but chances are they would be frightened of them, all because the doo-gooders have managed to scare people into believing that it's the guns that are the problem, when in fact the majority of crimes committed with a gun are done so with stolen weapons. Criminals are the problem, not guns and all we have done is made the criminals play ground a whole lot safer, FOR THEM!

ONTHEBEACH...

Gees, you've sure got a burr under your saddle ol' man ! What's you problem ? Firstly you warn me of siding with those who tell others how to live their lives ? Are you kidding me ! Then something about associating with 'GREENS' ? Mate I might be an ugly, dispirit and aberrant old bugger, but being attracted to that cadaverous individual, Mr Robert (Bob) BROWN, or those other most 'fetching' and striking ladies, Ms Christine MILNE or Ms Sarah HANSON-YOUNG...?

ONTHEBEACH, I'll need to retire immediately in order to take a bucket load of medication if, as it seems my humble writing style has deteriorated so badly, as to appear that I've been unwittingly allured and beguiled by those people of the GREEN, faaaarrr left !

In fact so serious is it, my Pathologist should be directed to commence my autopsy without further delay ! And if for some reason I'm inadvertently detained, offer him my profound apologies if you will, and respectfully implore him to start the process without me ?

How could you misinterpret my comments so badly ? I don't like hunting ? Does it mean I deplore everything to do with that activity ? In a word, yes I do, it's just an opinion ? My opinion only ? Am I anti-guns ? In the hands of crooks and those who're suffering from a mental disorder, absolutely ? You should be as well, if you're not, well you've got a problem !

I've been around F/A's my entire life. I thoroughly enjoy examining the fantastic engineering associated with a fine Austrian or German even the nice Finish weapons. The simplicity and reliability of the humble AK47's, the various forms of the SKK and SKS's all reliable though 'rustic' would probably cover their descriptions ? Of course the Yanks produce great stuff, as did we, at Lithgow as well ?

I dunno mate, I really don't ?

Dear onthebeach,

It is amazing how you jump to conclusions.

I tell a couple true stories that happened to me, personally. You call them 'creative'. Do you mean you think I made them up?

I wrote them in a fairly bland way, with no indication of my attitude to hunting (although there were a couple of giveaways - I suggested to the land-holder that there were some benefits to pig-hunting, and I showed that I was familiar with hunting magazines). Then I asked the reader: what do these stories tell about the psychology of hunters.

For the record: I am not against guns or hunting per se; in my younger days I shot kangaroos and rabbits. I have handled shot-guns, rifles and hand-guns.

However I am deeply cautious about people who are obsessed with guns and hunting, and I know some individuals who legally own guns whom I would make sure I was never in the same place with them and a firearm.

I once went camping in Arizona (1970s) with a bunch of university students. Every pick-up had a gun rack in the back window, and one of the entertainments was shooting rattlesnakes with hand-guns and, basically anything else that did or didn't move. I had no idea whether anyone had a gun license. I spent the whole time terrified and was deeply grateful to get home without being shot. Certainly the omnipresence and casualness of guns in rural USA makes the Australian countryside seem like a peaceful retreat - on the whole you don't have to worry all the time about getting shot when driving around the outback.

So, back to the psychology of hunters. Probably in the US, 95% of gun-owners are OK (barring accidents), while the other 5% are the ones to worry about. For Australia, I have wondered over the years whether the general lack of a gun culture across the broad population here means that those people who are into guns here are in fact equivalent to that 5% about whom we should be very cautious and concerned.