" You don't seem to be the sort of person to be trusted with firearms."

A massive assumption and an insult.

Police seem very pleased when one of them has the verbal skill to talk to a siege suspect and bring him in alive . Normally it's "drop the weapon" bang dead . Not even a shoulder wound , but vital-organ fatal. Do new cops have to explain how much kick they enjoy from pulling triggers at citizens?

Is Mise,

You are feeling insulted on the behalf of someone else. Very presumptuous of you is it not? You cannot possible know whether another person - particularly someone you don't know - feels insulted or not. You might find that you have insulted him by assuming that he is wet enough to be insulted by what I said. You are beginning to sound like an old Lefty with guns: even praising the ABC recently :) If this no-gun licencee feels insulted, he can say so for himself, and I would probably say 'stiff cheese', or something like it, if I could be bothered.

Just talking about paperwork and bureaucracy, John Howard has never paid respect to his political opponents whose voluminous draft guidelines were in some State bureaucrat's drawer (NSW), to be lifted out and dusted off as new ministers appeared, but always quickly dismissed as a crock of *bleep*, the errant bureaucrat spanked and the dog-eared folios returned to the cobwebs.

But in haste John Howard took it and once he had done that the master politician in him would have seen hell freeze over before he admitted any mistake.

To give an example of how ill-directed, clunky, bureaucratically hide-bound procedural and labor intensive they are (and as an example of ex-Treasurer John Howard's love of new and bigger taxes), forms could not be downloaded or completed online. There were many new forms forms (99% duplicate info to be completed by hand) and an applicant had to present personally with ID at the local police station where someone in uniform with presumably nothing better to do (thanks JH!) had find the form on the system and print it, ceremoniously handing it over to the applicant for completion and a similar return, while handling a till for Howard's new taxes as well (the experienced know and are kind to bring exact notes and change).

Most local police stations are only manned (whoops, what will be the new PC alphabetical that replaces 'manned'?) during daylight hours and after that there may be only one patrol, one trained and a trainee, for large areas.

I quite like John Howard and he is a decent fellow with the interests of Australia at heart. I reckon that at the time of the PAM, his first concern was to save survivors and relatives, officials and volunteers too, the years of misery of clever barristers who could be expected to find umpteen technical flaws in the handling of the crime scene and forensics.

The 'gun control initiative' was a PM's call and diversion, but he was mentally overloaded and poorly advised by some influences behind the scenes, whose names may never be known and cannot be held accountable.

NICKNAMENICK...Sometimes your contributions appear mildly amusing, others somewhat banal; as this example of your latest presentation is, with ineffectual remarks like; '...do new cops have to explain how much kick they enjoy from pulling triggers at citizens...'? So very clever of you NICKNAMENICK.

ttbn,

An insult is an insult, so be man enough to apologize.