"Realistically, how are we going to ban political
donations?"

Foxy, it was not me who proposed banning all political donations, the suggestion came from Toni, I simply said he would not get an argument from me on that score.

As for banning the likes of the SSAA from tossing wads of cash at politicians like they do, we have successfully band political donations from other vile industries like the tobacco industry. I can not see why we can't do likewise with the obnoxious gun industry.

Toni, thanks for the spot on description of the gun lobby, that should satisfy Issy.

Hassy, I read your post (twice), unless like you who wants to live in some fantasy Davy Crockett world I don't think there is much hope for the vast majority if we have to go self sufficient. you should watch the yanks on 'Doomsday Preppers', they could give you some tips.

Hassy, is the bald guy in the following YouTube, You? It could be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEcMtw4_UHo

//Realistically, how are we going to ban political
donations?//

The same way we ban other things... an Act of Parliament.

//Perhaps putting a cap on them would be a better idea?//

So that lobbyists looking to buy influence have to make lots of small donations instead of one big one. Whilst I'm sure it would be a minor inconvenience, I doubt it would be sufficient to dissuade anybody from the odious practice buying democracy.

Dear Is Mise,

It is you who is clamouring for American style gun 'freedoms' for this country. You are part of the gun lobby. So here is a question for you. If you got all the revoking of gun laws you and your lobby were after and school shootings started occurring in this country at what point would you accept their reinstatement? 5 highschool kids in a single shooting? 10? 15? What about 20 primary school kids? What about nearly 60 sitting enjoying some music?

Love a straight answer.

Steele,

The straight answer is that your assumptions are wrong, I support the core of the current gun laws, all that I object to is the stupidities therein and the fact that Australians are denied the means to protect themselves.

It could be assumed that those who oppose firearms ownership condone home invasions, we already know that the Greens support the criminal element, hence their opposition to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party proposition that criminal use of firearms receives a higher penalty and their objection to the use of Sniffer Dogs at airports etc. It made life hard for their mates.

Ther has just been a shooting in Sydney, a former prominent bikie was murdered.
How could this happen under our strict gun laws, or don't they work against criminals?

//Australians are denied the means to protect themselves.//

The standard refrain of the paranoid variety of firearm fanatic. 'The Government have secretly got it in for us! It's a conspiracy! They want to see us all murdered in our beds! They only want to take our guns away so we can't defend ourselves against the teeming hordes of murderous psychopaths that definitely exist, no matter what the crime statistics might say!'. It's like they've watched 'A Clockwork Orange' so many times that the boundaries 'twixt reality and fiction have started to blur, and now they see droogs on every street corner. Poor timorous wee buggers, must be awful to live your life in such a state of fear all the time.

I'm not entirely sure why they think guns are the only, let alone the best, form of home security. It's like they've never heard of sturdy doors, or large black dogs with orange eyebrows, or cunning traps for the unwary burglar, or indeed anything that doesn't go 'bang!'.

//How could this happen under our strict gun laws, or don't they work against criminals?//

As they so astutely (and frequently) point out, criminals have illegal firearms with which they do illegal things. To their simplistic way of thinking, the natural redress to this problem is to let everyone have firearms. They look at the situation and see it as a game of 'cops & robbers' where only the robbers have guns, which is just unfair.

And I agree, that would be unfair. But it's not a game, and the cops do have guns, and 'vigilante citizen militias & robbers' is not a game I want to see being played on the streets with real guns by real 'grown-ups' who should damn well know better.

//It could be assumed that those who oppose firearms ownership condone home invasions//

But you'd have to be pretty far gone to make an assumption like that.

Toni,

"I'm not entirely sure why they think guns are the only, let alone the best, form of home security. It's like they've never heard of sturdy doors, or large black dogs with orange eyebrows, or cunning traps for the unwary burglar, or indeed anything that doesn't go 'bang!'."

The best means of self-defence against knives or guns is to have a gun, that's why police have them.

Setting cunning traps for burglars is against the law and no premeditated active means of home defence is legal.

You may use the spray oven cleaner to save yourself from a perceived immediate life threatening attack in the kitchen but you can't keep it in the bedroom, that shews premeditation.

That's one of the stupidities.

Why isn't the use of a firearm in a premeditated crime worth 20 years without the option?