Hi o sung wu, you know my position as a pacifists, that there should be no guns in society, a rather Utopian ideal at present, given where we are in history. However I do recognize the need (now) for "professional" persons to hold firearms unsupervised, police, military and a few others. I do not recognize a need for "amateur" persons to hold firearms unsupervised, hunters, target shooters, what are classed as recreational shooters.
There should be far more control of amateur use of guns, and strict licencing arrangements in place, much tougher than we have now. It is my view that no guns should be held in the home of a person, except in exceptional circumstances related to their occupation. Amateur hunting should be outlawed, and target shooting heavenly controlled and supervised.
Those who engage in illegal gun activity, for those the penalties should be severe, if not draconian.

Ezhil,

Have you ever seen a Zimmerstutzen?

Steele,

"Now there may well have been issues which neither of us are privy to but increasingly easy access to weapons in this country must be considered a factor."

Evidence for this increasing easy access, please?
Just one small instance will be enough.

"Proud of yourself"
looks more like a question than a statement, but as your English seems to be on a par with your amateur psychology, I'll just be quietly amused, as for the rest of your dribble, well, it's what one has come to expect.

guns are destructive weapons
Ezhill,
That is a statement of irrelevance for the simple fact that literally anything you can lay your hands including your hands & feet, is a weapon.
The most dangerous weapon of all is stupidity & yet our education system is trying its hardest to enhance this dreadful outcome. Imagine if education were to focus on a healthy menatlity in place of working on indoctrinating future Lemming-like consumers in order to reap more taxes.
Let's collectively push to improve the educational standard & also push for a National Service. Now that would be a good fight !

'morning to you PAUL1405...

You very last sentence, I couldn't agree more! '...penalties should be severe if not draconian...'!
As you no doubt know, many States in the US have the three strikes Rule, as well as an additional (minimum) ten years penal servitude tacked onto their head sentence, where a F/A is used in the commission of an indictable offence.

Paul I understand you don't recognise those who you describe as amateur shooters. Only people who have a need to carry a F/A as part of their job description etc. Shooting is a very large part of the Olympic Movement, not only as an event in itself, but in other events where the use of a rifle constitutes part of the event.

Strengthening the licensing rules, is all well and good, but many crimes where a F/A is used, that F/A is illicit. This latest horror Paul, well I've not got an answer for you - as I suspect most other coppers won't have one either? A tragedy, where if one were to dig deep enough, you might find an answer somewhere within the archives of the Family Court.

Sorry STEELEREDUX, I'm not unfairly 'belting' the Court, but a number of Domestic Violence occurrences, have come from many of the abysmal judgements, made by that eminent Court, unfortunately. It's not the Justices who preside over the FC Bench, who have to attend them and attempt to sort them out, but the police.

You believe all amateur hunting should be outlawed, but it's these individuals that manage to curb the growth of feral animals. Without them, our graziers would be swamped with ferals, loosing valuable stock, water, and feed - there's where the problem lays, Paul.

Look, as I've said to you in the past, I respect your position Paul, however on several levels, I don't necessarily agree with you. Thanks anyway mate.

Hi o sung wu,

Just as we learnt a valuable lesson from Port Arthur, I hope the recent events at Margaret River, and now at Pennant Hills are not treated as "oh well sh#t happens" and nothing is learnt about the failures of the system. The positives that should come from all this tragedy is we learn and improve our laws to reduce further the possibility of such events happening again.

//Without them,(amateur shooters) our graziers would be swamped with ferals,// That is issue in itself, amateur hunting is not the only answer.

I have to admit if what I want in this area was to be introduced it would put a damper on some peoples "fun". I recognize that, if it saves just one life, so be it.

If I could wind back the clock and throw every gun in Australia into the Pacific Ocean and save the lives of those two children, Jack and Jennifer, I would not hesitate for a moment!

//Strengthening the licensing rules, is all well and good, but many crimes where a F/A is used, that F/A is illicit// Again we have to look at where we are going wrong and strengthen and improve the law.

//Shooting is a very large part of the Olympic Movement// I recognize some participate in target shooting sports, and that is relatively easy to control and supervise. I am not advocating a total ban on target shooting sport. Only control and supervision of the firearms involved.

Dear o sung wu,

This bloke already had an AVO registered against him but it was over a decade ago so apparently doesn't count. He obtained a licence for these two 'high powered' pistols and two other weapons this year and during the custody battle.

He was rejected as an applicant from several gun clubs in 2016. Is a gun club membership a higher bar than getting a licence? Why are they able to assess him as unsuitable yet the police ultimately give him a ticket to arm himself in order to slaughter his children?

It seems in order to get a permit for pistols you need to show a gun club membership. What should happen to the gun club which enabled this tragedy? In my mind they need to be deregistered immediately and all members assessed. Gun club membership rejections should be recorded in a database at a minimum.

It seems that the gun lobby has succeeded in having gun ownership deemed a right rather than a hard earned privilege.

You mentioned two other cases of parents killing their children in dreadful circumstances. We should acknowledge that shooting a human is able to be done at arms length so to speak. To get out of your car and physically throw your child off a bridge requires a type of mental breakdown that is thankfully very rare. Driving into a dam requires risking one's own life to a degree and while there are two cases I have heard of it too is also extremely rare.

But fathers or even grandfathers shooting their children is something we seem to be experiencing frequently.

This case screams lax gun laws and things need to change.