Another mass shooting...

That's why jesus invented gun safes.

I don't really care about violence in the Simpsons, maybe it affects people in different ways, I don't know.

Quote from: jroa on May 29, 2018, 06:35:36 AM

Quote from: Rayzor on May 29, 2018, 06:04:06 AM

Quote from: Luke 22:35-38 on May 28, 2018, 06:09:15 PM

You can show a country that implemented gun control and drastically reduced it's gun crime as a result.

Australia. 

Gun deaths in Australia were already trending down before your control laws and that trend did not change.  To say that the gun control laws were responsible for there being fewer gun deaths is deceitful.

Are you sure about that?

It's the small shit like this in popular culture that adds up and can desensitize youth into thinking it's normal. No they wont think its 'normal' in the traditional sense of the word, but elements of it over time, sure.

Quote from: Rayzor on May 29, 2018, 07:43:10 AM

Quote from: jroa on May 29, 2018, 06:35:36 AM

Quote from: Rayzor on May 29, 2018, 06:04:06 AM

Quote from: Luke 22:35-38 on May 28, 2018, 06:09:15 PM

You can show a country that implemented gun control and drastically reduced it's gun crime as a result.

Australia. 

Gun deaths in Australia were already trending down before your control laws and that trend did not change.  To say that the gun control laws were responsible for there being fewer gun deaths is deceitful.

Are you sure about that?

It was on a steep decline before the ban. Draw a straight line through and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Quote from: Luke 22:35-38 on May 28, 2018, 06:09:15 PM

The first mass shooting where the target was innocent bystanders, was back in the 50's. Hardly meets the definition of "we always had mass shootings." I will grant that we had cases like the Valentine massacre but that was between gang members. Also, while true we have more guns now, that's not indicative to how many people own guns. Most gun homicides happens in states and cities with stricter laws. California has the highest amount of mass shootings yet they have some the strictest laws in the country.

By "always" I didn't mean back to the creation of your country. But they're not a new thing. They've been pretty common since the 80s. And you keep throwing that line about how most gun homicides are in states with strict laws, but, again, that's just false.

And yes, California does indeed rank pretty high in the mass shootings scale (I'm not sure if it's the highest though). Should be kind of expected given it's by far the most populous  In terms of gun violence per capita, it ranks pretty darn low.

Quote

It isn't when compared to other crime even in the same category and the population as a whole.

I... already demonstrated it is absurdly high compared to the population. And shouldn't it be kind of obvious that it's not as common as other crimes? Doesn't make it any less of a problem.

Why? Most mass shootings are done with handguns.

Quote

Possibly buyback programs.

That failed in places like New jersey and California, and they are among the most willing states to participate in it. How much more do you think it will work well in states like Texas?

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There is little evidence that stricter testing reduces crime. Illinois requires gun owners to have a license to even own a gun, and applying for a carry permit is even worse. Yet they have a high gun crime rate.

Not really, they rank 34th in overall gun violence and they're about average in terms of gun murders. But what's really an issue is that the laws aren't enforced very well. Plenty of european countries have very strict testing and they actually enforce it and it works pretty well to make sure criminals don't end up with guns. I don't understand why anyone would oppose strict testing and background checks.

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I'm giving you leniency. You don't have to stick with mass shootings to prove your case. You can show a country that implemented gun control and drastically reduced it's gun crime as a result.

They worked for Australia. It's a bit dubious what they did for the UK, because they never had that many gun murders to begin with, and they never really cared that much about guns anyways, it was done more to prevent mass shootings from happening again. I don't really know many other countries that relatively recently started enforcing significantly stricter gun laws, and definitely none that had the attitude of the US before.

Quote from: Luke 22:35-38 on May 29, 2018, 08:48:12 PM

Quote from: Rayzor on May 29, 2018, 07:43:10 AM

Quote from: jroa on May 29, 2018, 06:35:36 AM

Quote from: Rayzor on May 29, 2018, 06:04:06 AM

Quote from: Luke 22:35-38 on May 28, 2018, 06:09:15 PM

You can show a country that implemented gun control and drastically reduced it's gun crime as a result.

Australia. 

Gun deaths in Australia were already trending down before your control laws and that trend did not change.  To say that the gun control laws were responsible for there being fewer gun deaths is deceitful.

Are you sure about that?

It was on a steep decline before the ban. Draw a straight line through and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Lets do Americas favourite and rule out all deaths relating to suicide. Then lets remove all deaths related to criminal/bikie gangs

How many people before the ban were random innocent people caught up in this violence and how many deaths of innocents after the ban

Make no mistake, we had 'mass shootings' every year up until the ban. Like it or not, the ban has ensured there are people alive today that would not have been had there been no gun ban.

It's funny how advocates of guns have no problem showing graphs of gun deaths in other countries using the full numbers but when it comes to their own country they are like, 'oh but half of those are from suicide, you cant count those'

The odds that a 22-year absence of mass shootings in Australia since 1996 gun reforms are due to chance are one in 200,000, new research reveals.

Published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine, scholars at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University used mathematical techniques to test the null hypothesis that the rate of mass shootings in Australia before and after the 1996 law reforms is unchanged.

The National Firearms Agreement, enacted after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in which 35 died and another 23 were seriously injured, saw the destruction of more than a million firearms—perhaps a third of the country's private gun stock.
" Most people hear these starkly contrasting numbers and conclude that Australia's gun law reforms effectively stopped firearm massacres here. "
Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman, University of Sydney

The Agreement included uniform gun registration, repudiation of self-defence as a legitimate reason to hold a firearm licence, mandatory locked storage, a ban on mail order sales and standardised penalties, and the banning of semi-automatic rifles and pump action shot guns from civilian ownership.

Its provisions were subsequently enacted in national, state and territory legislation across Australia.

In the 18 years up to and including the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, there were 13-gun homicides in which five or more people died, not including the perpetrator. In the 22 years since, there have been no such incidents.

“Most people hear these starkly contrasting numbers and conclude that Australia’s gun law reforms effectively stopped firearm massacres here,” says the paper’s lead author, Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney.

“However, some scholars and members of the gun lobby have argued that since mass shootings are relatively rare events, the concentration of incidents in one decade and their absence in another decade is merely a statistical anomaly.”

For example, Australian researcher Dr Samara McPhedran writing in The Conversation said: “Mass shootings are rare events, and the long gap between incidents post-1996 may simply reflect a return to a more ‘normal’ state of affairs, similar to the years before 1987.”
" Australia followed standard public health procedures to reduce the risk of multiple shooting events, and we can see the evidence. It worked. "
Associate Professor Philip Alpers, University of Sydney

"This was no accident," says the new study’s co-author Associate Professor Philip Alpers, from the University of Sydney.

"Australia followed standard public health procedures to reduce the risk of multiple shooting events, and we can see the evidence. It worked.

"Gun lobby-affiliated and other researchers have been saying for years that mass shootings are such rare events it could have been a matter of luck they dropped off in the wake of Australia's gun control laws," says Alpers. "Instead, we found the odds against this hypothesis are 200,000 to one."

In related news, Tasmania's re-elected Premier has defended the Liberals' policy to relax the state's gun laws, despite an outcry from survivors of the Port Arthur shooting.

. . . you can't kill as many people with a handgun as you can with a semi automatic rifle.

I couldn't find a stat that doesn't include suicide by gun. However, I did found that California is pretty much equal to other states when counting homicides in general.

The VT shooter had ten round magazines and pistols. The Parkland shooter had ten round magazines for his AR because they were easier to conceal. The Sandy Hook shooter never ran through his magazines. The Pusle shooter was there for I believe 40 minutes and ran through multiple magazines and no one decided to charge him when he was reloading.. What evidence do you have that most of the deadliest mass shootings were done with so called assault rifles.

How do you know they aren't enforcing the training requirements to legally obtain a firearm?

Quote from: Luke 22:35-38 on May 29, 2018, 09:17:34 PM

. . . you can't kill as many people with a handgun as you can with a semi automatic rifle.

Why not? One bullet - one kill, is possible with any firearm.

A revolver is a semi-automatic assault pistol.
The problem is not the shape of the tool or the nomenclature.

A Representative Republic is a form of democracy.

Quote from: Luke 22:35-38 on May 29, 2018, 09:17:34 PM

. . . you can't kill as many people with a handgun as you can with a semi automatic rifle.

Why not? One bullet - one kill, is possible with any firearm.

A revolver is a semi-automatic assault pistol.
The problem is not the shape of the tool or the nomenclature.

Quote from: Bullwinkle on May 29, 2018, 10:02:51 PM

Quote from: Luke 22:35-38 on May 29, 2018, 09:17:34 PM

. . . you can't kill as many people with a handgun as you can with a semi automatic rifle.

Why not? One bullet - one kill, is possible with any firearm.

A revolver is a semi-automatic assault pistol.
The problem is not the shape of the tool or the nomenclature.

I think the quote function messed up. DNO was the one that said that.

Hmm. Sure. Lets let people with more intellect than a gun loving yank articulate it

https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2018/03/13/gun-laws-stopped-mass-shootings-in-australia.html

Quote

The odds that a 22-year absence of mass shootings in Australia since 1996 gun reforms are due to chance are one in 200,000, new research reveals.

Published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine, scholars at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University used mathematical techniques to test the null hypothesis that the rate of mass shootings in Australia before and after the 1996 law reforms is unchanged.

The National Firearms Agreement, enacted after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in which 35 died and another 23 were seriously injured, saw the destruction of more than a million firearms—perhaps a third of the country's private gun stock.
" Most people hear these starkly contrasting numbers and conclude that Australia's gun law reforms effectively stopped firearm massacres here. "
Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman, University of Sydney

The Agreement included uniform gun registration, repudiation of self-defence as a legitimate reason to hold a firearm licence, mandatory locked storage, a ban on mail order sales and standardised penalties, and the banning of semi-automatic rifles and pump action shot guns from civilian ownership.

Its provisions were subsequently enacted in national, state and territory legislation across Australia.

In the 18 years up to and including the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, there were 13-gun homicides in which five or more people died, not including the perpetrator. In the 22 years since, there have been no such incidents.

“Most people hear these starkly contrasting numbers and conclude that Australia’s gun law reforms effectively stopped firearm massacres here,” says the paper’s lead author, Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney.

“However, some scholars and members of the gun lobby have argued that since mass shootings are relatively rare events, the concentration of incidents in one decade and their absence in another decade is merely a statistical anomaly.”

For example, Australian researcher Dr Samara McPhedran writing in The Conversation said: “Mass shootings are rare events, and the long gap between incidents post-1996 may simply reflect a return to a more ‘normal’ state of affairs, similar to the years before 1987.”
" Australia followed standard public health procedures to reduce the risk of multiple shooting events, and we can see the evidence. It worked. "
Associate Professor Philip Alpers, University of Sydney

"This was no accident," says the new study’s co-author Associate Professor Philip Alpers, from the University of Sydney.

"Australia followed standard public health procedures to reduce the risk of multiple shooting events, and we can see the evidence. It worked.

"Gun lobby-affiliated and other researchers have been saying for years that mass shootings are such rare events it could have been a matter of luck they dropped off in the wake of Australia's gun control laws," says Alpers. "Instead, we found the odds against this hypothesis are 200,000 to one."

In related news, Tasmania's re-elected Premier has defended the Liberals' policy to relax the state's gun laws, despite an outcry from survivors of the Port Arthur shooting.

Quote from: Luke 22:35-38 on May 29, 2018, 09:17:34 PM

I couldn't find a stat that doesn't include suicide by gun. However, I did found that California is pretty much equal to other states when counting homicides in general.

Yes, homicides in general are high in Cali. But gun deaths in general are low, and also mass shooting RATES aren't as high as you claim.

Quote

The VT shooter had ten round magazines and pistols. The Parkland shooter had ten round magazines for his AR because they were easier to conceal. The Sandy Hook shooter never ran through his magazines. The Pusle shooter was there for I believe 40 minutes and ran through multiple magazines and no one decided to charge him when he was reloading.. What evidence do you have that most of the deadliest mass shootings were done with so called assault rifles.

Um, most of the things you mentioned aren't handguns.

My evidence would be just looking at the deadliest mass shootings. Including the ones you mentioned that were done with assault rifles. But as I said, many countries have banned handguns, or only permit certain revolvers, exactly because they're easy to conceal. Also, another thing I forgot, what's with people being able to buy THAT many guns and magazines? Why can you own like 15 assault rifles and 50 magazines?

Quote

How do you know they aren't enforcing the training requirements to legally obtain a firearm?

I don't know exactly what the requierements are in every state, but the fact that so many nutters legally buy them is evidence that either their requirements aren't good enough, or they're not enforcing them right.

Also I can't watch the video because I'm on mobile data, but as I said, I did some research a while ago, and I figured the gun homicide rates in states with strict gun laws are about the same, even when including outliers like DC, although I guess the strict/loose distinction is kind of arbitrary.

Quote from: Definitely Not Official on May 30, 2018, 12:50:42 AM

I wasn't arguing about gun deaths in general. I was arguing about gun homicides. And while Cali isn't that high above the average in terms of mass shootings, you would think that with there laws, their mass shooting rate would almost null.

Not really. One reason I wouldn't expect that to be the case is that I know many counties of California don't really give a shit about enforcing those laws. Not only that, California gun ownership rates are still incredibly high, even with the laws, which are strict, but only for US standards. Guns and stockpiles of ammunition are still readily available to more or less anyone. At any rate, I wouldn't expect the laws to completely nullify the issue, especially when they're on a state and not a federal level.

Quote

Yet a lot of them had ten round magazines. If your argument against ARs is ammo capacity, then there are plenty of handguns that exceed ten rounds.

First of all, I didn't really try to make an argument against handguns in particular. But assault rifles have other characteristics that can make them very deadly, such as their range, accuracy and firepower. But of course large magazines can be pretty useful for criminals too. Actually, they're mostly useful JUST for criminals and maybe the police in certain cases, you don't really need a large magazine for hunting or target shooting or selfe defense.

Quote

Why do women needs 50 pairs of shoes or why you need more than one car?

I don't. If people having 50 pairs of shoes or more than one car for each person was a potential danger for people, then I wouldn't really mind restrictions.

Quote

As long as a person is law abiding, it doesn't matter if he owns enough guns to arm the entire US military twice over. Even if he had ill intent with that many firearms, he can only wield two at most.

Is that why the Las Vegas shooter had 14 assault rifles and lots of magazines with him?

Quote

Or maybe they weren't a threat when they bought the firearms even under the most stringent requirements.

But I know some countries have instituted checks to retain your license. On the other hand, there have been cases in the US where people who obviously shouldn't have been granted access to guns (even per the law) do end up having access to them anyways because of bad law enforcement, like the recent case with the person who shot up that fast food place. Then you have all the states that don't even have those checks, and you can see a lot of these people wouldn't have been granted a license if there was a law in place.

Every state does background checks.  It is federal law.  The only exception is private sales, however this will probably change soon even though very few of these mass shooting idiots obtain their weapons that way.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.


Here is a long winded explanation of what that means . . .

https://www.lectlaw.com/files/gun01.htm

Quote from: JQKAndrei on May 29, 2018, 03:11:48 PM

Quote from: Shifter on May 29, 2018, 03:04:57 PM

Quote from: JQKAndrei on May 29, 2018, 12:24:31 PM

Quote from: Bullwinkle on May 29, 2018, 11:16:15 AM

Quote from: Definitely Not Official on May 29, 2018, 09:22:55 AM

Plenty of european countries have very strict testing and they actually enforce it and it works pretty well to make sure criminals don't end up with guns.

What is testing and how is it enforced?

You need to accomplish various steps to get a permit and even that has limitations of what kind of gun and how many you are allowed to have.

And the guns have to be locked in a safe, unloaded, with bullets locked somewhere else.

And you can't have more than like 200 bullets.

And you're getting checked every now and then by the officers.

And no automatic weapons.

You can have all the best intentions in the world, but if some girl doesn't want to have sex with your zit faced greasy teenage kid, all bets are off.

And maybe she complains about not finding a decent guy after that.

I'm going to be a little judgemental here and say that a guy who commits mass murder probably doesn't qualify as decent.

Quote from: Shifter on May 29, 2018, 09:50:10 PM

Hmm. Sure. Lets let people with more intellect than a gun loving yank articulate it

https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2018/03/13/gun-laws-stopped-mass-shootings-in-australia.html

Quote

The odds that a 22-year absence of mass shootings in Australia since 1996 gun reforms are due to chance are one in 200,000, new research reveals.

Published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine, scholars at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University used mathematical techniques to test the null hypothesis that the rate of mass shootings in Australia before and after the 1996 law reforms is unchanged.

The National Firearms Agreement, enacted after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in which 35 died and another 23 were seriously injured, saw the destruction of more than a million firearms—perhaps a third of the country's private gun stock.
" Most people hear these starkly contrasting numbers and conclude that Australia's gun law reforms effectively stopped firearm massacres here. "
Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman, University of Sydney

The Agreement included uniform gun registration, repudiation of self-defence as a legitimate reason to hold a firearm licence, mandatory locked storage, a ban on mail order sales and standardised penalties, and the banning of semi-automatic rifles and pump action shot guns from civilian ownership.

Its provisions were subsequently enacted in national, state and territory legislation across Australia.

In the 18 years up to and including the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, there were 13-gun homicides in which five or more people died, not including the perpetrator. In the 22 years since, there have been no such incidents.

“Most people hear these starkly contrasting numbers and conclude that Australia’s gun law reforms effectively stopped firearm massacres here,” says the paper’s lead author, Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney.

“However, some scholars and members of the gun lobby have argued that since mass shootings are relatively rare events, the concentration of incidents in one decade and their absence in another decade is merely a statistical anomaly.”

For example, Australian researcher Dr Samara McPhedran writing in The Conversation said: “Mass shootings are rare events, and the long gap between incidents post-1996 may simply reflect a return to a more ‘normal’ state of affairs, similar to the years before 1987.”
" Australia followed standard public health procedures to reduce the risk of multiple shooting events, and we can see the evidence. It worked. "
Associate Professor Philip Alpers, University of Sydney

"This was no accident," says the new study’s co-author Associate Professor Philip Alpers, from the University of Sydney.

"Australia followed standard public health procedures to reduce the risk of multiple shooting events, and we can see the evidence. It worked.

"Gun lobby-affiliated and other researchers have been saying for years that mass shootings are such rare events it could have been a matter of luck they dropped off in the wake of Australia's gun control laws," says Alpers. "Instead, we found the odds against this hypothesis are 200,000 to one."

In related news, Tasmania's re-elected Premier has defended the Liberals' policy to relax the state's gun laws, despite an outcry from survivors of the Port Arthur shooting.

First of all, that's an opinion piece. I can post an opinion piece for the opposite.

https://www.quora.com/If-gun-laws-in-1996-in-Australia-stopped-mass-shootings-why-do-the-most-dangerous-cities-in-America-have-the-toughest-gun-regulations

But, here's a couple of videos explaining my point.

Just curious Luke,  do you accept that tighter gun control measures are a good thing?   If so, what measures would you suggest.

Not really. One reason I wouldn't expect that to be the case is that I know many counties of California don't really give a shit about enforcing those laws.

Not only that, California gun ownership rates are still incredibly high, even with the laws, which are strict, but only for US standards. Guns and stockpiles of ammunition are still readily available to more or less anyone. At any rate, I wouldn't expect the laws to completely nullify the issue, especially when they're on a state and not a federal level.

First of all, I didn't really try to make an argument against handguns in particular. But assault rifles have other characteristics that can make them very deadly, such as their range, accuracy and firepower.

But of course large magazines can be pretty useful for criminals too. Actually, they're mostly useful JUST for criminals and maybe the police in certain cases, you don't really need a large magazine for hunting or target shooting or selfe defense.

I don't. If people having 50 pairs of shoes or more than one car for each person was a potential danger for people, then I wouldn't really mind restrictions.

Is that why the Las Vegas shooter had 14 assault rifles and lots of magazines with him?

But I know some countries have instituted checks to retain your license. On the other hand, there have been cases in the US where people who obviously shouldn't have been granted access to guns (even per the law) do end up having access to them anyways because of bad law enforcement, like the recent case with the person who shot up that fast food place. Then you have all the states that don't even have those checks, and you can see a lot of these people wouldn't have been granted a license if there was a law in place.

And yet cars have killed more people than firearms.

Quote from: Luke 22:35-38 on May 30, 2018, 03:38:40 AM

Quote from: Shifter on May 29, 2018, 09:50:10 PM

Hmm. Sure. Lets let people with more intellect than a gun loving yank articulate it

https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2018/03/13/gun-laws-stopped-mass-shootings-in-australia.html

Quote

The odds that a 22-year absence of mass shootings in Australia since 1996 gun reforms are due to chance are one in 200,000, new research reveals.

Published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine, scholars at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University used mathematical techniques to test the null hypothesis that the rate of mass shootings in Australia before and after the 1996 law reforms is unchanged.

The National Firearms Agreement, enacted after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in which 35 died and another 23 were seriously injured, saw the destruction of more than a million firearms—perhaps a third of the country's private gun stock.
" Most people hear these starkly contrasting numbers and conclude that Australia's gun law reforms effectively stopped firearm massacres here. "
Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman, University of Sydney

The Agreement included uniform gun registration, repudiation of self-defence as a legitimate reason to hold a firearm licence, mandatory locked storage, a ban on mail order sales and standardised penalties, and the banning of semi-automatic rifles and pump action shot guns from civilian ownership.

Its provisions were subsequently enacted in national, state and territory legislation across Australia.

In the 18 years up to and including the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, there were 13-gun homicides in which five or more people died, not including the perpetrator. In the 22 years since, there have been no such incidents.

“Most people hear these starkly contrasting numbers and conclude that Australia’s gun law reforms effectively stopped firearm massacres here,” says the paper’s lead author, Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney.

“However, some scholars and members of the gun lobby have argued that since mass shootings are relatively rare events, the concentration of incidents in one decade and their absence in another decade is merely a statistical anomaly.”

For example, Australian researcher Dr Samara McPhedran writing in The Conversation said: “Mass shootings are rare events, and the long gap between incidents post-1996 may simply reflect a return to a more ‘normal’ state of affairs, similar to the years before 1987.”
" Australia followed standard public health procedures to reduce the risk of multiple shooting events, and we can see the evidence. It worked. "
Associate Professor Philip Alpers, University of Sydney

"This was no accident," says the new study’s co-author Associate Professor Philip Alpers, from the University of Sydney.

"Australia followed standard public health procedures to reduce the risk of multiple shooting events, and we can see the evidence. It worked.

"Gun lobby-affiliated and other researchers have been saying for years that mass shootings are such rare events it could have been a matter of luck they dropped off in the wake of Australia's gun control laws," says Alpers. "Instead, we found the odds against this hypothesis are 200,000 to one."

In related news, Tasmania's re-elected Premier has defended the Liberals' policy to relax the state's gun laws, despite an outcry from survivors of the Port Arthur shooting.

First of all, that's an opinion piece. I can post an opinion piece for the opposite.

https://www.quora.com/If-gun-laws-in-1996-in-Australia-stopped-mass-shootings-why-do-the-most-dangerous-cities-in-America-have-the-toughest-gun-regulations

But, here's a couple of videos explaining my point.

The link I gave is research that is put on some news sites opinion page. Doesn't make the reserarch conducted by geeks smarter than you or I, merely 'some random opinion'. Did you even read it?


Are you suggesting to me, and all of Australia, that the banning of guns and stricter gun laws and controls has not saved a single innocents life (I don't consider outlaw bikie gangs innocent).

Would you agree with the 'opinion' that there are people alive today that would not have been had the guns never been banned? And I'm not just talking about people who would suicide although I am sure there are plenty of people who have been suicidal that have gotten help and recovered because they didn't have a gun to give them no second chances.

If you think the gun banning in Australia didn't save a single life then you are nothing but a crazy gun nut. I'm glad Australia didn't join the slippery slope of America. I'm glad I can send my kids to school and not have him scanned by armed police as he enters or worried some crazy rejected dick wants to shoot everyone. You may have had legitimate reasons for civilians having guns centuries ago, but how has having guns helped you against your government since? And how many people have lost their lives to the damn things?

Your government will always be one step ahead in terms of firepower. You want to bring a gun to a drone fight? Good luck. Besides, there are so many levels of the government controlling your lives you people aren't even free. You have no privacy, no secrets and are simply cattle. You are worse off in terms of your freedoms and the governments control over your lives than you were centuries ago. Your guns have failed you, and all you have to boast about them are thousands of holes in the ground filled with people and children gone before their time. Bravo!