It might be best to provide a more permanent place for this recurring discussion rather than overtaking the tragedy threads each time.
To start things off, I think Australia's response to its gun violence problem was pretty well-conceived. Here's an Aussie's description:
What it's Like to Own Guns in a Country with Strict Gun Control
To start things off, I think Australia's response to its gun violence problem was pretty well-conceived. Here's an Aussie's description:
What it's Like to Own Guns in a Country with Strict Gun Control
I love firearms. I collect them and I enjoy shooting them. I probably have 30 pistols and 20 rifles or shotgun combinations. My family has always had lots and lots of firearms. My father was a shooter and we had a property when I was growing up, so from the age of 12 I had a rifle. Target shooting was offered as a school sport and I used to carry my .308 rifle to the rifle range unsupervised with my friends on Saturday for practice and competition.
Then, after the 1996 massacre, I probably had to hand in six to eight semiautomatic rifles and shotguns to the police. We got fair value for them, but I wasn’t thrilled to be doing it because I thought “Well gee, what have I done wrong?” Would anything untoward ever have happened with the firearms I owned? No.
A lot of people think there aren’t any guns in Australia any more, but there are. By some estimates there is one gun for every seven people. My local suburban pistol club has 300 members. My sons have been shooting since they were 12 and both have rifle and pistol licenses.
It’s actually not that hard to own a gun. But you do have to have a genuine reason. You have to be a member of a target shooting club or a hunter and you have to prove it. For hunting, you can get written permission from a landowner who says you are hunting on his land. Or you can join a hunting club. Pistols [handguns], on the other hand, are heavily restricted. All applicants undergo a background check by the police and there is a mandatory 30 day cooling off period for all license applications, both long arms and pistols. Firearms safety training courses are mandatory as well.
One of the biggest changes is that the government established different types of firearms for different categories of guns and ruled that each would need different licenses. Here’s roughly how it works:
Category A is .22s, shotguns and air rifles. That’s the easiest license to obtain. No semiautomatics are allowed.
Category B is for center fire rifles. You have to provide a reason for why you need a more powerful gun. I shoot feral pigs and foxes; that’s a valid reason. Again, no semiautomatics.
Category C is available only to farmers; they can own a semiautomatic shotgun or .22 but the cartridges are limited to five shots for the shotgun and 10 shots for the .22.
Category D, for semiautomatic guns and rifles, is only for professional shooters: you have to have a registered business and prove that you are earning an income through shooting.
An H license is for handguns. If you want to buy a pistol in Australia you’ve got to be a member of a target pistol club. You’ve got to do a minimum of eight competition shoots per year to keep your license. If you don’t, you lose it.
If you were to ask the average Australian who isn’t a shooter, they would say that most people shouldn’t have access to any firearms. But the reality is that gun-lovers like me belong to a club and are doing no harm. I go clay pigeon shooting on a Saturday. I go pistol shooting on Sunday morning. That’s my hobby. And then every month or every eight weeks I go and visit my friend’s farm and hunt his feral pigs. He loses about 1,500 to 2,000 lambs a year to feral pigs. So we deal with them.
People who love to shoot in Australia look at the situation in America with dismay. We all want to be able to continue our sport. All these mass killings are giving it a bad name. It’s making everybody fear people like me, where they should have no fear.