Australia Warns America: Don’t Let Them Take Your Guns!

[Guest]

by Lorri Anderson

Government officials and citizens in Australia speak out to warn America “Don’t Let Them Take Your Guns!” According to reports when the Gun Ban went into effect in Australia the crime rate spiraled out of control. The police officers are overwhelmed and are unable to protect the citizens due to so much crime.

When the forced gun ban (buy back program) went into effect law abiding citizens had to turn in their semi automatic firearms, pump action rifles, and shotguns or face going to jail. Six hundred forty thousand conventional firearms were taken out of the hands of law abiding citizens, confiscated and destroyed. Law abiding citizens followed the law and turned in their weapons. Citizens were promised safety in return for turning in their guns. Does any of this sound familiar, like UN Gun Treaty perhaps?

Since the gun ban in Australia, armed robberies are up 69%, assaults with guns up 28%, gun murders increased 19%, and home invasions jumped 21%. More proof that not only does gun control not work, it makes it safer for the criminals at large. In their words

“The cost of lost liberty can be measured in the loss of life”

Andy Dunn from the South Australian Police Association states “The bad guys are happy to break into somebody’s house. They are not frightened to break into somebody’s house while their at home.” He also states “It is very bad right now. It has never been worse.” The police can’t protect the civilians now, because they are undermanned and their morale has never been lower according to reports.

Wake up America! To those Anti-gun activists, you need to realize this is going to affect you also. Wake up before it is too late. Will the United States listen to the warning Australia is sending us? Will it make a difference? I truly hope so. I would like to thank the Australians for taking the time to warn us about the effects of gun-control in their country. Although many of us know what affect gun control has on our nation, many do not and have been fooled by the smooth talking politicians. Others seem to be in the mind set that it doesn’t affect them. Without our right to bear arms, our right to protect ourselves, our family, and our home will be gone. Thus allowing the Constitution to be destroyed by politicians for the sake of their agenda.

http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/08/australia-warns-america-don/#ixzz24DhQw8P1

[Dottie]

RLH - -

It's interesting to note that there are so very few replies to your posts...

[bonnie]

RLH - -

It's interesting to note that there are so very few replies to your posts...

A " Little Ignore and maybe you will go away".

It has happened before, a little C/a shun

It is getting tougher and tougher for anyone to champion anything Obama or liberal.

[Guest]

RLH - -

It's interesting to note that there are so very few replies to your posts...

When the libs go silent, I enjoy the peace and quiet.

I know that if they had anything legitimate that would refute what I've been posting, (and Bonnie) it would be posted wall to wall, and repeated over and over.

So it's a good sign. :)

[Planey]

A safer place after Howard's gun buyback

By Simon Chapman and Philip Alpers

Attitudes to firearms and gun laws changed almost overnight, and now the results are in: Australia's tightened gun controls have been followed by a remarkable reduction in gun deaths.

After a decade of very public gun massacres such as Queen and Hoddle Streets and Strathfield Plaza, an overwhelming majority had had enough of anyone with a grudge gaining easy, mostly legal access to weapons designed expressly to kill a lot of people in a very short time.

Just 12 days after the Port Arthur shootings, John Howard's first major act of leadership in that first year as Prime Minister was to announce nationwide gun law reforms.

The new laws specifically targeted mass shootings, banning rapid-fire rifles and shotguns, the weapon of choice in many such crimes worldwide. In the 1996-97 Australian firearms buyback, 643,726 of the newly prohibited guns were bought by the Government from firearm owners at market value, funded by a small surcharge on the Medicare levy. Tens of thousands of gun owners also voluntarily surrendered additional, non-prohibited firearms without compensation. All up, more than 700,000 guns were removed from the community and destroyed. No other nation had ever attempted anything on this scale.

So, 10 years on, can we see a difference? Resoundingly, yes. In the decade up to and including Port Arthur, Australia experienced 11 mass shootings. In these 11 events alone, 100 people were shot dead and another 52 wounded. In the 10 years since 1996 and the new gun laws, not one mass shooting has occurred in Australia. For this reason alone, Australia is a safer place. (In 2002, a gunman killed two and wounded four at Monash University. Five victims are internationally recognised as a mass shooting.)

But for each Australian killed in a mass shooting in the past 17 years, 80 have died by gunshot in less mediagenic events, many of them in family violence. And it is here, in the day-to-day tragedy of firearm-related homicide and suicide, that Australia's new restrictions, and perhaps equally importantly, changing attitudes to guns and gun owners, can most plausibly claim to have had the most effect.

Even before Port Arthur, gun-related deaths, suicides, homicides and unintentional shootings were slowly dropping. But after the tragedy, the rate of decline accelerated markedly. From 1979 to 1996, 11,110 Australians died by gunshot - an annual average of 617. In the seven years after new gun laws were announced (1997 to 2003), the yearly average almost halved, to 331.

Particularly in firearm homicide, the gun death that attracts most attention, the downward trend has been more dramatic. In the same two periods, the average annual number of gun homicides fell from 93 to 56. But it was the acceleration in the rate of this decline that proved most remarkable, falling 70 times faster after the new gun laws than before.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/a-...114.html?page=2

[Planey]

Gun deaths in rapid decline since buyback

Matthew Moore

THE risk of dying by gunshot has dropped dramatically since the gun buyback scheme was introduced after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, a new report says.

Dr Philip Alpers, a University of Sydney academic who helped write the report, said the buyback saw the number of gun deaths a year fall from an average of 521 to 289, "suggesting that the removal of more than 700,000 guns was associated with a faster declining rate of gun suicide and gun homicide".

The Prime Minister, John Howard, introduced some of the world's toughest gun laws after the massacre, forcing people to surrender semi-automatic rifles, which reload each time the trigger is pulled, and pump-action shotguns.

The new report, titled Australia's 1996 Gun Law Reforms: Faster Falls in Firearm Deaths, Firearm Suicides and a Decade without Mass Shootings, finds that in the 18 years before the gun buyback there were an average of 492 firearm suicides a year.

After the introduction of the buyback scheme, that figure dropped to 247 in the seven years for which reliable figures are available.

The report also found the rate of gun homicides fell from an annual average of 93 in the 18 years before 1996 to an annual average of 56.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/gun-...5685752421.html

[Guest]

Sounds like Australian gov't propaganda to me.

[Planey]

Consider this from Snopes

Note two things in particular:

* The figures given by opponents of the buy-back scheme are often cherry-picked and misleading.

* The Australian gun-ownership system is significantly different to that in the US and so the results are not necessarily applicable.

Graeme

[LifeHiscost]

Just a month or so ago, on a dark and rainy evening, while the person at the local office was counting the days take right at quitting time, I heard a conversation in the office while in the adjoining laundromat. On a hunch I went into the other room where a tall, unshaven disheveled individual was asking if the clerk had any money she could give him to put some gas in the vehicle he allegedly stopped up the road a piece, resulting from an empty tank.

Needless to say my presence was quite disconcerting to the stranger but very comforting to the clerk. I told the individual to go back to his car where I would show up in a half hour with some gas.

As a result of my unexpected interruption of an easy buck for one individual, there is no doubt in my mind, that individual felt his rights had been taken away from him, which was verified when I scouted the area where his supposed disabled car was sitting and found nothing. Must have been a miracle as his car was able to run on an empty tank before I showed up with the local gendarme who would be carrying a legal weapon.

Care by the Divine is still a better defense than our meager weapons but when it is found to be necessary, God still uses smooth stones to topple the biggest giants.

God blesses!

[Guest]

I'm sorry but snopes is not the end all for me, that it is for you.

Snopes = Hefty Lefty

[Guest]

Just a month or so ago, on a dark and rainy evening, while the person at the local office was counting the days take right at quitting time, I heard a conversation in the office while in the adjoining laundromat. On a hunch I went into the other room where a tall, unshaven disheveled individual was asking if the clerk had any money she could give him to put some gas in the vehicle he allegedly stopped up the road a piece, resulting from an empty tank.

Needless to say my presence was quite disconcerting to the stranger but very comforting to the clerk. I told the individual to go back to his car where I would show up in a half hour with some gas.

As a result of my unexpected interruption of an easy buck for one individual, there is no doubt in my mind, that individual felt his rights had been taken away from him, which was verified when I scouted the area where his supposed disabled car was sitting and found nothing. Must have been a miracle as his car was able to run on an empty tank before I showed up with the local gendarme who would be carrying a legal weapon.

Care by the Divine is still a better defense than our meager weapons but when it is found to be necessary, God still uses smooth stones to topple the biggest giants.

God blesses!

Amen LHC!

[Planey]

Care by the Divine is still a better defense than our meager weapons but when it is found to be necessary, God still uses smooth stones to topple the biggest giants.

So true, LHC.

Do you think the situation would have played out differently if you had, and produced, a weapon of your own?

Graeme

[Planey]

I'm sorry but snopes is not the end all for me, that it is for you.

Snopes = Hefty Lefty

Do you feel that the other two sources I quoted also deserve the appelation 'Hefty Lefty'? Just in passing I note that you make numerous posts where you quote exclusively from sources which could be accurately dubbed Mighty Righty. I merely seek to redress this imbalance, and respond to your criticism that no-one was responding to your original post.

So I responded.

Graeme

[Guest]

Originally Posted By: LifeHiscost

Care by the Divine is still a better defense than our meager weapons but when it is found to be necessary, God still uses smooth stones to topple the biggest giants.

So true, LHC.

Do you think the situation would have played out differently if you had, and produced, a weapon of your own?

Graeme

I don't see where there was ever a need for that. What was needed was exactly what he did. If he had had a gun, there was no need to brandish it. The man left on his own after someone else showed up, and his gas bluff was called.

[Guest]

Just in passing I note that you make numerous posts where you quote exclusively from sources which could be accurately dubbed Mighty Righty. I merely seek to redress this imbalance, and respond to your criticism that no-one was responding to your original post.

So I responded.

Graeme

I figured somebody would. If you build it, they will come.

Mighty Righty

[LifeHiscost]

[quote

Do you think the situation would have played out differently if you had, and produced, a weapon of your own?]

[LifeHiscost]

Quote:

I don't see where there was ever a need for that. What was needed was exactly what he did. If he had had a gun, there was no need to brandish it. The man left on his own after someone else showed up, and his gas bluff was called.

After I left the office to get my car, the receptionist called to let me know that a short time later the same guy, with a girl in the car with him, coasted into the parking lot with their lights out and just sat for a short time. When he came in to the office he said he had coasted down the hill, though it wasn't made plain to me how she contacted him again as she had left the office immediately after he had walked away the first time.

Actually it must have been another miracle as the last 5 or 6 hundred feet into the lot were around two corners going uphill.

God blesses!

[LifeHiscost]

Quote:

mighty righty

Sounds like an appropriate balance to "hefty lefty", except Hefty lefty didn't get such a big laugh. So here, just to be balanced.

God blesses!

[phkrause]

Great posts Planey. When I was living in NYC as a teenager, they did this also, and for a time it worked well, much less crime, but as most programs go, there is always those opposed. So crime went back up. Thanks for you prespective on this. Some just like to show that they are always correct no matter what. Others as yourself just want to show that things do have another side to the story, that also has merit.