Quote:
Originally Posted by azzarule
We had one of the worst shooting massacres in Australia, in 1996 Martin Bryant killed 35 people including children, and injured 21 others. Following that incident the Aus Govt changed the gun laws; had a buy back scheme for any unwanted weapons, and a gun amnesty for any illegally held weapons, no questions asked; we already had very strict gun laws; we have very very few semi and automatic weapons in Aus, only illegally imported or weapons that have been severely modified.. illegally. I just think that the US should start somewhere, no action is just not the answer.
My rant for today.
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Yeah, that wasn't our best day in history on anyone’s part. Unfortunately, no matter how much our governments try to coddle us, they'll never stop the loons from being loons.
I was a gun owner at time, and I would have said a responsible one. My use was for recreation; fox hunting, pig shooting, duck hunting, etc. The impact for me after our prime ministers knee jerk reaction, and for a lot of others, was that the (then) new weapons storage laws made it too expensive for me to hold my weapons at home.
I, like others was not able to afford the cheapest (at the time about $1000) 'approved' gun safe to store a few hundred dollar’s worth of weapons. Incorrect storage fines/gaol penalties were excessive at the time.
The up-side is that we haven't had anything on that scale of incident since, so as far as the polies are concerned, the laws have worked. In reality, there seems to be a random shooting of some kind in oz almost daily at the moment. It'd be interesting to (if I could be bothered) add up the numbers to see if there really has been a difference.
And that's the catch really, if we could be bothered.
A random shooting here and there just falls into the noise. It only really affects those that are close to the victim/s, the rest of us go on with our lives a short while after like nothing happened. We don't know them, what does it matter to us?
These other wackos that take out multiples, get the attention of nations. That attention last a 5hit load longer, and we take count of the victims. We hear the stories, we empathise, and they impact our lives.
I wonder what it is in our nature that has us differentiate.