I guess every country has its lunatic fringe; the gunloons and the white supremacists (actually a lot of overlap) are ours.

The fact our gunloons can’t get around is that violent crime, in industrialized nations, is so much lower than in the world’s most prosperous and powerful nation.

Allowing citizens to hold guns just starts an arms race and the results are clear in the table of gun deaths in various countries given above. Every individual who gets a gun to “feel safer” actually makes the place incrementally more dangerous for herself/himself and everyone else around. Thank god there will never be kids with guns in my child’s school. How can anyone think it is normal for people to wander the streets with guns?

But I see firearms as a bit like cigarette smoking; it’s not really possible to have a rational converation about addiction with a smoker, is it?

Good luck to the bloke running this site, I like your comments here & elsewhere. Pity about the gun loonies but really, their comments just confirm that while not perfect (yet) Oz is a far saner society.

Nor do I maintain this blog to host your kind of bullshit. Fuck off and play with the other kiddies.

I do not know if you are still checking these comments, but I checked out you blog and it appears that you are a person who enjoys adventure. That is great. Have fun and stay safe. I hope that in your future traveling that you do not need a firearm for defense. It is quite dangerous in third world areas. You may change your mind, but we hope that it won’t happen because you become a victim.

“Right. We don’t — because unlike you, we understand how easy it would be to lose all that.”

Wolfwalker you may not have meant it this way but do you realise how incredibly patronising that sounds? Gun laws like Australia’s are the rule rather than the exception in developed countries. Try carrying a gun in Japan or Germany and see how long you last. I think the people in those countries have far greater historical experience of ‘losing all that’ than citizens of the USA.

Kim can you perhaps give a historical example where an armed citizenry has successfully resisted government oppression? I suggest there are however many examples where one armed section of the population has used those arms to oppress the remainder, or where widespread possession of guns has made civil wars more violent. Iraq since 2003 is an excellent example of what happens when civil authority breaks down and the population have ready access to guns. Are you suggesting that’s an example to emulate?

Having an armed citizenry, at the end, means that the government is forced to be polite in their dealings with you.

And spares the people from the killing fields and cattle cars, forever.

And speaking of “sparing”: spare me the comment that “That could never happen here!”

If history teaches us anything, it’s that this can happen anywhere — anywhere, of course, except where the people are armed.

I don’t think you need to go back two hundred and thirty years to understand the American obsession with being prepared even for wildly unlikely events. I think you need go back only 66 years, or perhaps even only six. When we’re attacked and we aren’t ready for it, lots of people die. On an individual level, any time one is attacked and one isn’t ready to defend oneself, one is likely to get hurt. Some of us simply look at that equation and decide “if anyone’s gonna get hurt, it’s gonna be my attacker, and not me.”

Damian, you wrote: The thing is that you happen to live in one of the most secure nations in the world. You have food security, you have reliable infrastructure, you have a democratic system of sorts, you have functioning armed forces and police and emergency response forces. Yet you still don’t feel safe enough!

Right. We don’t — because unlike you, we understand how easy it would be to lose all that. On infrastructure, the people who carry guns for protection tend to be the same people who understand how fragile infrastructure is. On police protection, we have a saying: “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.” In some parts of the USA, the police might even be hours away. There’s only one protector you can ever count on being there at crunch time: yourself. Some people choose to be ready for the day they need a protector, even as they devoutly pray that day never comes.

The gun collector, however, is a whole different breed. Some people collect things, it’s just part of their personality. Gun collectors are collectors whose focus happens to be guns. They don’t collect guns because they think they might ever need them all. They collect guns because they like to admire the skill and talent of the gunsmith. Gun collectors are aesthetes who understand and marvel at the fundamental paradox of the well-made firearm, which is also the fundamental paradox of the human psyche: we humans enjoy destruction, yet we also enjoy the creation of beauty even in destruction.

They are safe, they are secure, they know that their Government will never let the bad people hurt them anymore. They know that their Masters chased all the mean Jihadis away with sharp words and they have nothing to fear - the mere thought that a peaceful religion will demand conversion at the point of a sword is the penultimate height of paranoia, why Just ask the blokes.

The social scientists must have even perfected a way to banish violence and avarice from the human condition. It must be a secret ingredient that the government put in vegamite, or their outstanding beers. But Something happened in the land of OZ to change the Human psych. They must have evolved from mere mortals such as the knuckle-dragging American gun owners into the Australian version of the New man, Singing Kumbaya on the beach while sipping Fosters in the shade

Just listen to the mirth in their words. They chuckle, knowing that Bad things only happen in far away countries like the decadent USA or in out of the way places like Bali. Why Mick Dundee will save them if ever a sociopath actually invades the Utopia that is Australia, for it is obvious that everyone on that continent is so peaceful and serene that they surreptitiously import criminals from England just to justify the police force. (That has been going on for quite a while.) Why I’ll bet that you could walk the length and breadth of the continent and never encounter a dangerous animal, much less a dangerous human being. It must be paradise there.

Just ask them - you will hear many a convincing word But who are they trying to convince? The American readers or the Australian readers?

Definition

Paranoia is an unfounded or exaggerated distrust of others, sometimes reaching delusional proportions. Paranoid individuals constantly suspect the motives of those around them, and believe that certain individuals, or people in general, are “out to get them.”

I think that expresses my meaning satisfactorily.

You blokes are hilarious. I mean honestly, you’re hugely diverting entertainment for me and my small band of loyal readers but what purpose are all these comments serving for you? Talk about irrational behaviour.

SayUncle you’re pathetic. The statistics are clearly labelled, why assume they mean something different? The source I linked to gives figures for homicides, assaults, robberies, sexual assaults and other crimes so I suggest you go and have another look. Moreover you now acknowledge that there was never a single ban, but you insist nevertheless that your earlier comparison of stats before and after ‘the ban [singular] on weapons’ is valid, even though you decline to provide a source or even say which period you are referring to. Meaningless drivel.

Roberta X I made clear in an earlier comment my opinion that any attempt to make cause/effect links based on crime statistics and changes in gun control is worthless. There are far too many other known and unknown variables that could potentially affect outcomes. The question of whether gun control regulations affect crime, like other matters irrelevant to my post, was introduced by commenters who sniffed the scent of battle and rushed furiously to defend their beloved guns.