Damien Broderick responded to someone's questions:
> >So what IS it like in Australia, Damien?
>
> Not that different from how it is in the States, actually, Bonnie. :)
>
> Less chance of getting shot to death...[snip to end]
---------------------------------------
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/print.shtml?a=2000/6/26/12629
NewsMax.com
Australian Gun Ban Proved Disastrous
Dr. Miguel Faria
Monday, June 26, 2000
Last August, the rugged Aussie survivalist whose
real-life exploits inspired the "Crocodile Dundee"
movies died in what then appeared to be a mysterious
shootout with Australian police. A police sergeant was
also killed in the incident.
It was reported that 44-year-old blond-haired Rodney
William Ansell resembled uncannily Paul Hogan, the
actor who played his part in the movie and the sequel.
Although Ansell was no angel and had had previous
run-ins with police, he had been named 1988 Australian
Northern Territory Man of the Year for inspiring the
movie and putting "the Australian Outback on the map."
What motivated this shooting? In 1996, Australia
adopted draconian gun control laws banning certain
guns (60 percent of all firearms), requiring
registration of all firearms and licensing of all gun
owners. "Crocodile Dundee" believed the police were
coming to confiscate his unregistered firearms.
In Australia today, police can enter your house and
search for guns, copy the hard drive of your computer,
seize records, and do it all without a search warrant.
It's the law that police can go door to door searching
for weapons that have not been surrendered in their
much publicized gun buy-back program. They have been
using previous registration and firearm license lists
to check for lapses and confiscate non-surrendered
firearms.
It all began with the Port Arthur (a Tasmanian resort)
tragedy on April 28, 1996, when a crazed assailant
opened fire and shot 35 people. Australians were
shocked, and the government reacted quickly.
Draconian gun legislation was passed in the heat of
the moment because the fate of the nation was
determined by a handful of statist socialists who find
individual freedom abhorrent. Consider the politics:
There are three major parties in Australian politics:
the center right (Liberal Party), the socialist camp
(Labor Party) and the ultra-left (Australian
Democratic Party) – this last one easily tilted the
balance of power toward stringent gun control at the
expense of freedom. Moreover, to add insult to injury,
Australia has had to toe the party line of the United
Nations on environmental issues, land/property rights,
and now, gun control as well.
As a result of stringent gun laws (really a ban on
firearms) in Australia, all semiautomatic firearms
(rifles and handguns) are proscribed, including
.22-caliber rabbit guns and duck-hunting Remington
shotguns.
Writing in The Gun Owners (Jan. 31, 2000), the
newsletter for Gun Owners of America (GOA), former
California State Senator H.L. Richardson notes: "They
outlawed every semi-auto, even those pretty duck guns,
the Browning A5 and the Remington 1100s. They even
struck down pump shotguns: the Winchester model 12 and
the Remington 870...Do you own a Browning BAR rifle?
Banned. How about a Winchester Model 100? Out of luck,
all semi-auto hunting rifles were outlawed as well.
They didnąt miss a one."
Be that as it may, at a cost of $500 million, out of
an estimated 7 million firearms (of which 2.8 million
were prohibited), only 640,000 guns were surrendered
to police. What has been the result? Same as in
England. Like in Great Britain, crime Down Under has
escalated.
Twelve months after the law was implemented in 1997,
there has been a 44 percent increase in armed
robberies, an 8.6 percent increase in aggravated
assaults, and a 3.2 percent increase in homicides.
That same year in the state of Victoria, there was a
300 percent increase in homicides committed with
firearms. The following year, robberies increased
almost 60 percent in South Australia. By 1999,
assaults had increased in New South Wales by almost 20
percent.
Two years after the ban, there have been further
increases in crime: armed robberies by 73 percent;
unarmed robberies by 28 percent; kidnappings by 38
percent; assaults by 17 percent; manslaughter by 29
percent, according to the Australian Bureau of
Statistics.
And consider the fact that over the previous 25-year
period, Australia had shown a steady decrease both in
homicide with firearms and armed robbery – until the
ban.
Australia, a semi-arid, isolated continent and a vast
nation-state, in many ways parallels the history of
the United States. In the 1850s and 1860s, it had gold
rushes and pioneering settlers, reminiscent of our own
western migration.
In World War I and World War II, it fought with the
allies. Australia remained a subject of Great British
until 1986, when the last ties with the British crown
were dissolved.
With only 19 million people, Australia has an
impressive fauna that includes plenty of varmints,
marsupials, dingoes (that wreak havoc on livestock),
as well as large rats and other rodents. Yet, hunting
has become prohibitively difficult for all but a
handful of Australians with private lands and the
usual connections. Now, the ban on firearms and the
disarmament of ordinary Australians has left criminals
free to roam the countryside as they please.
Bandits, of course, kept their guns. Like in America,
only the law-abiding, by definition, obey the law.
Yet, the leftist Australian government has responded
by passing more laws; in 1998 Bowie knives and other
knives and items including handcuffs were banned.
Licensing is difficult. Self and family protection is
not considered a valid reason to own a firearm. The
right to self-defense, like in Great Britain and
Canada, is not recognized in Australia, Like
Americans, Australians loved and possessed firearms –
that is, until the ban. Freedom has been extinguished.
A way of life has ended. Please, don't tell me it
cannot happen here!
Dr. Miguel A. Faria Jr. is a physician and editor in
chief of the Medical Sentinel of the Association of
American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).
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