What is the Australia solution? A simple explanation is offered at the UK Guardian, which is brought up in the wake of Las Vegas to say that the gun grabbyness is being eroded in Australia
In 1996 politicians managed to come to a bipartisan agreement to change our gun laws. The main changes included: a ban on semi-automatic rifles and pump action shotguns, a gun buyback, the introduction of a uniform registration and licensing system and an acknowledgment that gun ownership is a privilege and not a right. These laws were implemented into each state and territory legislation which implemented a national approach to gun regulation.
So, not everything. This article from 2016 explains in depth who can own which guns of those that are still legal.
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.
There are 6 classes of license, which also includes if you want an air rifle. Yeah, that would be a BB gun. You want a handgun? There’s a license for that. H license. You must compete in at least 8 competitions to keep it. It’s a competition license. “This firearm may be a single-shot air pistol, a single-shot .22-calibre pistol or a .22-calibre revolver or self-loading pistol.” As far as I can determine through multiple articles, those are the only ones allowed. There is no category for “protect myself from criminals” licenses.
It’s not a full ban, but, it’s pretty close. So, we now see many pushing it. Like at the Washington Post
How Australia beat the gun lobby and passed gun control
“Lynched in effigy, but no real harm done.†The words belong to Tim Fischer, Australia’s deputy prime minister in the mid-1990s — the moment when Australia radically changed its gun laws. He used the phrase yesterday when, in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre, I asked him about the political pain involved in taking on the gun lobby.
Australians are confounded by the unwillingness of American politicians to institute reasonable gun control. We performed the necessary operation, so why can’t our friends over the water?
It may be useful to recount what happened in Australia in 1996.
And that’s what Richard Glover does, and Australian attempting to tell the United States what to do. Mind your own business, Richard. We have a 2nd Amendment. Australia didn’t. Anyhow
It wasn’t only the gun owners who had something to complain about. The banned guns were not confiscated. They were “bought back.†An extra 0.2 percent levy on national health insurance was used to finance the National Firearms Buyback Program to compensate the gun owners for the banned weapons that were surrendered.
Trigger warning for any National Rifle Association (NRA) members: 660,959 firearms were duly handed in. They were then destroyed.
They were turned in because it would have been illegal to keep them. Anyone in possession would have been charged criminally. Might as well get some money for them.
This is the problem with the gun grabbers: they are all about punishing the law abiding for the actions of the criminals. Because they want to ban guns for Other People. Let’s say the U.S. tries this: anyone think there won’t be exclusions for Certain People? And that those Certain People, such as Hollywood celebs, won’t also be out there saying we need to ban guns?
Liberals know that a full gun grab isn’t going to work, so they will push the Australia solution, just like Obama and Hillary Clinton mentioned. So we get
- The Weeds: Australia solved its gun problem. Could America?
- Australian gun reform leader urges Trump to ‘get real’
- How Australia pummeled the gun lobby and passed gun control (note: Chicago is pretty damned strict on guns, yet, they have lots and lots of shootings. One of the worst in the nation. They should keep their opinions to themselves.)
- Is It Possible For America To Implement An Australian Style Of Gun Control?
And plenty, plenty more. At the NY Times, opinion writer Roxane Gay tells us that background checks do not work (and attempts to Blame the gun stores where the weapons were bought). Weren’t Democrats pushing universal background checks? Will this change? She dinks and dunks around simply banning guns in total.
But, hey, go for it, Democrats. Give it a shot. You’ll be soundly defeated. But, first, why not deal with your own lawlessness in your own violent cities. This is what happens when you’re weak on crime. And, instead of dealing with the crime, you want to penalize law abiding citizens who just want to protect themselves from the criminals Democrats enable.
I often run this graphic when the gun grabbers yammer about going after “assault rifles”
Under the Australia solution, both would be banned.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
