I think the only way we Aussies will ever truly understand the gun issues over in the USA is by comparing/contrasting the gun laws we DO know about which affect Australia with what's happening over there and understanding why and where differences exist.

As I was watering my vege and flower gardens this morning I found myself reflecting on the safety of our neighbourhood. Everyone is lovely, friendly, supportive and decent. Nothing ever happens here. No assault or murder or theft. And I guess this is 1 reason why our home insurance policies aren't as expensive as other neighbourhoods in Sydney (especially those out west).

There is no way you'll ever see guns in our neighbourhood. Not even water pistols. Am I to believe and accept ( compliments of mainstream media ) that the US has no such neighbourhoods?

Another thing ... I'd like to know the differences btwn how easily accessible guns are over in the US compared to Australia. What checks and balances do we have here that they don't have there? Would our checks and balances function over in the US?  At any level?

I'm hoping to hear that guns are difficult to obtain here in Australia. Why? There are way too many insane people about and they seem to love posting on OzPol (so I'm concerned about idiots like that getting a hold of some weapon and harming themselves and/or others).

Quote:


Wealth is distributed far more unevenly in the US. But the poor people cannot live too far away because they need to be close to work, otherwise there is no-one to serve the maccas.

Also, I think guns are more part of the culture over there. So rich people have them. Not sure if this is just the result of NRA propaganda.

It's hard to tell what is the cause and what is the effect. At the time the second amendment was written, there was a genuine gun culture, and probably a genuine need for it. Australia was barely a penal colony, while the US was the wild west.

Not sure about the natives. If that were a real factor, you would expect NZ to have a bigger gun culture than here. I expect fellow immigrants were a bigger danger to most early Americans, unless they were pro mink hunters or something.

They also had the civil war, so a much higher level of fear of the government.

Lisa Jones wrote on Jun 25^th, 2022 at 1:45pm:


The USA is deeply divided.  Rich people live in safe, often gated neighbourhoods.  Poor people are left to shoot it out

freediver wrote on Jun 25^th, 2022 at 8:20pm:


About 45 times.  you?

FutureTheLeftWant wrote on Jun 25^th, 2022 at 8:20pm:


Not that many times, but over a year on the ground.

I don't recall seeing a single gated community.

freediver wrote on Jun 25^th, 2022 at 5:33pm:


Damn you Freediver lol! You beat me to it! I had to log off because I was cooking and as I was stirring the stew I found myself reflecting on the Maoris. They were warriors. Even so ... there's no gun culture in NZ today.

The other thing I found myself reflecting on was this :

NZ (like Australia) also didn't have a War of Independence nor did they have a Civil War. The enemies in such conflicts were therefore non existent. Not so for the USA so once again....guns played a pivotal role in getting from 1775 –--> 1865 ( the start of the American War Of Independence through to the end of  the American Civil War ). In any event, the American Indian Wars timeline 1609–1924 (intermittent) also pushed the gun culture along so that the 1st 309 years of the existence of the USA ... its gun culture effectively defined its mode of survival.

So we've reached the mid 1920's. And right now we're in 2022. What's happened in THIS 100 yr period to perpetuate the gun culture in the US?i

Personally I've never wanted a gun, but during the 60s the Government threatened me with two years jail if I refused to comply with the order to use fire arms etc to kill people. I never wanted to kill anyone, it's not my nature to do that, and I still don't want a gun, never have

What the politicians should do, on behalf of the Parliament, is get on their knees and apologize to all the young blokes they threatened, old now, but young then

Bias_2012 wrote on Jun 26^th, 2022 at 3:34am:


You might like to check out this site mate...

Nasho Fair Go.

"The mission of this web site is unashamedly to obtain some justice
for a group of men who have been treated very shabbily by successive
federal governments over the last 50 years – since National service
was abolished on 7 December 1972."

Give me an amateur President who know's he's stupid,
than a professional President who is stupid but believes that he isn't - anytime.

Lisa Jones wrote on Jun 26^th, 2022 at 1:10am:


Paranoid inherent individual rights Conservative Libertarian 'self-defense' ideologues who hate government, remain powerful in the US, and they have the US Constitution's  obsolete 2nd Amendment to back them up.

A well regulated militia ...the US now has the world's most powerful military...being necessary for the defense of a free state  .....defense of the state against the 'evil' British king in the conditions of the late 18th century(!)....the right to bear arms shall not be infringed...now to 'defend', not to arm the state against the British king,  but to arm individuals against one another ie against one's own neighbors.  Nice.

Result: the highest DOMESTIC gun deaths of any rich nation on the planet.i

Baronvonrort wrote on Jun 28^th, 2022 at 9:02pm:


Hang on.

In Australia from 1996 ---->

1. More difficult to own a gun
2. No difference in getting access to a gun

Huh? That means we've learned nothing from the Port Arthur Massacre.

You might like to check out this site mate...

Nasho Fair Go.

Thanks, I never knew about that, it must be pretty recent

We were young blokes working at our regular jobs fresh out of our apprenticeships, then suddenly we found ourselves with high powered guns in our hands - made sense to some I suppose

freediver wrote on Jul 1^st, 2022 at 9:43am:


We made drugs illegal did that stop people taking drugs? Did this increase profits for drug dealers like Milton Friedman said it would?

At 1 min 18 former NSW police minister says greater than 97% of all gun crime in NSW is done by criminals with illegal guns.


The Islamic terrorist who did the Lindt siege picked up an illegal pump action shotgun for $600 there have been quite frw shootings in Sydney going back a few years by criminals with guns that cannot legally be bought.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/gun-found-every-two-days-in-melbourn...

Bias_2012 wrote on Jun 30^th, 2022 at 3:56pm:


Yes, it's only a couple of weeks old.  Currently has 800+ paid up members.

"Two years of their youth were taken from them with virtually nothing given back in return".

Baronvonrort wrote on Jul 10^th, 2022 at 8:23pm:


You cannot get addicted to guns. Would you like to have another go at a rational argument?

Psychoactive Drugs Often Linked to Mass Shootings

The effects of psychoactive drugs should be part of the mass shooting discussion

BY MARTHA ROSENBERG TIMEJULY 16, 2022 PRINT

We do not know if Robert Crimo III, the confessed Highland Park Fourth of July parade shooter, was on psychoactive drugs when he murdered but we do know that police were called to his home for suicidal behavior and that he was remanded to the psychiatric system.

Mass shooters in the U.S. tend to be young, obsessive, male loners and many have been prescribed psychoactive drugs. For example, Eric Harris, one of the two shooters at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado in 1999 which ushered in the current spate of mass shootings, was on the psychotropic drug Luvox. Prescribing information for the antidepressant says, “Close supervision of patients and in particular those at high risk should accompany drug therapy.”

Jeff Weise who fatally shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and seven people at the Red Lake Senior High School in 2005, was on the well known antidepressant Prozac.

Two years later Cho Seung-Hui perpetrated the Virginia Tech murders and was also found to be on psychoactive antidepressants.

“We urgently need a national debate about guns. But we also urgently need a national debate about the epidemic of mood-altering drugs being prescribed to young Americans,” wrote Arianna Huffington in 2007 after the Virginia Tech mass shooting in which 32 perished.

The following year, in 2008, another university was targeted. Steven Kazmierczak fatally shot seven at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. He had also been prescribed Prozac which he had recently stopped.

The BBC Questions Another Mass Shooter’s Medication
Few can forget the “Batman” shootings at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater in 2012. James Holmes, the gunman who fatally shot 12 and wounded scores, was on antidepressants. The suspicion among some reporters and doctors that the antidepressants explained the rampage was so strong, the BBC created an in-depth report entitled “The Batman Killer – a Prescription For Murder?” in 2017. “Why else would a clever, shy guy with no history of violence, from a loving home, carry out such a heinous attack?” except the effect of the psychoactive drugs wrote the BBC’s Shelley Jofre Holmes in the report. “He had no enemies, no terrorist ideology to drive him on.”

Dr. David Healy, a psychiatrist and psycho-pharmacologist who has written books about the risks of antidepressants studied Holmes’ case and interviewed him in prison. “These killings would never have happened had it not been for the medication James Holmes had been prescribed,” he concluded.

Dr. Wendy Burn, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, on the other hand is quoted in the BBC report as disagreeing and doubting Dr. Healy’s pronouncement. “In all treatments—from cancer to heart disease—medicines which do good can also do harm,” she said. “Current evidence from large-scale studies continues to show that for antidepressants the benefits outweigh the risks.”

A Mass Shooting Spawned by Racial Hatred
Dylann Roof’s fatal shooting of nine parishioners at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015 showed racism and gun violence at its worst. While the U.S. has seen other racially motivated and church shootings, the cold blooded calculation of Roof’s murders brought the nation to a new level of outrage and horror. Two years later, 19 documents unsealed by U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel revealed that Roof, too, was on antidepressants.

Two other mass shooting had preceded Roof’s murders. In 2013, Aaron Alexis fatally shot 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard in southeast Washington, D.C. where he had a security clearance. Less than a month before the killings, Alexis was prescribed the antidepressant trazodone.

The following year, 2014, Army Specialist Ivan Lopez, fatally shot four people on the Fort Hood military base near Killeen, Texas after a highly publicized Fort Hood shooting in 2009. According to the Washington Post, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the commander of Fort Hood, said Lopez “had behavioral health and mental health issues” and was taking antidepressants.

Sixty-four mass shootings have occurred in the U.S. since Lopez’ rampage eight years ago including the recent Fourth of July shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, according to a gun violence database.

Disturbing Psychoactive Drug Side Effects Are Well Known
Awareness of these unpredictable medications is not new. Four days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 when awareness of mass shootings reached a peak, Geoffrey Ingersol of Business Insider wrote that psychoactive drugs “the FDA pumped out [had] an ability to exact the opposite desired effect on people: that is, you know, inducing rather than inhibiting psychosis and aggressive behavior.” Antipsychotic drugs, which the Sandy Hook shooter was originally—and mistakenly—thought to have taken “are not the only ones that can cause the opposite of their desired effect,” observed Ingersol. “Several antidepressant medications are also restricted to adults, for the depression they inspire in kids rather than eliminate.”

Mortdooley wrote on Jul 19^th, 2022 at 8:58pm:


Yes.  But we have to be careful not to imagine that the psychoactive drugs in
and of themselves were the ultimate cause of the mass shooting deaths.

The shooter's state of mind is hardly part of the equation.  The sole reason for
so many random, mass firearm deaths is the firearm.  Were mentally unstable
individuals prohibited absolutely from purchasing, possessing, or accessing
military-style assault weapons, America would see far less mass shootings.  And
the only way to achieve this is to completely stop the selling of these weapons,
ban them from private citizens, and introduce a buyback amnesty for current
owners.

I know that the gun nutters, the NRA, and the Republicans will scream the house
down, but at least that would prove Americans are genuinely serious about reducing
their horrific firearms death record.  Thus far, they have not shown that at all.

Mortdooley wrote on Jul 20^th, 2022 at 11:59pm:


I'm sorry but I have no idea what your intent is with this comment. I didn't
say anything about "healing" mental illness, nor did I say anything about the
family backgrounds of mass shooters.

And I said nothing about restricting the rights of "honest" citizens. Can we
safely assume all citizens are honest when we sell them a gun? Can you
tell in 5 minutes if someone is honest?    What are your benchmarks?

What I'm saying is that it's impossible for anybody to judge the suitability of
an individual possessing a firearm.  In that case, the obvious answer is to ban
the private ownership of firearms for everybody. At least that would cut down
the horrendous firearms death rates in America.

Quote:


Yes, unjust laws are usually the cause. Great evils have been done in history because it was the law.

Quote:


The second amendment isn't the cause, the destruction of the traditional family unit and turning away from Judeo-Christian values is! Rifles with thirty round magazines were available decades before the Media created a platform for mass shooters to be recognized! Government isn't my master and the more it tells me to be defenseless against it the more I think I need the ability to resist! I know how obedient some populations are to their government but unlike you, our government wasn't created for the people to be obedient to it.

Quote:


Criminals don't obey laws, that is why they are criminals. A lack of moral values leads to criminal behavior. There is no shifting of blame, it is all part of the same issue.

Quote:


They do obey the laws of economics. They will be the first to tell you that money talks, BS walks.

Mortdooley wrote on Jul 25^th, 2022 at 12:05am:

Strictly speaking, the 2nd Amendment is not the "cause" per se of the massive
possession and use of firearms in the US, but certainly enables it by virtue of its
outmoded and ambiguous wording.  The 2nd would be more than acceptable were
its wording modified in order to suit modern 21st century firearms, ethics and societal
considerations.

The US imposed numerical speed limit for motor vehicles, setting the maximum legal
speed to 12 mph in cities and 15 mph on rural roads in 1901.  Obviously that's changed
vastly until today—as should the antiquated laws governing the licensing, possession
and use of firearms.

And people "turning away" from nebulous religious values has nothing to do with the
increasing number of firearm homicides, suicides, or mass shootings in the US.  That's
just wishful thinking posited by the religious right.  The true cause is one from ready
availability of guns, and slack licensing, carry, and possession laws.

AusGeoff wrote on Jul 29^th, 2022 at 11:59pm:



People like to compare motor vehicles to firearms but there is a problem with that. Our Traffic laws only apply to the public streets. A vehicle is private property and can be owned and used without restrictions on private property. I can't keep a full auto firearm without restrictions just because it remains on private property so it is already more restricted than a motor vehicle. Driving on the public roads is a privilege, owning property including vehicles is a Right. We all have the Right of self defense without regard for the laws of any government. Just because a government denies Rights it doesn't make them null and void, they are natural rights. Comparing vehicles to firearms is not a valid argument.

If you have no moral compass you are free to be as big a psychopath as you like. A person who believes they are their own god or there is no god is free to commit the most heinous crimes without guilt or conscience. These copycats are getting their fifteen minutes of fame by their actions because the whole world will hear of them thanks to the Media. The Democrats may even name a gun control law after them.

Many including some here celebrate and even call for the death of conservatives, I think I need to keep my AR just in case they become too powerful!