First off, thanks to the admins for creating this section.
Bit of an introduction about myself. For the past few years I've been actively involved in educating people about firearms, and of course, striving for less draconian firearms laws. I strongly agree that people should have the right to free speech and the right to defend themselves, which we as Australians, do not have.
While I'm not completely against the 1996 Firearms Act, there's a lot that I don't agree with.
A bit of background on what led to the reforms.
In 1996, Martin Bryant, a 28-year-old man from Hobart, Tasmania, went on a shooting spree at the historic Port Arthur site and the surrounding areas, killing 35 people and wounding 23. In the weeks that followed, massive overhauls of our gun laws took place. All fully automatic weapons were outright banned and heavy restrictions were put on semi-automatic rifles and pump/semi-automatic shotguns. Waiting periods were also introduced, meaning owners had to wait several weeks to purchase a new firearm. People new to the sport also had to wait weeks, sometimes months, for their firearms license to be processed.
The Australian government introduced a buyback scheme that allowed firearms owners to hand in their firearms for cash in return. Some 643,000 firearms were handed in and were destroyed.
We now have more firearms than before the buyback, although the laws still remain in place.
To clarify, I'm completely fine with background, mental health checks and safe storage requirements. It's the rest of it that I have a problem with.
The weapons used by Bryant, an AR-15 and SLR remain legal, but they are heavily restricted. The majority of people are restricted to pump/bolt action rifles, shotguns and handguns. Note that handgun laws were changed after a university shooting in 2002. .45 is the highest caliber allowed and magazines are restricted to 10 rounds.
Anyway, enough of the history lesson. Looking forward to talking to all of you. Especially my neighbours from New Zealand, who's firearms laws are much more reasonable than ours.
Cheers.
Bit of an introduction about myself. For the past few years I've been actively involved in educating people about firearms, and of course, striving for less draconian firearms laws. I strongly agree that people should have the right to free speech and the right to defend themselves, which we as Australians, do not have.
While I'm not completely against the 1996 Firearms Act, there's a lot that I don't agree with.
A bit of background on what led to the reforms.
In 1996, Martin Bryant, a 28-year-old man from Hobart, Tasmania, went on a shooting spree at the historic Port Arthur site and the surrounding areas, killing 35 people and wounding 23. In the weeks that followed, massive overhauls of our gun laws took place. All fully automatic weapons were outright banned and heavy restrictions were put on semi-automatic rifles and pump/semi-automatic shotguns. Waiting periods were also introduced, meaning owners had to wait several weeks to purchase a new firearm. People new to the sport also had to wait weeks, sometimes months, for their firearms license to be processed.
The Australian government introduced a buyback scheme that allowed firearms owners to hand in their firearms for cash in return. Some 643,000 firearms were handed in and were destroyed.
We now have more firearms than before the buyback, although the laws still remain in place.
To clarify, I'm completely fine with background, mental health checks and safe storage requirements. It's the rest of it that I have a problem with.
The weapons used by Bryant, an AR-15 and SLR remain legal, but they are heavily restricted. The majority of people are restricted to pump/bolt action rifles, shotguns and handguns. Note that handgun laws were changed after a university shooting in 2002. .45 is the highest caliber allowed and magazines are restricted to 10 rounds.
Anyway, enough of the history lesson. Looking forward to talking to all of you. Especially my neighbours from New Zealand, who's firearms laws are much more reasonable than ours.
Cheers.
Last edited:
). I've attended three now, and the grand majority of firearms turned in were rusted hunks of metal. One (cheap) revolver fell apart as we handled it to see if we could give the owner more than the police food cards; we just ended up patching it up so the owner could get her $100 card for it.
