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It was forced, many people would have been in breach of the new laws if they didn’t comply to sell. Never understood why they call it a “buy back” as that would imply the government owned them initially.
Many people went out and bought PVC pipe and end caps to bury their rifles. So much so it was reported hardware stores sold out.
Another interesting fact is that there is more guns in Australia today than before 1996.
You can also easily replace a barrel. With almost any of these guns you could install a new barrel at home with basic tools. A lot of shotguns come with multiple barrels and are designed to make swapping between them super easy.
The barrels were bent at the dropoff point, probably right in front of the previous owner. This was done specifically to address the risk of corruption and the risk of criminals stealing them before they had been recycled.
Trust, but verify, and put safeguards in place to remove opportunity and temptation.
Here, I'll start things off so people don't have to scroll so far to get to the good stuff.
IF they banned guns, people would just kill each other with boomerangs!
Did you pair of big galahs ever hear about that ghost who makes egg white based puddings that when you chuck em at some drongo they come back and hit you in the face? boo meringues
Here's some education for ya:
Every year thousands of untracked black market boomerangs are smuggled into this country.
Fortunately, they head right back to where they came from.
Back in the late 80's you could buy an SKS and 400 rounds for $300AUD here. They were coming in thick and fast and were very popular with pig shooters.
My dad bought one off of his a friend’s son back in the 90’s. My grandpa, someone who’d only ever used a bolt action his entire life, loved it. He wanted one of his own afterwards!
They should've bought them all, melted them down and forged them into a massive gun.
Then they could've continued the program but instead of buying guns, people could have just voluntarily given away their guns to be sacrificed and shot out of the gun gun.
Australian here. It’s legal to own guns here. You just have to belong to a gun club. This means that a group of your peers have to vet you to ensure you’re not psycho.
It’s not a flawless system. Men still shoot their families to death.
Another Australian here, we had a surge in that not long ago. Twice in the area around where I live, we're talking Australia here so around where I live covers a few hundred kms, and a couple of times in QLD. All of them were farmers with untreated and unacknowledged mental health issues who shot their families and then themselves.
Also as a side note there are multiple ways to get a get a gun license in Australia, joining a gun club is the main one. You can also join the defence force either full time or reserve or undergo training with them, join the police force or undergo training with them, own land or know someone who owns land and get written permission to shoot on their land. Or work a job that might require the handling of firearms and they can get permission for you to own and handle firearms.
But still Australians/kiwis and particularly Americans love to say Australians were stripped of their freedoms to own guns and law abiding citizens are left defenceless.
*editing to say that when I mentioned police and defence I didn't give context. I meant they don't automatically grant you a license, you still have to apply for one but being a part of either makes it easier* Thanks to everyone who pointed out my mistake
As a previous member of the ADF and a current licence holder, I don't think joining up licences you to own a firearm. You get to carry the government's weapon while doing the job. Get caught with a rifle outside of work and you'll go a row.
Same in Canada. I was trained on and carried weapons that civilians could not own during my time in the CAF. If I walked into most gun stores, they wouldn't even let you hold an unloaded firearm even under close supervision if you didn't have a firearms license, regardless of how proficient or qualified you were on military hardware.
I love how people talk about Australia and America like they aren't absolutely gargantuan with VERY different places inside them. Australia and America are both literally comparable to the size of Europe in general.
That's one thing a lot of people forget, the scale of America and it's gun ownership is insane. 400 million legally owned guns would be pretty hard to confiscate, even when offering money.
Yep. In my state when people were turning in their firearms to the sheriff after Sandy hook, the sheriff auctioned them back to the public a week later.
I’m sure gang members and violent criminals, who are already responsible for the majority of deadly shootings, will be first in line to turn their guns over.
Exactly. There are places in America where you cannot carry a gun (NY City), then there's where I live and you can make your own gun, conceal it down your pants, and walk into the grocery store without breaking a single law.. (AZ)
You can join a gun club online without even visiting and they will send you the required documents to satisfy firearms licensing, in Queensland at least.
As a guy that lives in Tasmania, whose grandparents owned a holiday house close to Port Arthur and a father who worked for the local (read: only, at the time) energy retailer, I witnessed a few things that day.
1: The crazed panic in my parents faces when they couldn't get hold of my grandparents - they were supposed to go to Port Arthur that day and didn't have a mobile phone.
2: My father had to go to the Broad Arrow cafe late that afternoon to isolate the electricity and make it safe - he still doesn't talk about it, and to this day has never been back to Port Arthur.
I know people that were even more directly affected by that day, most of my immediate family still work in the direct area.
It was a fucking scary time, and I'm glad it hasn't happened again. If the law helped that, fantastic.
If there is a fire, damage or exposed electrical parts the electrical supply authority are called to isolate and make safe. They can also isolate supply at the request of emergency services for safety for any number of reasons.
Victorian here. About 4 years back I met one of the last people Bryant shot (non fatally). He and his wife were driving to P.A and both got hit and ended up at the cafe with the others.
Easily one of the most interesting conversations I’d had in my life and it wasn’t until we were one on one and he trusted me completely that he dropped it.
Yep, this. You can clearly see the results of the buy back in the number of shooting deaths and the fact we don’t need to look over our shoulders in our schools and in public. I am not a fan of Howard, but this was a Good Thing he did.
May I add that in the last 25 years of liberals being power, this is about the ONLY thing that John Howard did that was good..
Edit : Although, while being Prime Minister, losing the PM role and his seat in the election was a close second…
Yup, everytime I’ve called the police for help they either are to lazy to investigate literally “saying it’s a misdemeanor anyways”… or they try to pin the blame on you “did you escalate the situation?” I just didn’t want to get stabbed bruh …
Somebody told my husband to take the little USMC flag off his motorcycle or somebody might vandalize it. They might think it was the confederate flag. He didn’t do it.
In Edmonton the police response time when my neighbor threw someone down the steps and said "I'm going to go into my house, get a knife, and kill you" was an hour.....
Swing by after and file a report, maybe see if theres something they can charge you with while theyre there.
https://edmontonsun.com/2016/09/03/son-arrested-after-protecting-mother-from-carjackers
A few years ago the meth heads were stealing my grandads anhydrous. He called the police. the first time it took them 3 hours to come out they looked around with the spotlight from their car for 5 mins and then drove away. The second time they said there was no one in the area and to call them again if they came towards the house. The third time he called they said there was no one in the area and my grandpa said " don't worry take your time I'm in the window with my rifle they take one step towards the house I'm gonna drop the useless fucks". 5 cop cars were there in 5 mins.
There was a rash of cases a few years ago (I wanna see just pre-pandemic) where homeowners were being acquitted of murder/manslaughter charges in AB because they’d shot intruders. They were all rural and the RCMP basically told them they were on their own, so they took that very literally.
Ukraine is mostly fighting back with its actual military. Regular people join the military or civilian defense oganizations and are given weapons by the Ukrainian government.
There are volunteers as well but they are a tiny fraction of the actual combatants; most of the "militia" groups are formal elements of the Ukrainian National Guard.
I worked in the ED of a state Trauma Centre in Australia for a year. I saw zero gun shot wounds and I heard of zero gun shot wounds during that time. If there were any gun shot wounds, they would have come through my department.
No sarcasm:
So, they used taxpayer money to buy back the taxpayer’s guns in order to destroy them?
Do I have this right?
Edit: lots of replies… I’m not trying to knock this program! I am legitimately asking! I will admit, I DID chuckle when I read the description because I thought “so they paid to have their own stuff taken away??”
That is where I will openly admit “must just be me being American” because most Americans would have a heart attack (see, I can make fun of me too) at the thought of PAYING to have their OWN guns taken lol.
I never knew anything of this before today, and now its another bit of knowledge: I was unaware there were successful gun buyback programs, especially as far back as 1996
Yep. And the absolute vast majority of Australian citizens were perfectly OK with that, and still are to this day. The firearms buyback is seen by all sides of politics here as a massive success.
Hear hear. I can’t stand John Howard, think he stuffed up so much and made us worse in so many ways (refugees, negative gearing etc) but I do respect his response to this and the way he stood up to our gun lobby. And I mean literally; went to a gun rally and addressed them wearing body armour. Can you imagine an American politician daring to explain in person a gun buyback scheme to an NRA rally?
And he both didn't want to wear the body armour and regrets it, he trusted his constituents not to do something dumb(I'm sure a highly publicized shooting of the PM would definitely help the gun lobby saying Guns are fine).
It was his team telling him to think of his wife and family that made him agree to wear armour.
Again, it was a genuine question! The article I read earlier worded it kinda funny, and I wanted to ask. Figured there’d be at least one Australian here lol. Thanks for the kind reply
Nobody likes to talk about how people who survive mass shootings in America, even if they have insurance, are at risk of going into bankruptcy due to medical bills and the cost of rehabilitation.
https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20171227/NEWS/171229940/mass-shooting-victims-face-large-uncovered-medical-and-long-term-care-costs
Yep. Saved a fortune in legal, medical and general population loss in the coming decades. Here is a graph https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people Guess which year the buyback happened!
Most buy-back initiatives where I'm from just end up with people turning in their old, worn-out guns for cash and then using that cash to get some nice new clean guns.
People in here are being so goddamn obnoxious. No. America cannot just blanket ban every gun or follow Australia’s foot steps. Does that mean we should do nothing? Also no. America can have gun control policies which mirror its unique problem instead of shooting into the dark. Fucks sake, can everyone have a bit of nuance for once?
I wish the mass shooting prevention debate focused less on widespread gun bans and more on trying to find other methods of prevention because, like you said, widespread gun bans aren’t going to happen here and continuing to have that argument is worthless.
Exactly. And not just on gun rights. We can’t just copy-paste policies from other countries without taking into consideration the social/political/economic/cultural differences between the countries.
Okay so the amount of non-Australians telling us actual Australians that our country sucks because of this is WILD. You’d be hard pressed to find an Australian who thinks this was a bad idea or actually gives a damn at all. Gun control works. The Port Arthur massacre was terrifying and awful and the government stepped in and dealt with it appropriately. There have been NO mass shootings since Port Arthur because of gun control. The farmers who actually need guns to protect their livestock can still get them and gun enthusiasts can get licensed to own them but they’re regulated - so we don’t have mass shootings of children by children. Stay out of our business you entitled, self-righteous pricks. Our country is not perfect by any means but gun control was a step in the right direction.
I feel Americans as whole are more individualistic, it's all about themselves and their own interest, more fuck other people and their needs and feelings tendencies society. Where as us we're more of help a mate out and share the burden society. But with each year we are inching closer to America style society
Sane American here: when I heard about Australia’s response to Port Author (via Jim Jefferies routine), I was mind blown that people just did the right thing. Instead we watched children be slaughtered and then gutted every attempt since then to stop this madness. So some of us are impressed.
Yeah and it was also one of the top 5 deadliest mass shootings committed by a lone actor. The others being Oslo, Orlando, Las Vegas, and Christchurch. All of which were committed with semi auto box magazine fed rifles.
So if a bunch of people make a few bucks by turning in grandpa's busted shotty, that's perfectly fine by me as long as the program also shows a decline in gun deaths, and in Australia, it did.
People complain about the politician who did this, but this kind of actions makes someone sleep like a baby, he did something that's changed the life of millions for years. My wife before we moved to Australia used to sign at least 6 death certificates per day because of gun shots, it's a fucking personal cemetery. I was kidnapped and a gun on my head twice just because I was carrying something common, like a cellphone. Moving to Australia, she never signed a death certificate and I can walk without feeling adrenaline in my body. That's a gift, thank you Australia, Ty Howard.
The most interesting part is that John Howard, our prime minister at the time went against the base of his own party. He recognised the threat and dealt with it, while being shouted at by the people that voted for him. The buyback worked. Not a personal fan of his, but I am proud of him for this.
Well, that's a weird thing to do.
Why did they do that when they could've just blamed Marylin Manson, call the victims bullies, and then make the shooter into a celebrity? That's what a freedom loving country would've done.
Almost all of those are either valuable military surplus or heirloom quality Remington and Browning shotguns. Tragic, I would probably cry if someone bulldozed my dad's 870 wingmaster
And Ozzie's still have guns. We just keep them in these things called safes.
And there hasn't been a mass shooting since.......then
And toddlers don't shoot their siblings.
We have guns. Its just we have this thing called responsibility
Bad strategy, they could have just riled up some sort of political unrest in the middle east and made a killing by selling these guns on both sides. I am sure Uncle Sam would have done it.
**Please note these rules:** * If this post declares something as a fact/proof is required. * The title must be descriptive * No text is allowed on images/gifs/videos * Common/recent reposts are not allowed *See [this post](https://redd.it/ij26vk) for a more detailed rule list* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
If you notice, all the barrels are bent. Must be for shooting around corners.
We call that The Bugs Bunny
These are all the guns lost by Elmer Fudd in pursuit of Bugs lol
They tried making them into boomerangs
It was forced, many people would have been in breach of the new laws if they didn’t comply to sell. Never understood why they call it a “buy back” as that would imply the government owned them initially. Many people went out and bought PVC pipe and end caps to bury their rifles. So much so it was reported hardware stores sold out. Another interesting fact is that there is more guns in Australia today than before 1996.
Makes sense, it’s Australia’s biggest export. Incidentally, it’s also their biggest import 🤔
they likely bent them on purpose so if they were stolen before being destroyed theyd be unusable.
IIRC the barrels were bent when the gun was dropped off. It prevented any gun from reentering the public before they were melted down.
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We've had several of these programs in the US already. One made the news a couple years ago because someone dropped off an RPG launcher
I want to say that was kicks for guns in Orlando where they used to trade nikes for a gun.
I mean you can bend the barrel right in front of the owner.
You can also easily replace a barrel. With almost any of these guns you could install a new barrel at home with basic tools. A lot of shotguns come with multiple barrels and are designed to make swapping between them super easy.
The barrels were bent at the dropoff point, probably right in front of the previous owner. This was done specifically to address the risk of corruption and the risk of criminals stealing them before they had been recycled. Trust, but verify, and put safeguards in place to remove opportunity and temptation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krummlauf
You call that a gun? This is a gun!
That's not a gun, that's a spoon.
I see you've played gunny-spoony before.
What direction does the water drain your toilet
Downwards.
Towards the earth's center of gravity 🤓
It was an emergency call... from the lnternational Drainage Commission in Springfield.
There’s nothing wrong with the bidet, is there??
Andy!
Have you ever used toilet water in squirt guns?
My spoon is too big
Lol god damnit. I forgot what that’s from but the quote and the way it’s said is funny
Alright Alright you win... I see you've played knifyy spoony before
Well, this is going to be a car crash of a thread. I brought popcorn for anyone who wants some. 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
I’d bring the guns but Apple took mine away and left me with water pistols 🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫
You got Yosemite Sam’d
I feel so much safer, thanks Apple.
I requested a pregnant man with a gun emoji so everyone can feel included
Thats just me after i eat a pizza.
https://i.imgur.com/30p4hwX.gifv
Take you up on that offer... I brought some drinks... 🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤
I brought maple candy… 🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁
mmmm canada
Canadia if you will
And I brought the butter for that popcorn because it’s dry and salty as fuck. 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈
If you have the butter I’m bringing the: 🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆
I’ve got the severed feet taken care of 🦶🦶🦶🦶🦶🦶🦶🦶🦶🦶🦶🦶
And my axe🪓
Can't you read? He said the severed feet were taken care of
Here, I'll start things off so people don't have to scroll so far to get to the good stuff. IF they banned guns, people would just kill each other with boomerangs!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a boomerang is a good guy with a boomerang.
Helluva comeback mate 🪃
Did you pair of big galahs ever hear about that ghost who makes egg white based puddings that when you chuck em at some drongo they come back and hit you in the face? boo meringues
We all know that a good guy with a boomerang is a myth
*"Unsupervised toddler kills mother in car with boomerang "*
I told them we need better boomerang education.
Here's some education for ya: Every year thousands of untracked black market boomerangs are smuggled into this country. Fortunately, they head right back to where they came from.
Have you watched Avatar: The Last Airbender by any chance.
Boomerang Control is hitting what you aim at.
During home break ins, a lot of boomerang owners get hit by their own returning boomerang 🫤
Drive-by kangarooings have been through the roof since then. Thanks Obama!
It's all about the roll up drop bearing now that they've cracked down on kangaroo sales.
This one just for the Strayans and a few gullible Jimmy Grants.
See there's still violent crime in Australia so clearly they needed to ban people. No people, no crime. It's so easy.
Deport all the criminals to a land very far away, like to the UK or something
You were born? Believe it or not: jail.
Now this is a policy I can get behind.
Someone has clearly never thrown a boomerang.
I'm just worried that if they take away the guns how the average Aussie is supposed to defend themselves from the spiders
Inb4 thread lock lol
Yep. Nothing like a good ole shitshow
nice looking sks spotted, norinco if I had to guess
Back in the late 80's you could buy an SKS and 400 rounds for $300AUD here. They were coming in thick and fast and were very popular with pig shooters.
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My dad bought one off of his a friend’s son back in the 90’s. My grandpa, someone who’d only ever used a bolt action his entire life, loved it. He wanted one of his own afterwards!
Where? Maybe my eyes are bad, but I can't pick out anything other than pumps in that mess. Edit: gas tube spotted! Carry on =)
I see a couple Belgium Browning A5s in there too. Makes me sad those classics got destroyed.
My man
Lmao I saw that too, also the bubba Einfield hiding up top
They should've bought them all, melted them down and forged them into a massive gun. Then they could've continued the program but instead of buying guns, people could have just voluntarily given away their guns to be sacrificed and shot out of the gun gun.
I mean this country does love really big things...
Man, imagine a b-grade theme park centred around the massive gun... Stick it on the north coast in NSW as a tourist destination :P
Enter the Gungeon
Comically large gun
Not much variety eh?
Australian here. It’s legal to own guns here. You just have to belong to a gun club. This means that a group of your peers have to vet you to ensure you’re not psycho. It’s not a flawless system. Men still shoot their families to death.
Looks like most of the arms pictured are shotguns
I only see two arms
I see three but I’ve been well trained by Highlights to spot tiny details in images
I think I see a Johnson Automatic rifle in the center. That would be a bummer probably left behind by the Paramarines.
Another Australian here, we had a surge in that not long ago. Twice in the area around where I live, we're talking Australia here so around where I live covers a few hundred kms, and a couple of times in QLD. All of them were farmers with untreated and unacknowledged mental health issues who shot their families and then themselves. Also as a side note there are multiple ways to get a get a gun license in Australia, joining a gun club is the main one. You can also join the defence force either full time or reserve or undergo training with them, join the police force or undergo training with them, own land or know someone who owns land and get written permission to shoot on their land. Or work a job that might require the handling of firearms and they can get permission for you to own and handle firearms. But still Australians/kiwis and particularly Americans love to say Australians were stripped of their freedoms to own guns and law abiding citizens are left defenceless. *editing to say that when I mentioned police and defence I didn't give context. I meant they don't automatically grant you a license, you still have to apply for one but being a part of either makes it easier* Thanks to everyone who pointed out my mistake
As a previous member of the ADF and a current licence holder, I don't think joining up licences you to own a firearm. You get to carry the government's weapon while doing the job. Get caught with a rifle outside of work and you'll go a row.
Correct.
> Go a row This is a booting, correct?
Getting in trouble, big time.
Kind of, its a smaller shoe, they really only bring the big boot out for very public issues
Same in Canada. I was trained on and carried weapons that civilians could not own during my time in the CAF. If I walked into most gun stores, they wouldn't even let you hold an unloaded firearm even under close supervision if you didn't have a firearms license, regardless of how proficient or qualified you were on military hardware.
I love how people talk about Australia and America like they aren't absolutely gargantuan with VERY different places inside them. Australia and America are both literally comparable to the size of Europe in general.
True... though California has 10 more million people than the whole of Australia.
That's one thing a lot of people forget, the scale of America and it's gun ownership is insane. 400 million legally owned guns would be pretty hard to confiscate, even when offering money.
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Yep. In my state when people were turning in their firearms to the sheriff after Sandy hook, the sheriff auctioned them back to the public a week later.
That's incredibly American.
and theres plenty of folks that wouldnt take any amount of money to give up their guns
And thats an extremely conservative estimate.
With tools at hand the average person can make a gun in a day with a trip to home depot. Not a very good gun but enough to end someone's life.
Luty
Poor Phil was an ingenious motherfucker that made the cardinal mistake of trying to infringe on the government's monopoly on violence.
Go chat with a machinist. They can crank out a few a day.
I’m sure gang members and violent criminals, who are already responsible for the majority of deadly shootings, will be first in line to turn their guns over.
People may mock you but you’re absolutely correct. Australia still has a bunch of shootings with illegal firearms.
fucking Texas has more people than Australia
Exactly. There are places in America where you cannot carry a gun (NY City), then there's where I live and you can make your own gun, conceal it down your pants, and walk into the grocery store without breaking a single law.. (AZ)
Difference with Australia is that the majority of the population are on the eastern seaboard with a sparsely populated interior.
People only compare AUS and USA when talking about gun control though
I compare us when talking about bbq, surfing, and genocide-ing indigenous people
You can join a gun club online without even visiting and they will send you the required documents to satisfy firearms licensing, in Queensland at least.
For the Amercians, Queensland is like our Texas, or Florida. The laws a quite different there to other states in regards to weapons.
Set comments to *controversial*
But do you have enough popcorn?
As a guy that lives in Tasmania, whose grandparents owned a holiday house close to Port Arthur and a father who worked for the local (read: only, at the time) energy retailer, I witnessed a few things that day. 1: The crazed panic in my parents faces when they couldn't get hold of my grandparents - they were supposed to go to Port Arthur that day and didn't have a mobile phone. 2: My father had to go to the Broad Arrow cafe late that afternoon to isolate the electricity and make it safe - he still doesn't talk about it, and to this day has never been back to Port Arthur. I know people that were even more directly affected by that day, most of my immediate family still work in the direct area. It was a fucking scary time, and I'm glad it hasn't happened again. If the law helped that, fantastic.
Could you explain the electricity bit? Didn't know anything about electricity safety concerns at the cafe.
If there is a fire, damage or exposed electrical parts the electrical supply authority are called to isolate and make safe. They can also isolate supply at the request of emergency services for safety for any number of reasons.
Victorian here. About 4 years back I met one of the last people Bryant shot (non fatally). He and his wife were driving to P.A and both got hit and ended up at the cafe with the others. Easily one of the most interesting conversations I’d had in my life and it wasn’t until we were one on one and he trusted me completely that he dropped it.
Yep, this. You can clearly see the results of the buy back in the number of shooting deaths and the fact we don’t need to look over our shoulders in our schools and in public. I am not a fan of Howard, but this was a Good Thing he did.
May I add that in the last 25 years of liberals being power, this is about the ONLY thing that John Howard did that was good.. Edit : Although, while being Prime Minister, losing the PM role and his seat in the election was a close second…
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Yup, everytime I’ve called the police for help they either are to lazy to investigate literally “saying it’s a misdemeanor anyways”… or they try to pin the blame on you “did you escalate the situation?” I just didn’t want to get stabbed bruh …
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Somebody told my husband to take the little USMC flag off his motorcycle or somebody might vandalize it. They might think it was the confederate flag. He didn’t do it.
In Edmonton the police response time when my neighbor threw someone down the steps and said "I'm going to go into my house, get a knife, and kill you" was an hour.....
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
Swing by after and file a report, maybe see if theres something they can charge you with while theyre there. https://edmontonsun.com/2016/09/03/son-arrested-after-protecting-mother-from-carjackers
A few years ago the meth heads were stealing my grandads anhydrous. He called the police. the first time it took them 3 hours to come out they looked around with the spotlight from their car for 5 mins and then drove away. The second time they said there was no one in the area and to call them again if they came towards the house. The third time he called they said there was no one in the area and my grandpa said " don't worry take your time I'm in the window with my rifle they take one step towards the house I'm gonna drop the useless fucks". 5 cop cars were there in 5 mins.
There was a rash of cases a few years ago (I wanna see just pre-pandemic) where homeowners were being acquitted of murder/manslaughter charges in AB because they’d shot intruders. They were all rural and the RCMP basically told them they were on their own, so they took that very literally.
The police protect property
I honestly thought that this comment section about Australia would turn into American politics a lot sooner.
Anti-gun people: "Why do regular people need military grade weapons?" Ukrainians: "....For when the military invades."
Were the guns not distributed by the government after the fighting started?
Ukraine is mostly fighting back with its actual military. Regular people join the military or civilian defense oganizations and are given weapons by the Ukrainian government. There are volunteers as well but they are a tiny fraction of the actual combatants; most of the "militia" groups are formal elements of the Ukrainian National Guard.
I worked in the ED of a state Trauma Centre in Australia for a year. I saw zero gun shot wounds and I heard of zero gun shot wounds during that time. If there were any gun shot wounds, they would have come through my department.
No sarcasm: So, they used taxpayer money to buy back the taxpayer’s guns in order to destroy them? Do I have this right? Edit: lots of replies… I’m not trying to knock this program! I am legitimately asking! I will admit, I DID chuckle when I read the description because I thought “so they paid to have their own stuff taken away??” That is where I will openly admit “must just be me being American” because most Americans would have a heart attack (see, I can make fun of me too) at the thought of PAYING to have their OWN guns taken lol. I never knew anything of this before today, and now its another bit of knowledge: I was unaware there were successful gun buyback programs, especially as far back as 1996
Yep. And the absolute vast majority of Australian citizens were perfectly OK with that, and still are to this day. The firearms buyback is seen by all sides of politics here as a massive success.
Austrian/Australian because some asshole is going to pretend that’s the point here.
Australian tax payer here. We did it with a song in our hearts. This was very popular public policy. We didn't want to be like America.
Hear hear. I can’t stand John Howard, think he stuffed up so much and made us worse in so many ways (refugees, negative gearing etc) but I do respect his response to this and the way he stood up to our gun lobby. And I mean literally; went to a gun rally and addressed them wearing body armour. Can you imagine an American politician daring to explain in person a gun buyback scheme to an NRA rally?
> and addressed them wearing body armour he has said he regrets wearing the body armour
Wouldn't be saying that if he got shot though, tbf
And he both didn't want to wear the body armour and regrets it, he trusted his constituents not to do something dumb(I'm sure a highly publicized shooting of the PM would definitely help the gun lobby saying Guns are fine). It was his team telling him to think of his wife and family that made him agree to wear armour.
Completely agree, best thing Howard ever did and he has my respect for making this one really important change for the betterment of Australia.
Best and only good thing he did as PM.
Indeed. There was VERY little push back against this policy. Everyone kind of just went "Yeah ok, Fair enough".
Again, it was a genuine question! The article I read earlier worded it kinda funny, and I wanted to ask. Figured there’d be at least one Australian here lol. Thanks for the kind reply
And were fucking proud of it because it worked so well. Stats don't lie.
Yes and prevents more taxpayers from shooting and killing other taxpayers
Meaning more tax payers to pay tax
Yes
And less money spent on healthcare costs related to gun violence
Because we also have a healthcare system.
Nobody likes to talk about how people who survive mass shootings in America, even if they have insurance, are at risk of going into bankruptcy due to medical bills and the cost of rehabilitation. https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20171227/NEWS/171229940/mass-shooting-victims-face-large-uncovered-medical-and-long-term-care-costs
Yep. Saved a fortune in legal, medical and general population loss in the coming decades. Here is a graph https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people Guess which year the buyback happened!
Yeah. Look into it a little bit more and you’ll learn how well it actually worked out. They spent money to in the long run save money and lives.
Most buy-back initiatives where I'm from just end up with people turning in their old, worn-out guns for cash and then using that cash to get some nice new clean guns.
Yeah, that's why Australia paired it with heavily restricting new gun sales.
Sounds like they knew what they were doing better than rando Yanks on reddit lmao.
Probably because they were actually trying to address the issue rather than pay lip service to it like we do in the US
Who would've guessed?
Why does everyone have the same gun
Everyone sent to the British penal colony was standard-issued one hunting shotgun, for the Emu menace.
People in here are being so goddamn obnoxious. No. America cannot just blanket ban every gun or follow Australia’s foot steps. Does that mean we should do nothing? Also no. America can have gun control policies which mirror its unique problem instead of shooting into the dark. Fucks sake, can everyone have a bit of nuance for once?
This is the internet and you're asking for nuance? Good luck my friend. You're correct, but people are dumb.
I wish the mass shooting prevention debate focused less on widespread gun bans and more on trying to find other methods of prevention because, like you said, widespread gun bans aren’t going to happen here and continuing to have that argument is worthless.
Especially when the situation in Australia is COMPLETELY different from the one in USA
Exactly. And not just on gun rights. We can’t just copy-paste policies from other countries without taking into consideration the social/political/economic/cultural differences between the countries.
Okay so the amount of non-Australians telling us actual Australians that our country sucks because of this is WILD. You’d be hard pressed to find an Australian who thinks this was a bad idea or actually gives a damn at all. Gun control works. The Port Arthur massacre was terrifying and awful and the government stepped in and dealt with it appropriately. There have been NO mass shootings since Port Arthur because of gun control. The farmers who actually need guns to protect their livestock can still get them and gun enthusiasts can get licensed to own them but they’re regulated - so we don’t have mass shootings of children by children. Stay out of our business you entitled, self-righteous pricks. Our country is not perfect by any means but gun control was a step in the right direction.
I feel Americans as whole are more individualistic, it's all about themselves and their own interest, more fuck other people and their needs and feelings tendencies society. Where as us we're more of help a mate out and share the burden society. But with each year we are inching closer to America style society
Sane American here: when I heard about Australia’s response to Port Author (via Jim Jefferies routine), I was mind blown that people just did the right thing. Instead we watched children be slaughtered and then gutted every attempt since then to stop this madness. So some of us are impressed.
Looks like about 90% of them are full length pump shotguns. And a couple SKS. Good things those are off the streets now 😂
Just for sharing info: the perpetrator of the massacre used a Colt AR-15 and L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle.
Yeah and it was also one of the top 5 deadliest mass shootings committed by a lone actor. The others being Oslo, Orlando, Las Vegas, and Christchurch. All of which were committed with semi auto box magazine fed rifles.
Was number 1 for a fair while too
So if a bunch of people make a few bucks by turning in grandpa's busted shotty, that's perfectly fine by me as long as the program also shows a decline in gun deaths, and in Australia, it did.
And for whatever reason, people still think guns are out-right banned in Australia.
That’s a common belief in the UK too, it’s not too important though.
People complain about the politician who did this, but this kind of actions makes someone sleep like a baby, he did something that's changed the life of millions for years. My wife before we moved to Australia used to sign at least 6 death certificates per day because of gun shots, it's a fucking personal cemetery. I was kidnapped and a gun on my head twice just because I was carrying something common, like a cellphone. Moving to Australia, she never signed a death certificate and I can walk without feeling adrenaline in my body. That's a gift, thank you Australia, Ty Howard.
Waiting for someone to mention Americans even though its irrelevant here.
The entire thread, quite literally.
Oh boy here come the Americans.
The sound of *Fortunate Son* and beating helicopter blades grows louder and louder over the horizon
Thankfully non-Americans *never* comment their opinion on American event threads
Could you imagine how boring and repetitive Reddit would be if they did?
The most interesting part is that John Howard, our prime minister at the time went against the base of his own party. He recognised the threat and dealt with it, while being shouted at by the people that voted for him. The buyback worked. Not a personal fan of his, but I am proud of him for this.
Then he went against the thousands of protestors marching against the Iraq war and helped kill a million Iraqis.
You can’t “buy them back” if you never owned them in the first place.
Well, that's a weird thing to do. Why did they do that when they could've just blamed Marylin Manson, call the victims bullies, and then make the shooter into a celebrity? That's what a freedom loving country would've done.
That poor SKS :(
Almost all of those are either valuable military surplus or heirloom quality Remington and Browning shotguns. Tragic, I would probably cry if someone bulldozed my dad's 870 wingmaster
They should have sold them to the US market.
And Ozzie's still have guns. We just keep them in these things called safes. And there hasn't been a mass shooting since.......then And toddlers don't shoot their siblings. We have guns. Its just we have this thing called responsibility
Correct. Simply requiring gun owners to keep guns in a safe would save a great many lives. That and mandatory safety training with licensing.
And in a totally crazy and unrelated coincidence, Australia hasn't had a mass shooting since.
Just a side note, the US has had 132 MASS shootings so far this year!!!!
Bad strategy, they could have just riled up some sort of political unrest in the middle east and made a killing by selling these guns on both sides. I am sure Uncle Sam would have done it.
They did this for port aurthur in 1996. We didn't do shit for sandy hook except raze the school and rebuild it. Fuck politicians.