May I ask what year (or decade) you were born? I ask because I am learning that in 1996 there was a mass shouting in Australia and in the years prior there were regular shootings, but after 1996 new laws were passed and since then Gun violence has largely been a thing of the past. Is that true?
I’m an old bastard, born in the 60’s, grew up in the bush with a mini arsenal of guns. Own very few now, sold most and surrended some.
In 1996 the Port Arthur massacre happened and the federal government at the time managed to get all the states to agree to a new uniform set of gun laws with bans on rapid fire weapons, registration and licencing.
We already had serious restrictions on handguns and still have.
What you call irrational fear, I call preparedness and an acceptance of reality.
I guess that you have never been a victim of violent crime, is that correct?
I have not, and I hope never to be, but a gun is one way to help ensure that to remain true.
@madmonk28 I used to think like you. You may have missed the fact that I never owned a gun until some 15 years after my military service, and I served for 13 years.
But sadly, violent crime is a reality. Not just in the USA but in almost every other country as well.
I wish we lived in a world where violent crimes do not occur. But unfortunately they do and I choose to be prepared to defend myself more capably then my fighting skills without a gun allow. I hope I never ever have to use my gun. I hope I never even have to draw my gun
Hello, old bastard.
I did not grow up with guns and I never fired a gun until I was 19 in boot camp.
Can you point me to a (hopefully brief) description of AUS’s gun laws / restrictions?
Signed,
Another old bastard born in the 60s 
ETA I’m reading about Port Arthur 1996 and I just found this so I may be set. Thank you.
But it is irrational fear. Owning a gun makes it more likely that you will die by gunshot. What you believe is the opposite of what is true. This emotional irrational fear that runs your life is causing the violent crime that feeds into your fear, creating an irrational cycle of cowardice in a minority of Americans who own most of the guns and who drive our policy.
Why are you so scared? What can we do to help you conquer this fear?
G’Day mate.
This isn’t too brief but it’s reasonably accurate. Gun laws of Australia - Wikipedia
Summary:
Compulsory licence and registration and waiting periods for first purchase.
Rapid fire longarms banned. That includes semi automatic, pump action and lever action
Magazine capacity restrictions
Handguns, Nope. Limited to Police, security and gun club members with serious restrictions.
Where I live you aren’t even allowed to carry a fkn pocket knife let alone a handgun.
More accurately, it is only humans you may need to protect yourself against. Virtually always, a man, often, with a gun. Vanishingly rare that you would ever need a gun to defend yourself against an animal. Being alert and not stupid will save you from almost any dangerous encounter you might have with a wild animal, particularly outside Alaska.
you live on an airplane?
No, Victoria Australia, AKA the Nanny state.
I am Zimbabwean, a country that, when I was born, was under another name and awash with military weapons due to there being a civil war.
It is trivial to obtain military weapons in Zimbabwe, even now, 22 years after the war. AKs are built to last.
I have camped in the beautiful national parks, admist lions, leopards, elephant, rhino and possibly most scary, hyenas (as scavengers they enter campsites, the rest avoid them)
I have never felt the need to arm myself. I am not an idiot, I know what danger is, in this respect, and how to avoid it.
Granted, on game walks within a national park, an armed National Parks employee is often present - armed with a large bore, bolt action rifle to protect against rhinos, elephants, buffalo etc.
The reason you do not need more than 5 rounds in that situation is that if you do not drop the animal on the first or second round, it is too late.
Better to live for another day than die with 28 rounds in your 30 round capacity weapon.
I’m a gun owner, but am definitely in the minority here. I do not support additional restrictions on a person’s ability to keep and bear arms & ammo.
Because that seems to be a common limit in countries that have magazine limits, and i assume they’ve thought about how many bullets are actually between reloading for legitimate uses of firearms.
And fewer is better is there’s someone trying to murder a lot of people.
My understanding is that in this thread we are discussing what we think good gun laws would, not what we think we can’t achieve. And yes, i think it would be good to outlaw concealed carry. I see no legitimate need for that.
Let’s have a conversation, shall we? To me this includes: you ask a question, and I answer; and I ask a question, and you answer.
You have not answered this:
I guess that you have never been a victim of violent crime, is that correct?
Shall we have a conversation?
Thank you. Can we discuss? I don’t want to try and change your mind, okay? I want to start with this:
Do you think we have a gun violence problem in America? And if so then what do you propose we do about it?
5 rounds is the territory of funsies, massacres, and uncontrolled fear based shooting.
It’s kind of like “nothing good happens at the strip club after 3am”, there’s no civilian situation where you already fired 5 times and the ability to fire another 5-10 times without reloading is a good thing, not even for the person holding the gun. Nothing good is happening after that 5th shot.
One of my friends is a retired ATF agent of 27 years. I met him for coffee just this past weekend because I wanted to talk about gun control (a term I’m not fond of, but we, the collective we, generally know what this means) and a 5 round cap limit on magazines is something he advocates.
Also, he shared with me that he tends to vote Republican, and he’s a conservative, but he’s had it with these shootings. He sees the ultra right wing republicans as being one of the root causes of this problem and he is now going to vote Dems across the board.
Because of gun violence.
I have been the victim of crime. I’ve been assaulted in the US and I’ve been shot at in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve also been near IEDs going off, had IEDs planted on my dwelling and been in an office when our compound came under sniper fire, hitting the guard in front of my office, who was pulled inside to be treated.
ETA also been in a mortar barrage.
Here’s a link to an info sheet on the regs in Canada regarding magazine size.
Thanks for that and I hope you came through it alright. I served during Dessert Shield / Dessert Storm and I was fortunate and never saw combat.
I do not think my fear of violent crime is irrational, in part because of your experience. But when you were assaulted in the US, did you participate in the instigation of that assault by, for example, by mouthing off or flipping someone off or making lewd suggestive motions to his girl?
Yes I will accept that owning a gun makes me more likely to die by gunshot, but I argue that owning a gun and being unsafe makes one more likely to die by gunshot.
Further, your definition of being a victim sounds like it includes war or military service in a hostile environment. I don’t consider that to being a victim of violent crime.