Nope- ANY firearm made after 1/1/1901 requires licensing and registration, regardless of whether it’s an Uberti Navy Colt replica, a Webley Mk II, or a Remington 700.
Also, if ammunition is available somewhere in the English speaking world, all bets are off- which is why you have to licence Martini-Enfields, Colt Peacemakers, and Moisin-Nagant 3-Line Rifles, regardless of year of manufacture.
This clearly causes some rather silly situations- for example, you don’t need to licence an 1880s dated Beamont-Adams Percussion Revolver, but if Alberto Uberti & Co decided to make a replica (and why haven’t they?, he asked), it would be treated just like any other modern handgun.
Similarly, Ammunition for Arisaka rifles hasn’t been really available since 1945, when the US Army threw it all into Tokyo Harbour. Norma apparently make it, but it’s not available in Australia. Nonetheless, since the Arisaka rifles were made after 1/1/1901, they need to be licenced. Other guns in similar situations (requiring licensing but with ammo almost impossble to get) include the Nagant M1895, various turn of the century pocket pistols in proprietary calibres, the Tokarev TT-33 (Good luck finding 7.62x25mm ammo here!), the Mauser C96 “Broomhandle” (I’ve only ever seen one box of 7.63 Mauser ammo for sale around here), the Webley Semi-Auto Mk I .455 Auto pistols (for which ammunition hasn’t been made or sold since about 1952), and most of the “Express” rifles, Elephant Guns, Cape Guns, and so on.
Even more interestingly, the price on a genuine Enfield 1853 Rifled Musket (no licence required) is about AUD$1,000- and the price on a modern reproduction of the same (requiring licensing) is AUD$850 or so.
I’ve been reading this thread with interest. Gun laws are one area where, try as I may, I cannot form an opinion. I’ve always been very torn on the matter. I like guns, I like shooting, and I used to like hunting (unsure if I’d like it these days), but the closest I can get to an opinion is the rather hypocritical ‘nobody should have guns but me, and I’ll take that thar machine gun thanks’. I’ve also been interested in this thread because US gun debates I’ve seen invariably seem to have both sides calling up Australian data, and both sides completely misrepresenting it.
So my question:
When the gun laws were toughened in '96, and the buyback took place, there were all sorts of people proclaiming that there would be gun owners the length and breadth of the country going outside the law and burying their guns in the backyard or whatever. To your knowledge, has this really been an issue? Do you have any anecdotal evidence of it happening? Do you have sympathy for people who may be doing this?
Darn it. It looks like the .38-56 Win would have to stay on a license and in the safe. Someone is even makeing out of properly head stamped brass instead of necking down .45-70 Govt.
I was living in NZ (and only 15) at the time, but I can say that yes, a lot of people DID bury guns in their back yard or on someone’s property.
Most of the people doing it were people who’s guns would be banned or restricted- Self-loading longarms and shotguns, mainly. Queensland was the hotbed of all this, because the state didn’t have Arms Registration at the time- no-one knew who had what, and there’s always been a slightly “Redneck” element in QLD- especially the further north you get.
My understanding is that most gun owners did the right thing, got a licence, and surrendered their “Banned” guns, took the money, and bought something else with it. But more than a few people got a licence, registered their “legal” guns, and buried their “banned” guns, waiting for the day when the law was changed back to something sensible (it may happen), or else Australia was invaded, whichever happened first.
I can’t provide any hard cites for this, and I do not personally know of anyone with a buried cache of Soviet semi-automatic rifles on their property, but I have heard enough stories “around the campfire”, so to speak, from credible people, to know that it did happen. (In the years leading up to the ban, a huge number of SKS rifles and AK-47 semi-autos were imported into Australia. Only a small percentage- less than half, according to some sources- were handed in during the “Buyback”. Make of that what you will.)
Even now, according to Queensland Police Minister Judy Spence, there are something like 400,000 unregistered guns in Queensland. The part they leave out is that most of them are either old .22s or shotguns sitting in attics doing nothing, or else SMLE Mk III* .303 rifles that were surplused or kept by soldiers after WWII. A large number of these unregistered guns aren’t actually in firing condition, as a result of years of poor storage- I’ve seen guns getting handed in at police stations (“Grandad died and we found this in his basement”), and I’ve yet to see a rifle that could pass muster as anything except a deactivated wall-hanger.
Indeed, one of the candidates for the electoral seat of Gaven (Phil Connelly) was raided after an anonymous tip-off and the police found an unregistered SKS rifle in his fishing boat. This guy basically couldn’t understand what the problem was (SKS rifles are Category D, being self-loaders, and highly illegal to own without that impossible to get special licence) and said something to the effect of “If you looked in the garage or sheds of most blokes over 50 you’d probably find an old rifle that hasn’t been registered”. The thing is, he’s probably right- and it wouldn’t be because they were deliberately thumbing their nose at the law, it would be because of the cognitive dissoance thing whereby people said “That law doesn’t apply to me, I’ve only got that old Russian thing from Korea, no-one cares about that”.
I have a lot of sympathy for people who didn’t want to hand in their “Banned” guns, especially since the law was (and is) a knee-jerk reaction and hasn’t actually solved anything, and a lot of those guns were family heirlooms or had other sentimental values- which you can’t put a price tag on. Having said that, I’m also a law-abiding firearms owner, so I probably would have handed any “Banned” guns I had in, had I been old enough to own any and living in Australia at the time.
Interestingly, there are moves afoot to de-restrict category C weapons so anyone with a firearms licence can own them (especially since it’s been pointed out anyone with a pistol licence can have a .22 semi-auto handgun, but it’s impossible for a non-farmer to get a .22 semi-auto rifle!), but every time this gets some serious momentum, some idiot goes off the deep end and shoots his wife and kids, which ends up putting the whole thing on the back burner for a while.
Still, there are precedents for Arms Laws relaxing (NZ being a case in point), so we live in hope that one day someone will say “You know what? Let them own whatever they like. It doesn’t make any difference, as long as they’re licenced.”
Can you expand a bit on this? I understand that the storage laws mean it will take a while to get a firearm in a ready to use state in a home invasion situation, but are you saying that even if you could do so, the law requires you to submit even if your life or others lives are in danger?
To set up an obviously extreme case - you wake up to screams, run down the hall, and realize two armed men are raping your daughter in her room. Your choices are - burst in to the room and try to overpower 2 armed men with your bare hands; sneak away and call the police, then listen to the screams until they show up; run to the safe and get a gun (perhaps/probably calling the police on the way), and go back to the room and stop the criminals. Are you saying that if you pick #3, you’ll be charged with a crime?
Second question - when the 1996 banning occurred, were the prices they set for compensation for the banned guns fair market value?
Until Martini Enfield gets back with probably more knowledgeable answers:
The scenario of the armed rapists would probably not see you doing time if you shot them. Probably, that is. You’d definitely be charged (no doubt by rather apologetic policemen), but if your daughter was in that sort of immediate danger, I’d say you’d get away with loosing off a round or two. The prosecution, however, would be looking for ways to prove that you had no reasonable alternative. Firing a gun is generally seen as unnecessary force in this country. Now if the intruder was a mere burglar after your DVD player, then you’d likely be in serious trouble for any gun play. You can’t booby trap your house either here. In fact, you’re supposed to leave out some drinks and snacks for the intruders in case they are hungry or thirsty (no nut products as they could be allergic). There was a case a few years ago where an elderly Queensland man shot a burglar and the judge let him go. That created a lot of publicity, but I have heard nothing since then.
There is no assumed right to bear arms in this country. We take the very non-American model of assuming (crossing fingers and hoping?) that if there are fewer guns in the community, then the intruder is less likely to be armed too. Which is the better model though, is probably not a question for this thread. I’m certainly torn on it.
As far as the buyback, I just remember the government saying they were paying fair market price, and the gun owners saying they weren’t. As a person with no dog in that race, I seem to remember thinking that mostly the government did pay a pretty good price (this was politically sensitive, so it was worth it to them to do so) for most firearms, but a few owners of more unusual or rare weapons got a rough deal. That’s as I recall it.
Anyway, the situation you mentioned of a buglar after your DVD player wouldn’t justify discharging a weapon in most jurisdictions of the US either. Most places require you to have a legitimate reason to think that your life itself (or that of someone else) is being threatened. Some guy making off with your TV doesn’t suffice. However, there is a lot of blustering among almost everyone who owns a gun for self-defense claiming that they’ll open fire with everything they’ve got the minute they hear the glass break downstairs. Unless they live in Texas, that’s the sort of logic they’ll regret for quite some time afterwards. People seem to assume that every home intruder is heavily armed and looking to rape and slaughter their family.
Just so you know, Martini Enfield, this is a gross exaggeration if not an outright lie, and is a big contributor to the discord we have about guns in this country.
Back when your laws were much less restrictive, did you have people saying nonsense like this in Australia?
CynicalGabe, as Martini Enfield said earlier, it is illegal to own a gun for the purpose of self defence. That’s the difference between the US and here, not whether it’s okay to blast a guy trying to steal your DVD player, a case which, as you said, is probably very similar in both countries.
The Australian situation is that in an incident involving an intruder, he would not only have to prove he did not use excessive force, but would also have to have another reason besides self-defence for having the gun in his house in the first place. He stands up in court and tells them he’s a member of a shooting club or he’s a farmer or what-have-you, and the next question would be, “How did you manage to remove the rifle from its locked case, insert the bolt, locate and load the ammunition, etc, in those few seconds?”
Shooting a burglar is probably legally similar to the US, but having a loaded gun under your pillow is not.
That people bluster about “defendin’ me an’ mine”? Read one of the 3 threads related to guns currently in GQ. Or any one of the periodic threads we have on the issue.
That most burglary situations don’t justify the use of lethal force?
TheLoadedDog has hit the nail on the head with this one- I don’t think I could have explained it better myself!
The general consensus amongst people who were affected by the first buyback was that fair (or even generous) prices were paid for “Normal” guns, but people with rare or collectible pieces got shafted in many cases. I know of one guy who had an all-matching, mint condition 1941 Rock Island Arsenal M1 Garand (with matching bayonet) and was told it was worth $600. He made double that, after export/import fees and clearances, selling it to a collector in the US- but not everyone was so lucky.
What’s not so well known is that there was a SECOND buy-back in 2003, for handguns. After a shooting at Monash University (where an Asian student who wasn’t even an Australian permanent resident managed to get a gun licence by joining a “paper” club, and then shot people at his university), the handgun laws were changed to outlaw “Saturday Night Specials” and massively “overpowered” handguns, as well as restricting magazine capacities to 10 shots.
In effect, anything with a barrel under 100mm (4") for revolvers or 120mm (5") for Semi-Autos was banned for sporting shooters (Collectors and Primary Producers can still have them, though), and anything over .38/9mm calibre needs a special endorsement (not that hard to get if you fill in the right forms) to own.
The prices paid for handguns under this buy-back were VERY generous, and almost every pistol shooter took advantage of it to trade in their old, crappy, and now conveniently illegal guns, and then took the money and went and bought new, shiny, legal pistols- often two of them, plus maybe that hunting rifle they’d had their eye on for a while.
Again, it was the collectors who got shafted, because two of the most popular collector’s handguns- the 9mm P08 Luger and the .455 Webley revolver series- became more or less illegal for sporting shooters overnight. Whilst it was possible to get an endorsement to own the .455 Webley (although not at first- the rules were only slightly relaxed later), the Luger’s barrel is only 102mm or so long, and so it is totally Verboten to use for Target shooting now. Untold numbers of Lugers and Webleys got crushed, and ironically, most of the Lugers and Webley revolvers that are still in Australia now were either put on collector’s licences, or had been held illegally as War Souvenirs and were registered later as part of Amnesties.
The other thing was that it turned out the majority of “Normal” 9mm semi-auto handguns had barrels that were only 117-118mm long, so people had to get the barrels extended, replace the barrels, or hand the guns in- which meant that a lot of things like Tokarev TT-33s, Browning Hi-Powers, Glock 17s, and Sig P226s had to either have modifications made to them at the owner’s expense (ruining their value as collector’s items and/or possibly impairing accuracy), or else got crushed.
Try finding a Browning Hi-Power (not the Practical model with the 121mm barrel), or any Tokarev TT-33/Tokagypt for sale in Australia and see how far you get. It’s OK, I’ll wait here. Back already? See what I mean? There aren’t any. The people who managed to get their registered (by extending the barrels or putting them on collector’s licences) are hanging onto them, and the others got crushed or exported.
It really is a shame, but the Government here just doesn’t seem to care.
Perhaps an excellent case in point is the Howard Auto Cultivators production run of the Enfield No 2 Mk I* .38/200 service revolver. HAC started making the revolver in 1941, but the production run was plagued with problems, and by 1945 they’d only made 350 of them, and they weren’t all THAT good.
Anyway, they’re as rare as Rocking-Horse excrement (last one I saw for sale was AUD$2,500!) and there is a very real fear in the collecting community that the majority of the HAC revolvers have been crushed in various Amnesties or Buy-Backs, since so few of them are known to exist, and they’re the sort of thing that someone finds in Grandad’s possessions after he dies, realises they don’t have a gun licence and the gun is “some old pistol”, and hands it in at the police station- where it eventually ends up being destroyed.
Occaisonally a Museum manages to acquire one or two of these sorts of guns (where someone realises the gun is old and possibly collectible), but as a general rule, the Government’s view is that a gun is a gun, regardless of when it was made or by whom, and if it’s a banned gun, then it’s off to the crusher…
Most gun owners do not have their dick in their hand just waiting to kill the first person that they see. Most gun owners understand the awesome responsibility that comes with ownership, and are accordingly willing to give up the goods. There are some people that will shoot over DVD players, but that, as you said, is a direct path to prison. Most people have a gun for self-defense for the sole purpose of protecting themselves and their families, or other people in dire trouble (which is controversial and potentially a crime in and of itself). They don’t give two shits about goods. They can be replaced. People cannot. Family cannot. “defendin’ me an’ mine” means exactly that- me and my family. Period.
This nonsense about “there is a lot of blustering among almost everyone who owns a gun for self-defense claiming that they’ll open fire with everything they’ve got the minute they hear the glass break downstairs” and “People seem to assume that every home intruder is heavily armed and looking to rape and slaughter their family” is dishonest rhetoric used for the sole purpose of eliciting a negative emotional response about the injustice of it all, the all-purpose “poor guy that was shot like a dog unjustifiably by the gun nut” story. Which rarely happens, and is punished severely when it does. It certainly does not apply to “almost everyone”.
That’s what’s dishonest. Every gun discussion gets poisoned with this kind of emotional nonsense, when it really comes down to one thing: it’s a tool of defense and here in the United States I am allowed to avail myself of it with certain restrictions and absolute accountability. No emotion, just simple fact.
That’s OK- one of the many things gun owners in Australia have to put up with are people who know nothing about guns assuming we’re all kill-crazy Rambo types, with bandoliers of ammunition draped across our chests, drinkin’ an’ hollerin’ and shootin’ our guns in the air for the sheer hell of it.
Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but I’m afraid a certain element of American society does have rather a lot to answer for in that respect.
Thanks for the answer TheLoadedDog. The point I was unclear on was the existence of a law that specifically forbids the use of firearms for defense of life even if the firearm is legally owned and available at the time. For example here is the Massachusetts law regarding self defense in the home. It requires that “said occupant used reasonable means to defend himself”, but nowhere in the law does it ever specifically say that use of a firearm is never “reasonable means”.
From your answers, it sounds like there are such specifications in Australian law - that one may never use a firearm for self-defense, even if one’s life is in imminent danger, no other remedy is available, and the firearm is legally owned and available. Also from your answer, it sounds like the courts can and will make exceptions to such law in certain cases.
No, but I believe a majority of them do not understand the legal situations in which they are allowed to use deadly force. I’m not some rabid anti-gun nut, I’ve got quite the collection myself. Nonetheless, almost every time I’ve had a conversation with another gun owner about home defense, they have espoused the ‘more firepower is better’ point of view and seemed to thnk that anytime an unrelated individual was in their home after dark they had the right to let the lead fly.
I’m not saying everyone is of that opinion, just a majority of the ones I’ve talked to.
I’m astonishingly ignorant about guns (something I’m not exactly troubled about) and have always been curious…what, exactly, do you USE a gun for in this country? Hunting? Hunting what? Where abouts?
The highest-profile shooting sport in Australia is Clay Pigeon/Skeet shooting… if you were watching the Olympics/Commonwealth Games, you may have seen people competing in that sport.
Ironically, Clay Pigeon Shooting is a fairly elitist branch of shooting- Once you get to State or National level, you’ve got people with $25,000 shotguns(!), lots of rules (even by shooting standards), and ultra-competitiveness etc. Most shooting clubs that I’ve been anywhere near have been friendly, relaxed, and encouraging of new shooters, but I just can’t quite get into Clay Pigeon Shooting.
Next, you’ve got target shooting (shooting at paper targets at various distances, ranging from 10m-1 kilometre). This is a LOT harder than you’d think.
There are so many competitions that I couldn’t even begin to list them, but I shoot Service Rifle, which involves using ex-military bolt-action rifles (Mine is an ex-Canadian Army Lee-Enfield) to shoot at targets at approximately 200m away.
For some idea of the challenge behind it, next time you’re out driving, find a “Speed Limit” sign about 200m away, then imagine holding a 4 1/2ft long rifle (which weights about 6kgs with a loaded magazine) steady for long enough to hit the centre of the “0” in the speed limit.
There are a surprisingly large number of things in Australia to hunt. Believe it or not, there are people who still get most of their meat from hunting, rather than going to the supermarket.
Also, Australia’s ecology is such that crops are particulalry susceptible to various animals- which like to eat the same vegies and fruit we like to eat- and so it’s necessary to shoot feral pests, lest they devastate crops or scare/kill livestock, and ultimately cause financial ruin for farmers. Don’t laugh, it really is that serious. Rabbits and Foxes can cause unimaginable damage to a farmer’s crops and newborn livestock, Kangaroos are a huge pest (bringing down fences, damaging things, scaring livestock, eating crops), and wild pigs are even worse, digging up the ground and killing cattle.
Anyway, a short list of the things people in Australia hunt:
Deer
Wild Pigs
Wild Goats
Kangaroo
Water Buffalo
Foxes
Hares
Rabbits
Feral Cats (NOT pet cats- the two are completely different!)
Wild Dogs/Dingoes
Ducks
Quail
Pheasants
Crows
Where do we hunt? Anywhere there’s a lot of land, suitable game (or feral pests), and most of all, where it’s safe. Victoria and Queensland have VERY large and active hunting communities. You don’t even have to drive very far to find hunting spots- I go hunting about an hour or so west of where I live, but Queensland is a big State and there’s plenty of land.
One other reason for gun ownership: Collecting. I like old (and by that, I mean pre-1975) Military Firearms. There’s a lot of history behind them, and I find the designs and stories behind the guns fascinating (It’s surprising how many guns exist because the Government of the day was too stingy to design something completely new, so they just adapted whatever was in stock, for example).
You really should have a look at the SSAA Website if you want to know more about shooting in Australia, too- but if you’ve got any questions, feel free to ask here or E-mail me and I will be more than happy to answer them for you- no matter how silly you think they may be!
I understand most of the things on this list, they’re introduced (and kangaroos are a pest since they have started overpopulating). But dingoes? My understanding of the situation was (having lived in the Wide Bay most of my life, near Fraser Is., the last remaining section of pure bred dingos, or so I hear) that they were pretty much harmless to humans until people start feeding them. Then they start wandering into our habitat which causes problems. It also seems stupid to cull* a predator then bitch when the prey starts growing out of control.
(crappy google linky): “The dingo’s diet consists of native mammals, including kangaroos, although domestic animals and some farm stock are also on the menu. … The dingo is an intelligent animal. It is no more dangerous to man than any other feral dog. The natural prey of the dingo is small mammals and ground-dwelling birds … Wild dingos are wary of humans and do not attack unless provoked … Because it takes some livestock, the dingo is considered by many to be a pest.”
<rant aside>I have sympathy for farmers, (having lived in a rural community), but I don’t get why farmers/fishermen think it’s their goddamned right to damage the ecosystem for their short term benefits. </rant>
*Not so much talking about hunting as I am talking about the systematic widespread culls of dingos in the past.
