# Australian Olympic shooting team forbidden to practice in-country? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 16, 2000, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592 "2000-08-16T17:50:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Powerful\_B\_O](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Powerful\_B\_O](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powerful_B_O)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/1 "2000-08-16T17:50:54Z")
A relative of mine who is a staunch believer in the right to bear arms recently told me that in Australia, after that nasty incident in Tasmania a few years back, the gun control laws were tightened so dramatically that the Australian Olympic shooting team actually has to leave the country to practice. Well, that instantly set off my Sagan Baloney Detector - after all, there’s still a lot of wilderness and outback and such in Australia, and it seems like those folks might need some weaponry to scare off the odd dingo every so often. So I started combing the 'net looking for evidence supporting or disproving that assertion, but, sadly, all I could find was a column by Cal Thomas in which he makes that statement but offers no source. I even appealed to the infinite wisdom of Cecil Himself, but so far no response is forthcoming. So now, I turn to the collective wisdom of the Teeming Millions. Help me, TM. You’re my only hope. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/2 "2000-08-16T18:33:24Z")
I don’t know for sure, but I would be highly suspicious of that. Australia has a pretty big gun culture, and people living in the outback often need one. What may be the case is that the shooting team has to go outside of city limits, or to a licensed gun range, or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/3 "2000-08-16T18:44:49Z")
I don’t know how you ‘combed the net’, but you may want to brush up on your research skills. I went to my default search engine and typed in, “Australian Gun Control Laws”, and came up with the following good links (among dozens): [http://users.erols.com/dsmjd/rkba/australia\_results.htm](http://users.erols.com/dsmjd/rkba/australia_results.htm) [http://www.pcvp.org/pcvp/firearms/other/austr2.shtml](http://www.pcvp.org/pcvp/firearms/other/austr2.shtml) [http://www.wa.gov.au/cof/guncntrl/html/gun\_laws.html](http://www.wa.gov.au/cof/guncntrl/html/gun_laws.html) [http://www.guncontrol.org.au/top5.html](http://www.guncontrol.org.au/top5.html) A summary of the current laws from the last link: > [@](#): > > This new scheme allowed non-self-loading guns to be readily available but placed restrictions on high capacity self-loading rimfire rifles, self-loading centrefire rifles and shotguns and pump-action shotguns. These were the types of guns mainly used in Australian gun massacres. The basis for these changes had been laid in 1990 when the National Committee on Violence (NCV) made about 20 recommendations for improved gun controls. The NCV itself was formed as a result of the six gun massacres in 1987. > > There were about four million guns in Australia. One million were no longer in the legal category so a gun buy-back scheme was introduced to purchase these. The estimated average price was $500 per gun. Hence 500 million dollars was set aside. Only 640,000 guns were offered for purchase, hence $320 million was used for this purpose. About another 40 million dollars was used for administration and assistance to gun traders. Since the 500 million dollars had come from a medical levy the balance was distributed to medical research and welfare. It should be noted that the total amount spent on purchasing guns was only about 200 million dollars US. It should also be noted that up to 40% of Australian gun owners did not obey the law, making the term ‘law abiding shooters’ look somewhat ridiculous. > > 1. Several exemptions to the gun licensing schedule were made by most jurisdictions. Members of certain shotgun target shooting clubs were permitted to use self-loading shotguns and many rural property owners and professional shooters were permitted to use self-loading rifles and shotguns. > > 2. In Australia, handguns have only been available to bona-fide members of approved pistol clubs and to gun collectors. None of the changes to gun laws made in recent decades have affected the availability of handguns. Non-self-loading long-guns are readily available to Australians who are at least 18 years of age, have no police record and who pass a simple shooters licence test. As Australian gun laws have become stricter in the 1990’s gun deaths have lowered; never-the-less, several serious weaknesses remain within the Australian gun law system. Too many Australians still die from gun wounds. I think the first link is interesting. It claims that strict gun control has been followed by a drastic increase in most forms of crime including homicide. This would correlate with the Lott study in the U.S., which found that concealed-carry laws decreased the crime rate in most jurisdictions that implemented them. Anyway, back to you OP. It seems clearly wrong, unless the shooting team is using high-capacity self-loading weapons (i.e. semi-automatic weapons). I don’t believe the guns used in the olympics are typically semi-auto. High-accuracy firearms are usually bolt-action. And if they are semi-auto, they wouldn’t have high-capacity magazines. And, shooting clubs can get waivers. ---
**Author:** ![Powerful\_B\_O](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Powerful\_B\_O](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powerful_B_O)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/4 "2000-08-16T19:33:27Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t know how you ‘combed the net’, but you may want to brush up on your research skills. I went to my default search engine and typed in, “Australian Gun Control Laws”, and came up with the following good links **Sam Spade** : I don’t know where you learned to read, but you may want to brush up on your reading comprehension skills. Start with the title of this thread. A retarded monkey can find a dozen links to current Australian gun control laws using any search engine, as you have so ably demonstrated. I found the same thing when I first started looking for a source to support the assertion made by Cal Thomas. However, what I did not find was any report or article that explicitly stated that **any Australian Olympic shooting team had to leave the country in order to practice**. Any articles about disgruntled team members complaining about having to schlepp over to New Zealand to shoot? Nope. Any other respected columnist pointing out the obvious absurdity of an Olympic team being unable to practice on their own country’s soil? I couldn’t find any. That, of course, doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, only that I couldn’t locate them. But then again, neither could you. ---
**Author:** ![starfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@starfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starfish)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/5 "2000-08-16T19:54:26Z")
Powerful B O, good name, I can smell the stink from here. The OP said you were “combing the 'net looking for evidence supporting or disproving that assertion” Sam’s search is disproving the assertion by showing there is no prohibition on the team practicing. Their laws do not prohibit the type of guns they use. If the is no prohibition, there will NOT be any headline news about the team not being able to practice. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/6 "2000-08-16T20:01:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Powerful B O \* > **{Excrement Deleted}** Damn, that’s powerful stuff. I think it is pretty clear that the Australian gun control laws would not make it neccessary for the Australian Olympic team to have to practice shooting in a different country thereby negating any reason to search for articles by disgruntled Aussie Olympians. You might want to take a chill pill before you’re subjected to moderator smackdown. ---
**Author:** ![Powerful\_B\_O](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Powerful\_B\_O](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powerful_B_O)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/7 "2000-08-16T20:11:13Z")
Holy crap, ask a simple question… Look, maybe I didn’t make myself clear to start with. Assuming Cal Thomas wasn’t basing his article on a misreading of the Australian Civil Code, then he had some sort of source on which he based his assertion. All I am doing is wondering if anyone has run across an article or something on the net to **support** his assertion. Yes, I’ve run across the pages on the Australian gun control laws, and it makes absolute sense to me that there would be an exemption for the Olympic team. I totally agree with that. I’m just wondering how Cal Thomas got such a funny idea in his head. And as for Sam Spade, I didn’t appreciate the snide remark at the beginning of his post. I didn’t feel it was appropriate or necessary, and I responded in kind. My mistake. No hard feeling, guys. Let’s lighten up and have a good time… ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/8 "2000-08-16T20:11:44Z")
Further research reveals this. [Australian Shooting Association](http://www.ausport.gov.au/asa/home.html) The event calendar list several upcoming competitions in Australia which would lead even a retarded monkey to believe that these types of firearms are not illegal there. I also learned from this site that shooting is the only event in which Australia ever won medal. It seems likely that the Australian government would be happy to let their athletes practice shooting all they wanted. Finally, the frickin’ olympics are in Australia this year. Over 100 countries sent athletes to compete in shooting at the last olympics. (more than any other sport) Were the Aussie police going to arrest all these athletes? ---
**Author:** ![mrblue92](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@mrblue92](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrblue92)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/9 "2000-08-16T20:34:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Were the Aussie police going to arrest all these athletes? Nope, just confiscate the weapons. You know, it’s that hometown advantage… ---
**Author:** ![Mojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Mojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/10 "2000-08-16T20:35:41Z")
A couple of places (2nd amendment message boards/newsletters) attribute this story not to Australia, but to the UK. The closest thing I could find to the OP was [this.](http://www.alphalink.com.au/~tonka/link8.htm) ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/11 "2000-08-16T20:39:23Z")
Who is Cal Thomas? Could he be a humor columnist? If it was obvious, you would have said so, but if you’re not from Australia (you’re not, are you?), maybe you’re just missing the joke. You never know with humor from another country. Can you give a link to his column? ---
**Author:** ![Mojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Mojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/12 "2000-08-16T20:41:41Z")
Well I’ll be. [link](http://www.abcnews.go.com/onair/WorldNewsTonight/wnt990628_stark_guns_story.html) I’ve found nothing else to butress this, but ABC news claims that the British Olympic Shooting Team has to practice in France due to strict gun laws. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/13 "2000-08-16T21:31:30Z")
Not sure about Australia, but it’s happening in California. Go here for more info: [http://www.claremont.org/publications/wheeler990914.cfm](http://www.claremont.org/publications/wheeler990914.cfm) [http://www.angelfire.com/wy/sonsofliberty/guns.html](http://www.angelfire.com/wy/sonsofliberty/guns.html) ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/14 "2000-08-16T22:22:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lance Turbo \* > \*\*I also learned from this site that shooting is the only event in which Australia ever won medal. It seems likely that the Australian government would be happy to let their athletes practice shooting all they wanted. > \*\* What are you talking about? There are quite a few Aussies that have won Olympic medals in several different sports. see [http://www.elitesports.com.au/ftp/ESPAthletelist.doc](http://www.elitesports.com.au/ftp/ESPAthletelist.doc) …or did you mean to say “never” won a medal? Confusticated. ---
**Author:** ![Lawmill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lawmill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lawmill)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2000, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/15 "2000-08-16T23:32:30Z")
I don’t have a cite, but I can recall a television segment on this problem during the Nagano Winter Olympics. The Biathalon competitors(xc sking and shooting)had to keep their guns in some computerized, locked vault at the range. IIRC, they needed key cards and voice recognition to get in. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2000, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/16 "2000-08-17T02:20:25Z")
> [@](#): > > Who is Cal Thomas? Could he be a humor columnist? I wish he were. He’s a far right columnist, about as far right as you can get. So much so that he can’t even see the self contradictions in his own assertions (for instance, he has asserted that it is always wrong to lie, but thinks Oliver North is an American hero for lying to congress.) ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2000, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/17 "2000-08-17T02:31:19Z")
We certainly have won numerous medals for shooting (as well as other things). IIRC we won 2 gold for shooting at the last Games. picmr ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2000, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/18 "2000-08-17T02:43:29Z")
The Australian Shooting Association mentioned above is aware of government policies regarding guns. This was on its website > [@](#): > > Firearms used for Olympic shooting events are purposely designed for shooting at the types of target sanctioned by the International Federation. Wherever possible these firearms are designed with safety features which minimise their effectiveness for any other application. These features, plus the light calibres used, plus the heavy weight and lack of concealability, plus the very high cost of the firearms, put the Olympic target shooting sports in a category comparable to archery and javelin throwing, one which is internationally recognised for safety and responsibility The site also goes on to tell you how you go about getting started in competitive shooting. It does not mention leaving the country at all. ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2000, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/19 "2000-08-17T02:48:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \* > > > [@](#): > > > > Who is Cal Thomas? Could he be a humor columnist? > > I wish he were. He’s a far right columnist, about as far right as you can get. So much so that he can’t even see the self contradictions in his own assertions (for instance, he has asserted that it is always wrong to lie, but thinks Oliver North is an American hero for lying to congress.) Wait…you mean he’s not intending his columns to be hilariously scathing satires of the stupider side of the right wing? Oliver North – lied to Congress to protect the President’s ass: HERO Richard Nixon – lied to Congress to cover his ass: STATESMAN Bill Clinton – lied to Congress about getting some ass: TRAITOR ---
**Author:** ![starfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@starfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starfish)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2000, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592/20 "2000-08-17T03:51:55Z")
Puno Bill Clinton lied to some judge in a civil trial about getting some ass. No one else, in public or in Congress, even cares if he got some. What he did was completely legal UNTIL he lied in court about it. Had he told the truth, all he would have had to do was pay a civil fine. I still don’t know why he never just said “Yeah, I did, so what.” Then there would be no problem. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australian-olympic-shooting-team-forbidden-to-practice-in-country/29592.md?page=2)