GunHub.

Similar to the United States, firearms laws are set at the State level, with an additional layer of laws at the Federal level. With the States in Australia generally working closely together, there is only a small range of differences in laws between States, compared to the US.

To own any firearm in Australia you are required to apply for a firearms licence. Licences are broken up into several classes which you can qualify (each State has slightly different variations for names/categories), which are segmented into types of firearms – rimfire, centrefire, semi-automatic/pump action shotguns etc. A separate and more onerous class of licence is required for pistols which requires proof of ongoing membership within clubs, attendance of events and restrictions on the number of calibres of pistols owned at a time.

The application process is intentionally drawn out, with paperwork taking several months to be ‘processed’ (read: sit in a tray indefinitely). Should you pass the relevant background checks, training courses complete and fees paid, you can then apply to buy your first firearm. Each firearm purchase also requires approval and registration with the police – with the owner having to provide a justification of why they need to own the firearm. (and no, self-defence is explicitly noted as not a legal justification) You will be restricted with your options for firearms depending on what State you live in, with huge restrictions and effective bans for most of the population on many types of firearms including semi-automatics, automatic rifles, pump action shotguns, smaller framed pistols and a wide range individual firearms which the police have classified as unacceptable. (the common theme being anything scary looking, but can also include such benign things as many types of air rifles and even many childrens toys)

You are required by law to store your firearms with a safe – with laws differing slightly by State but in general you will need to have this mounted to the floor and walls of your home. The police can and will decide to inspect your property at their discretion to check the safe and its contents – but I’ll go into that more later.

In using your firearm you’ll either need to stick to the firing range or if you’re lucky on your or a friends rural property – but don’t upset your neighbours. Laws regarding the usage of firearms here mean that if you ‘scare’ nearby individuals (which can be as little as them hearing a gun firing) can potentially lead to your firearms being seized.

These laws overall are the most benign frustrations for firearms owners in Australia – which may be surprising for US firearms owners who enjoy much more protection of their freedoms. I’ll outline now what I see as the even more insidious part of firearms and laws on defence in Australia at this time which have come hand in hand with gun control.

Every State and Territory in Australia has provisions to allow for self-defence in varying degrees with some States in particular give reasonable protections which allow escalating force if someone is on your property etc. Sounds pretty reasonable? Not exactly. These self-defence provisions are only enforceable if you do not use a firearm (or other banned/restricted self-defence devices). If you use a firearm to defend yourself, your family or your property you’re likely to instead see yourself having your firearms seized, firearms licenced cancelled and a strong likelihood of criminal prosecution put against you.

This isn’t based off speculation either – we’ve had this happen repeatedly to legal firearms owners in Australia. In 2017 is a prime example – where a farmer used an unloaded .22 rifle to defend his young family from an intruder who was under the influence of drugs and wielding a knife. For his efforts to defend his family, his firearms were confiscated by the police and restrictions put on his wife’s licence denying her the ability to keep her own firearms on their property. Thankfully due to strong community push back and lobbying by the industry, David Dunstan was able to have his firearms returned. Unfortunately that end result isn’t the case for everyone however with David being fortunate to have not pointed the firearm at the intruder or firing any rounds making it easier to make the case against criminal prosecution for his efforts – those who have to defend themselves and use their firearms are more likely to potentially see jail time.

This absurdity means that under the gun control environment in Australia, if an armed intruder entered your home whilst you were in the middle of getting ready for a day at the range and firearm in hand, that you would be required to put down said firearm and instead face a significant disadvantage at protecting your life.

This extends to beyond firearms now in Australia, with almost every jurisdiction making it illegal to own pepper spray/mace/stun guns/tasers – leaving our most vulnerable at extreme risk of physical harm.

Of course, this happens when you hate God and thus hate mankind who was made in His image.  It’s a death cult, with the preference being to see men perish, women raped, and children fatherless.  It is the epitome of wickedness.

And again I’ll say it.  People tend to see controllers as merely wanting to control other men for the sake of state safety, or in other words, so that the state has a monopoly on violence and can therefore propagate itself and its progeny.

There is some truth to this, but this truncates the explanation.  The rest of the story is that most lawmakers are vipers and live in a den of sin.  They want to see death and destruction, chaos and anarchy.  They are of their father, the devil.  You should see gun control in the same vein as the desire to see children sacrificed to Molech in modern society, i.e., abortion.

To them, the destruction of God’s image is an act and experience of worship.  They aren’t really interested in anyone’s safety.  They want to see human sacrifice.

Washington Examiner:

Four are dead and one is injured in Australia’s second deadliest mass shooting since the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania.

A 45-year-old gunman began opening fire with a pump-action shot gun at a motel in the northern city of Darwin before opening fire at other nearby locations in the city’s central business district around 6 p.m. Monday. Pump-action shotguns are largely prohibited in the country under sweeping legislation passed in the aftermath of the Port Arthur shooting, where 35 people were killed.

“He shot up all the rooms, and he went to every room looking for somebody, and he shot them all up,” John Rose, a witness, told Australia’s public broadcaster. “Then we saw him rush out, jump into his Toyota pickup and rush off.”

But with all of those gun control laws, this isn’t supposed to happen.

It looks like at present there are actually five deceased.  Let’s see.  An illegal firearm, out on parole, with an electronic monitoring bracelet.

Where there’s a will there’s a way.  Gun control laws don’t work to stop this sort of thing and everyone knows it.

Avoid crowds, carry guns, and watch your six.

Reuters:

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A drive-by shooting outside a nightclub in the Australian city of Melbourne inflicted “horrific injuries” that killed a security guard and wounded three men, police said on Sunday, but there was no suggestion yet that the attack was terror-related.

Australia has some of the world’s toughest gun control laws, adopted after its worst mass murder, when a gunman killed 35 people at Port Arthur in the island state of Tasmania in 1996.

I thought when you had a gun buy-back, the criminals turned them all in just like everyone else?

Codrea:

I’m in favor of the right to bear arms, even though they don’t apply in Australia, but when making the argument against gun control being ineffective you must consider that the countries in this world aren’t completely isolated entities and the freedom one allows for firearm ownership can impact the ability for another to enforce a stricter control.

In a perfect world, I believe we would all be best served with an international standard minimum level of registration …

Hold it right there.  The reader David quotes has just run off the rails.  It wasn’t intentional, there was no malice of forethought.  But he’s off the rails nonetheless.

This is a well done commentary by David and a heavily commented one.  It’s worth your time to read it all, including the comments.  David points out in his column that rights don’t come from the government, but I must emphasize that only by understanding that the very basis of your existence, and certainly of your rights, depends upon the only sovereign God in heaven, can one understand that gun control is wicked.

At its root, gun control is usurpation, a replacement of man’s right with God’s right to dictate the terms of our existence.  It is a corollary of what caused the fallen world to begin with, i.e., the man who would be like God.

Breitbart:

Writing on Facebook, Jefferies said he believes many people will argue that the hostage situation proves that gun control–of which Australia has plenty–does not stop criminals. But Jefferies believes the hostage situation proves just the opposite.

Jefferies wrote:

I don’t know what the end result of this stand-off will be, but I do know this, he will only shoot that shotgun once before the police will be in there. This is a piss weak terrorist at best.

If this had happened in the USA the guy would have semi automatic weapons and hand guns that could easily kill many people in a short period of time. It seems to me that gun control in Australia is working better than ever.

And as for that one time, well, if it’s you I guess he’s sorry, but you’re not important enough for him to relinquish his collectivist views.  To this Newsweek article, the comment thread is interesting.

Harold Rosenbaum

You can’t take people’s guns away if guns are still in the hands of others. I wonder what would have happened if someone had a gun in the purse or on their person.

Better to sacrifice one or two schmucks than to allow the whole lot of them to be killed , or so goes the thinking in Australia.

Fusion:

Philip Alpers, a professor at the Sydney University School of Public Health, said that’s not likely to change. He said most Australians would still agree with Howard, the conservative former prime minister who instituted the gun laws.

“There are only a handful of Australians who might suggest that having more guns inside that café would have made the situation less dangerous,” Alpers said. He added that if anyone suggested more guns were the answer, “he’d be howled down and become a laughingstock across the country.”

This file photo taken on September 8, 1996 shows Norm Legg, a project supervisor with a local security firm, holding up an armalite rifle which is similar to the one used in the Port Arthur massacre and which was handed in for scrap in Melbourne after Australia banned all automatic and semi-automatic rifles in the aftermath of the Port Arthur shooting. (William West /AFP/Getty Images)

Mr. Alpers may be whistling past the grave yard if Australians want their country back and, but it remains to be seen.  If he’s right, thus continues the enslavement of the Australians to their collective.  Never underestimate the ability of the totalitarians to get slaves to advocate and go along with their captivity.

NYT:

SYDNEY, Australia — Armed police officers surrounded a cafe in Sydney’s central business district Monday morning after one or more gunmen took hostages and displayed a black flag with Arabic script in white in the cafe window.

A police spokesman confirmed officers were called to the Lindt Chocolate Cafe, in Martin Place, a major shopping and pedestrian thoroughfare, at around 10 a.m.

A commercial television network, Channel Seven, which has a studio near the cafe, showed footage of people, wearing Lindt uniforms, pressed against the cafe windows, displaying the flag.

Reports say anything from 20 to 40 or 50 people are being held.  You mean that the police weren’t able to anticipate it and stop it before it happened?  You mean the police being armed isn’t enough to keep people safe?  You mean that there are 40-50 people now in Sydney, Australia who wish they were concealed handgun carriers?

News From Australia:

Tougher legal measures against people who supply illegal firearms have been announced by the SA Government.

Attorney-General John Rau plans to extend measures he announced back in July, to include people complicit in firearms crime.

Under previous plans, serious firearms offenders would face mandatory jail terms and there would be few circumstances where a sentence could be suspended.

Mr Rau said the Government would now extend the measures to complicity.

“This means anyone who sells or supplies an illegal firearm will be liable for any offence committed by the person to whom they provide the firearm,” he said.

“So if you provide someone with an illegal firearm and that person commits murder using that weapon, you will also be charged with being an accessory to that crime.”

Mr Rau said the toughening of measures had been prompted by the murder of Adelaide teenager Lewis McPherson in 2012 and the recent jailing of the man who sold the gun to the killer.

“The purpose of this of course is to make it very clear to those people who trade in firearms you are accountable for the harm that these illegal firearms are causing in our community,” he said.

Follow the link above.

Judge Paul Muscat said guns should be totally banned to prevent them from falling into criminal hands.

He said the 1996 guns buyback scheme in the wake of the the Port Arthur massacre had not removed illegal firearms from the community.

“Our community now lives in fear of offenders armed with firearms. In the wrong hands, guns are deadly,” he said.

He said most licensed gun owners took the responsibility seriously, but guns still had no place in a civilised society.

“In my view, the possession of firearms serves absolutely no legitimate purpose in our society … people want guns, they do not need them,” he said.

“Even a licensed firearm owner can misuse a gun under the wrong circumstances. They are human after all, prone to making errors of judgment.

“The sooner firearms are totally banned, the better off our society will be. No-one should be able to keep guns at their home [as] many guns end up being stolen from licensed owners.

Rather than go after the gangs and criminals who use firearms for harm, the law goes after anyone who sells guns, and don’t let this fool you.  This means firearms dealers as well.

This is what cowards do.  They go after the peaceable rather than the violent.  They are scared of the violent, so it’s easier for the bullies to beat up on the ones who won’t fight back.

The Guardian:

Moviegoers were lucky to escape unhurt after three men and a teenage girl armed with guns and a machete stormed the foyer of a Sydney cinema in a “brazen and shocking” robbery, police say.

The incident at the suburban Roseville Cinemas on Monday night put the lives of families and children at risk, north shore Detective Inspector Carole Dowsen told reporters.

“It was a very brazen attack, something that we actually think is shocking,” Dowsen said. “They’re going to a movie cinema, it’s early and there could be children around, and they’ve got a shotgun.

“It’s extremely lucky that nobody was hurt.”

The NSW opposition police spokesman, Nathan Rees, said it reflected a sad state of affairs in Sydney.

“Nobody expects to be threatened with a machete or a shotgun as they go to the cinema,” he said.

Shocked, the police are!  Shocked!  This is ruining the narrative, you know, this gun related crime stuff in Australia.  With their gun laws, they are supposed to be Shangri La.

The Washington Post waxes poetic concerning the confiscation of guns in Australia … er … When Australians Gave Back Their Guns.

When shootings occur in the United States, we Australians shake our heads. We do not have a Bill of Rights or a constitutional right to bear arms; here, the idea of ordinary citizens demanding to own guns without cause seems odd. So when one of our own is senselessly taken by boys who police said just wanted to be “Billy Bob Badasses,” it is aspecial affront.

It’s not necessarily a logical one: Lane was shot with a small-caliber handgun. Plenty of handguns are still legally held in Australia. About a million guns have been imported since the buyback, bringing private gun ownership here back to roughly 1996 levels.

But the real issue is availability.

Here, those who are licensed to own pistols are not allowed to carry their guns. There are strict, police-supervised checks of storage and security of the firearms, and buyers must prove a “genuine reason” to own a gun.

It has been estimated that if the United States had a buyback of similar proportions, about 90 million fewer guns would be circulating.

Philip Alpers, an adjunct associate professor at the Sydney School of Public Health and a specialist in firearm injury prevention, has documented that after the laws were changed, the risk of an Australian being killed by a gun fell by more than 50 percent. Australia’s gun homicide rate, 0.13 per 100,000 people, according to GunPolicy.org, is a tiny fraction of that of the United States (3.6 per 100,000 people). It should be noted that our gun homicide rates were already in decline, but the gun laws accelerated that slide.

In a 2010 paper, economists Andrew Leigh and Christine Neill found that the law change had led to a 65 percent decline in the rate of firearm suicides. Firearm homicides fell by 59 percent.

Causality is, again, hotly contested. But what cannot be denied is that 17 years ago, after a brutal killing spree, Australia had a rare moment of national unity, with overwhelming public support and bipartisan agreement on a public health policy that has saved lives.

A nation founded by convicts gave back their guns.

Speaking for Bill Bob Badasses everywhere, I’d like to say it’s nice to know that Australia has become a veritable Shangri La.  In more contemporary news, Sydney was the scene of a recent home invasion.

Police are searching for up to 10 men who were armed with knives and guns when they broke into a home and assaulted a man in Sydney’s south.

The victim, aged in his late 30s, suffered cuts to his head and was bleeding severely when emergency services arrived at his home on Minnesota Avenue in Riverwood on Tuesday night.

A five-year-old boy and a woman who also were inside the home at the time were not injured, but are believed to have witnessed the assault.

Police and paramedics were called to the home at 9.25pm after reports that up to 10 armed men had forced their way into the home and threatened the man with a gun.

No shots were fired during the incident, but the man was severely beaten. The offenders, who were all wearing dark clothing, then left the home.

Perhaps that was a part of Australia exempt from the gun control laws.