NRA's attack on Australian gun laws off target

[SecularMotion]

The National Rifle Association has disparaged the Howard government's gun buyback program as part of its ongoing feud with US president Barack Obama, who is again calling for stricter gun control in the United States.

In an opinion piece in America's 1st Freedom entitled "Australia: There Will Be Blood", a staff writer criticises the "familiar narrative of 'common-sense gun laws'", and attacks President Obama's recent praise for Australian gun buybacks in 1996 and 2003, which he mentioned while discussing the Charleston church massacre that claimed nine lives.

The article, attributed only to "A1F Daily Staff", paints the buyback as "big-government" overreach, attacks post-amnesty restrictions such as having to securely store a weapon unloaded, and claims that there is a growing consensus in Australia that the measures did nothing whatsoever to reduce crime.

To support that last claim, the author references a single article published in The Sydney Morning Herald in 2005 that put forward a crime statistician's view that the only thing that had changed since the buyback was that "there has been no other mass killing using firearms (since the massacre at Port Arthur)."

http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/07/13/12/51/nras-attack-on-australian-gun-laws-off-target#YXliJCtyT0RZX5V3.99

[gejohnston]

1. I don't know what the NRA actually said

but there were three mass murders by firearm in Australia. Two took place before NFA, and one after. There have been several by arson.
You can't "buy back" what you never owned. It was confiscation. There was also little compliance and many of the guns surrendered were sold on the black market by contractors and cops, especially in Queensland.

[blueridge3210]

2. More Google Fu.

Was there something you wanted to discuss?

[DonP]

3. Somebody got their hand slapped in GD again

So the result is a glut of cut and paste blog posts here, with no comments, to teach us all a lesson.

In the meantime the tree house, which SecMo was/is a host, still has tumbleweeds drifting through it.

We've seen this temper tantrum pattern many times before when his stuff gets locked in GD or LBN.

[ileus]

6. If only we'd all come around to the banner way of thinking.

[SecularMotion]

7. I don't think anyone expects you to give up your RW views on the gun issue.

Although you should be expected to support the President and Democratic Party's efforts to reduce gun violence.

And if you do not agree, at least be able to discuss the issues without using NRA talking points.

[ileus]

8. You of course meant progressive views....

Right wingers are normally associated with taking rights away, not those of us on the liberal left like myself.

[SecularMotion]

9. No, I meant what I said.

[ileus]

10. Fine...be wrong then.

You can't say I didn't try....but then again I'm like that. Always being helpful. SOL...Sweet Ole Ileus as my friends call me.

[Shamash]

11. Now, try to demonstrate that it is correct. Preferably with original thought and not cut & paste.n/t

[Duckhunter935]

14. You would think he would learn

How long before he runs to ATA and whines to Skinner like he has in the past?

[SecularMotion]

15. Yet another off-topic meta post

When are you going to stop your meta-posting?

There was a study that done that found over 88% of your posts on DU were meta-posts. I'll try to find a link.

[Duckhunter935]

16. Lol, sure OK

I will be looking for that study link.
Here is a link
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12598279

So what reasonable gun restrictions are you for and are you for gun confiscation like Australia?

[beevul]

4. This 'piece' reads like a bunch of anti-gun talking points...

This 'piece' reads like a bunch of anti-gun talking points desperately strung together in the hopes that someone would mistake it for an actual article.

[jimmy the one]

5. deja vu to you, nra

(juxtaposed a bit): now The NRA's most recent attack on Australian gun laws appears to have been prompted by Obama's raising of their success in an interview...
.. The article warns that US President Barack Obama might support Australian-style gun reforms. "This is the gun-control regime that our president applauds for its decisive resolve. It robbed Australians of their right to self-defence and empowered criminals, all without delivering the promised reduction in violent crime,"
"Australia's gun confiscation is indeed a lesson to America: It is a sign of what is to come if we hold our rights lightly."
Australia's gun laws – particularly those introduced by the Howard government after the Port Arthur massacre..

Hopefully the newer aussie govt will complain like daryl Williams did to Charlton heston (still holding his guns in his hands?)

then: 22/3/2000 Anti-gun campaigners apalled by NRA adverts .. American television viewers have been treated to an apocalyptic vision of Australia as a land where citizens cower indoors while criminals run riot in the streets.
The video, produced by America's National Rifle Association, chose emotive pictures of a law and order rally in South Australia to make the case that tough new gun control laws, in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre, have left citizens in Australia unable to defend themselves from a veritable crime wave.
Today, Attorney-General Daryl Williams wrote to NRA President, former screen star Charlton Heston, to protest against what he described as a misleading campaign.

{Australian} Federal Attorney- General Daryl Williams last night fired off a personal letter to the Hollywood legend {Charlton heston} telling him to retract his accusations Australia is experiencing a crime wave.
Heston, president of the US National Rifle Association, has emerged as the lead villain in an NRA campaign portraying Australian crime spiralling out of control because the government took away citizens' guns.
"There are many things Australia can learn from the United States," Mr Williams tells Heston. "How to manage firearms is not one of them." {so also said PM john howard}
The NRA campaign, on late night television and on its website, incorrectly claims gun-related crime increased significantly after the gun buy-back sparked by the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.
"One gets somewhat outraged when an organisation based in the US – where there are something like 11,000 firearms homicides in one year – tells us our gun laws have failed," Mr Williams said.
"Now that you have the facts, I request that you withdraw immediately the misleading information from your latest campaign," Mr Williams demanded.
"I find it quite offensive the NRA would use the very successful gun law reforms introduced in 1996 as a basis for promoting firearms ownership in the US," https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.showbiz.gossip/6z7f367mlKc

[Nuclear Unicorn]

12. I thought you said you support the individual RKBA. nt

[benEzra]

13. Do you have any *idea* how many American voters

an Australia-style ban and confiscation would affect?

You'd probably be talking in the neighborhood of 60+ million gun owners and 200+ million guns affected, plus a quarter-billion-plus magazines. Even compared to France, Germany, Norway, Finland, and New Zealand, Australian gun laws are downright totalitarian. Heck, they make England's gun laws look relatively free by comparison (Brits can own semiautomatic and pump shotguns with unlimited magazine capacity, whereas Australia even banned and confiscated pump shotguns).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Australia