I'm a Australian living in the usa for the last 10 years.I read the smh online everyday and almost everyday there is a report of someone being shot or a shooting .there is around 4 million people living in sydney  or it's suburbs.crime is up. guns are still banned.I love my birthplace but hate it's laws.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/19/1071337126995.html
cut seem to get the link to work cut and paste it

G'day mate!

Throw another freedom on the barbie...

G'day .any other peeps from oz here .If so got any VB.Yeah feedom is on the way out or so it seems.BTW all the ban this and ban that started out there much the same as it has here.first it was so called assault weapons then handguns the hunting rifles.

And so you moved to Kalifornia?
Damn man, thats about as close to Aussie rules as you can get here in the U.S.

lol i moved here and they change the laws here  .I think it might be me so i stopped moving lol

Average Americans are prisoners of their own patriotisim.  Some believe that if you recite the words "I live in the land of the free, where we cherish liberty!" enough, it must in fact be true.  It all comes down to selfish intent.  Most don't give a crap about encroachments that don't effect them, but scream loud and far when theirs is at risk.  It will be our downfall.

I once heard an excellent analogy to this.  If you combined banning guns, abortion, drugs, porn, etc..., all with severe penalties into one Omnibus bill, it would smack of a draconian dictatorship.  But ban each one bill at a time, they will pass, and you will arrive at the same spot, only this time you will have arrived under the flag of 'Freedom and Democracy Working'.  Basically, if you engineer your argument (and thus your votes) into defenseless quantities, you can pass just about anything.

PS: Smokeing bans here were started under the guise of common sense laws.  "All we want to do is ban smoking from coast to coast airline flights!"  Now look where we are.  I'm not a smoker, but the analogy works.

First the guns and then tubes...sad deal but don't despare mate we're on the slippery slide ourselves cause of all the whinning pussys we have reproducing these days and will soon be voting age.....[puke]

You didn't spend a night or two in New Jersey did you?

STAY AWAY FROM MI, I REPEAT...

S'truth! Crikey!

Its happening in my former country too.[:(]

[rofl2]

Good one, DP!

IronWill,

I lived in Melbourne for half a year and crime didn't seem to be bad at all. The biggest crime story on the news was "Teen caught with Hunting Knife" or something like that. We used to walk around downtown piss drunk all the time at 2:00-3:00 am with no problems.

I am a VBaholic and am always looking for it (sure as hell none in Alabama). The last place I found it was in Scotland, which was a little weird... But I drank the hell out of it for that week!!!! I think some of the specialty grocers in Atlanta have VB, gotta be some in Kali.

Hey man, If you ever get any cravings for a taste of home, check out Australianpieco.com
I run the joint, we ship REAL MEAT PIES! overnight that is. I see a lot of Aussies over here who can't beleive that I can legally own an AR-15. They're so used to restrictions and bans it's unreal.
However, once I take them shooting, they say "This isn't so bad!" and the American cowboy myth is dispelled.
Check out the web site! Just like the ones back home, not like the nasty POT PIES you get at the grocery.

IIRC, Australia has a "Bin The Blade" knife control program similar to the ones in England, Wales and Scotland Ð and I know for a fact that they're not too keen on [url=http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/28/1030508072424.html]swords and bows[/url]...

So once the swords, knives, and bows are illegal, what's next? The making of a fist is a felony? The situation in Aussie land is going to be interesting over the next twenty years. I'm really curious to see what happens.

I believe they banned guns because the worst public massacre occured somewhere in Aussieland .

Some estranged kid with a Colt AR-15 and an FAL went on a rampage and killed I think 29 people and wounded 15 others. Link anybody?

Yeah!  Stay away from Minnesota too!!! I personally fought like hell to get CCW in Minnesota by writing, & Bitching, & calling, and emailing, and CONSTANTLY NAGGING the SHIT out of our politicians to NO END in hopes of them PASSING CCW, and for them to NOT vote for any new AWBs.

They FINALLY passed the CCW Bill this last summer, and hopefully they'll listen to the thousands of us MN Gun owners when we bitch about the AWB proposals as well.

[pointless question] Is Paul Hogan really an aussie?[/pointless question]

Hey Will,

Did you ever go on your trip home?  Well, welcome back if you did.  Lemme know if you want to meet up to go shooting sometime.  IM me here as I am probably moving in the next week or two.

[url=http://www.kstatecollegian.com/issues/v100/sp/n142/ap-australia-massacre-27.html]Killed 34 in Tasmania[/url] with an AR-15 and SKS.

Loved Australia. The beer was great and the ladies were better. The only bad things were gun-grabbing politicians and Vegemite....

Aren't rifles OK for farmers?  Or just .22's.  if not, who's blasting the 3,000,000 'roos a year?  And the map shows a rifle range generally North of downtown Sydney.  Who uses that?

... World wide tyranny cannot exist with free individuals.

... Even in America, many politicians throw the term "freedom" around loosely, to guise support for agendas that embrace anything but.

Singe shot rifles and shotguns in rural areas only. They have some definition for rural. And I think the guns have to be registered. They tightened legislation while I was there and destroyed thousands of guns with bulldozers. I shed a tear at the sight of the carnage!

It was a FAL, definitely .308. I've got the IWBA Journal here that discusses the rifles, projectiles and wounds at great length. Very interesting article, pretty damning arguement in the old .308 vs. .223 thread.

According to Google there are quite a few tin foil hats in NSW too. Lotsa [url=http://www.geocities.com/vialls/forensic1.html]conspiracies[/url] afoot regarding Bryant and the massacre.


ETA,
There is a partial .pdf version of the IWBA article I mentioned [url=http://www.iwba.com/Colt%20AR-15.pdf]here[/url]

Basically you can own a rifle (max 5 shot magazine) if you meet a certain criteria.  Member of a sporting shooter club, varmint control with a farmer to vouch for you or security type stuff.

Previously if you were a member of a pistol club you could own any pistol (I used to have a cheap ass Taurus PT-99AF).  Now there is new legislation on handguns.  [url=]http://www.police.qld.gov.au/pr/program/wlb/legislation/default.shtml[/url].

There are a heap of shootings at the moment in both Melbourne and Sydney.  The Sydney ones are some crime family killing, performing drive-bys on another crime family.  The Melbourne ones are a group of criminals executing another group of criminals and visa-versa.  Normal law abiding people are rarely the victims of gun violence here.  Though knife related violence is fairly common.

Which brings us to the point, take away the gun and they will use something else.

Very interesting point.

People parrot all this stuff about how free we are, and thus produce their own little fantasy world.  The truth is that we are not nearly as free as the Americans of 200, 100, 50, or even 20 years ago.

Get a copy of "Lost Rights" by James Bovard.  It's an eye-opener.

Indeed!  We are one of the least free of all the 'western' countries.  Sure, we have the most significant firearms rights, but you see where that's headed, and that is but one part of the concept of freedom.  America is one of the easiest 'western' countries to be imprisoned in for those crimes that are usually considered 'victimless'.  Why, because the worst of all things has happened.  Americans have developed the concept that 'society' is a legal entity, that has rights, that can trump individual rights.  Thus about anything can be done in the name of protecting the rights of 'society'.

Not that I approve of socalisim (I hate it), but too many people assume that because we are not now a 'nanny state', that we must be free.  The truth is that unless politicians (and the voters who elect them) are guardians of individual liberty, the US governmental system doesn't really contain any real barriers to the removal of liberty.  Too many people beleieve that the system is well designed enough to prevent encroachments in all cases.  Not true...  

HI RATTERS YEAH HAD A GOOD TRIP. for those that want me to stay out of your state  i will but you are going to have to pay me lmfao. the shooting in tas was one of a few bad ones they had. crime is nor out of control but it is up any crime is bad.i think gun bans are a crime and misuse of taxs dollars .vb vb vb .

To own a gun here, you must prove you have a legitimate reason to own one, such as varmint control, target shooting etc.  Licenses are split into different categories.  IIRC, they are as follows.

A- rimfire bolt action and single shot rifle (max mag capacity 10 rounds)
B- centrefire bolt action and single shot rifle and shotguns (max mag capacity 10 rounds)
C- rimfire semi automatic rifle (max mag capacity 10 rounds)
D- centrefire semi automatic rifle (10 rounds max)
H- Pistols

Pump action shotguns come somewhere in there, i think under C.

For pistols, you need to be a temporary member of a pistol club for at least 3 months, then you can become a probationary pistol license holder for about 18 months i think.  

The terms and conditions are long and complicated...I have the paperwork somewhere.

To get a gun (after license etc) you need to apply for a permit to acquire (giving reasons), wait 1 month, then get the permit, then wait another month before you can get it.  This is for rifles, pistols involve a longer wait.

Pistols now cannot be of larger calibre than .38, unless its an old single action, or you are involved in metallic silhouette shoots.  It is illegal to use these pistols with >.38 cal in anything other than the specified comps, so u cant even practise.  Semi autos have a max capacity of 10 rounds and barrel length must be at least 120mm.  Single shot and revolvers must have a barrel length of 100mm.

/edit.  Im in NSW and the laws vary state to state but they are very similar.