chinese air rifle.

[bearridge]

Little pardners caint even have a slingshot? :cry: :cry: :cry: :? :? :?

( Welcome to Florida ... I can't say for sure since I don't have the compleat Statute Book on that , just the condensed one for reference.... Chuck)

 

[oldsparkey]

Bear...

As I said I'm working from the 1999 handbook on the laws.
I'm sure they have changed a lot since then , especially because the kids taking a pellet pistol into there school and scaring the pants off everyone.

Then Law Enforcement arrives ... ARMED SUBJECT WITH A HANDGUN .... so when the kid is cornered and he points it at the Cops....

He is watching the roots of daisy's growing the next day down towards him.

It's not the gun/weapon laws , it is the gun/weapon training and information that saves lives along with good old common sense , don't point a weapon of any kind at someone unless you are going to use it. Especially a pellet pistol or something carved out of wood and painted to look like the real thing at anyone armed or in Law Enforcement. Doing that is the next best thing to committing suicide.
I like to call it ..Assisted Suicide or Idiot Suicide.

Chuck.

 

[jimsong]

I guess it's a sign of the decline of America,when I was in high school in western Oklahoma, we had a "Western Day".
(Which as an aside, tickles me, and frustrates me. What is known as the "Wild West" existed for only about 25-30 years after the Civil War. And the media and drugstore cowboys have been milking it for over a hundred years. Real cowboys did, and do exist, but it's only in the past fifty years that cowboys got any respect from anyone but thier peers.
One, so called "cowboy, told me once the he was so proud of the "cowboy tradition, because the cowboy were always white, of European extraction.
I informed him that less than half of the cowboys were white. The other half were Black, Mexican, and Indian.
And until the 40's, and in places, much later, cowboys were looked down on. They were too shiftless to hold a real job.
This, however, was in real life. Not the kids who frequented the Tom Mix, Lash LaRue, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Yakima Canut , and above all, The Duke! ( Although John Wayne wasn't a great actor, he just played himself, he is still a favorite of mine.)
(A further word of note; If you like accurate historical knowledge, and are politically incorrect,, Do NOT make your stand in a cowboy bar, in Stockyard City Oklahoma!)
But, I digress. On western day, many of the high school boys wore guns to school. Single sixes strapped around their waists. We were told to make double damned sure they were unloaded, but the guns weren't checked. We were justifiably trusted.
Not one single massacre occured!
A few years ago, in Bridgeport Oklahoma, the high school was raided during dove season. Several kids were arrested for possession of guns on school property. Shotguns-Behind the seats of pick ups, or in the trunks of cars.
School let out about the time the evening flight began. The kids just wanted to get set up around the sunflowers and ponds, before the doves started flying.
For this wise planning, they were arrested, jailed, and expelled for a year!
I would rather have the men of America handling a shotgun in a dove hunt after school, than some malcontent, poli-sci major, that can't hold a job, handling a AK-47 in a school, or a work place.
I don't hunt any more, only because I physically can't. But I think every American should be taught to hunt, every American should be taught to handle a gun, I believe that every American should be taught to respect the power, and responsability of gun handling.
I think I am in the majority of gun handlers, when I say, that I have pretty much equal awe(bordering on fear), and love, of guns. I love every thing about guns. The simplicity and precision of the action, especially lever actions, although I prefer the bolt action for accuracy.
I just wish Americans loved guns more than they loved being stupid.
Gun lovers can act stupid, gun haters can REALLY be stupid.
I find myself, in my so called "Golden" years, spending a lot of time being pissed at just about everyone voicing an opinion concerning guns. Both pro and con.
I vehemently disagree with those that call for universal restiction of fire arms. The posession of guns is garanteed by the constitution!!!
And I disagree with licensing of guns. Hitler thought it was a terrific idea.
But I am not so darn sure I want just any Tom, Dick or Harry carrying around a BAR,Schmisser,Sten(talk about your dangerous gun!), or an AK. Assault rifles account for less than one half of one per cent of gun crime, but I still don't want one in every home.(Except mine.)
I have gotten carried away, so I will shut up and brood awhile.

 

[oldsparkey]

jimsong........

Well said and I agree.

Here in Florida a lot of us would leave school at 3:15 P.M. and hit the dove field to get some shooting in. Man , can I remember those days and it was just considered as something normal to do.

Chuck.

 

[bearridge]

My fear iz when the guviment decides what kinda guns Tom, Dick 'n Harry kin have.

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. Thomas Jefferson

 

[Bilgerat]

Well said, Jimsong! 8)

I agree with just about everything you said. I remember taking guns to school for "show & tell" and for western day. Did it myself, too!

I also remember going duck hunting before school and dove hunting after class let out. The shotguns were in the trunk and no one cared because life was different back then.

What the hell has happened to our country since we were boys? Somehow, we've allowed this place to take a giant step away from the values I think we should have.

Mike

 

[hairymick]

I have ranted here before about firearm restrictions. (we have some of the harshest in the world)

Here is how they implimented them in this country.

1st, they called on all firearms owners to be licensed. good way of getting the names of all those so inclined.

2nd called on all firearm owners to be licensed. (supposedly a lifetime license for a nominal fee)

3rd Said lifetime license was reduced to 5 years then to one year.

4th A massacre occurred in Tasmania where one man, a retard, is accused of single handedly killing an absurd number of people in circumstances that defy belief.

5th Mass media and political hysteria following this massacre which led to govt confiscatation of all automatic, semi automatic and most repeating firearms and our current laws that make it just too hard to even bother.

Guard your right to carry firearms well guys, be cynical of any "event" that just happens and prompts these types of hysteria and calls. discredit the maggots making the calls at every opportunity.

Has anybody here used the BSA (birmingham Small Arms) range of air rifles? When I was allowed to hunt, I had both the .177 and .22 calibres. superb rifles and found the .177 to be more accurate and a better killing rifle than it heavier brother. I shot crows and feral cats mostly with them.

Can't help with scopes, I only ever used open sights on my air rifles.

 

[jdupre']

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. Thomas Jefferson

How can any sane person with two brain cells to rub together not believe that the Framers of the Constitution believed in our right to bear arms? :roll:

Joey

 

[BEARS BUDDY]

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. Thomas Jefferson

How can any sane person with two brain cells to rub together not believe that the Framers of the Constitution believed in our right to bear arms? :roll:

Joey

Who ever said the gun banners had that much intelligence?

 

[jdupre']

You are so right, Bears Buddy. I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

What is the sound of one brain cell rubbing? :?

Joey

 

[jimsong]

Mick,
I have seen the heart breaking documentary of the Austalians losing their guns several times, but until I read your post this morning, I thought it had been a gradual shift in liberal public opinion.
The documentary was pro gun propaganda, so I guess it wasn't wise to include the fact that a gun crime was the impetus for this travesty.
So I spent a great deal of time this morning investigating the incedent at Port Arthur. For such a monumental crime, there is surprisingly little information about it on the internet.
I did, however come up with about eight or ten websites that covered some aspect of this massacre. And I think I have the whole picture now.
Man, There is something fishy about several aspects of this case.
1. Why was not Bryant institutionalized years before this incedent? There was ample reason. Just the one where he shot a spear gun into the head of a "friend", while scuba diving , seems good enough to me to put him away for life.
2. How did an idiot, not known to be a gun handler, get 35, mostly mostly one shot kills?
3. How did a known idiot aquire a CAR-15? Seldom seen outside Israel.
4. How did he know how to totally destroy a weapon with a special round designed for the purpose, and where did he get the round? It seems curious, that the weapon was Israeli, and the round that obliterates a weapon is a Mossad development.
5. Didn't the silly woman he was living with have any relatives? Spending 100,000 dollars in a year on cars the were just brought home and parked, seems reason enough for a family member to take charge of her life.
6. When she was killed in a car wreck that he survived, why wasn't his "Joke", of grabbing the steering wheel brought into question. There were plenty of others he had done it to.
7. Why was the idiot allowed to inherit $500,000, and her house from her.
8. This is the big one: Why did one crime, although monumental, justify disarming a basically civilized, law abiding, nation?
When I joke about the Ozzies not being civilized, that's just what it is. A joke. Because the Australian attitude is much like my personal outlook on life. If I can see the reason of a law, I will cheerfully obey it, but if it's assinine, I will obey it if I can't find a way not to get caught.In my view, That's perfectly rational.
Either it's not on the internet(Given the crime that has been commited by the Australian goverment, I can see why it would like to keep it from world view), or I just can't find it, but I could not find ANY of the argument that lead to this travesty.
I was sympathetic with Australian shooters yesterday. Today, I am outraged!
Jim

 

[hairymick]

Jim,

Thanks for going to the trouble of researching this thing.!

There are many more questions that need to be answered.

There are very good reasons why information on this matter is so patchy. The whole thing reeks of conspiricy - the ramifications of which are so extreme they frighten the hell out of me.

Like in your country, there are due processes of law here that must be followed in any criminal event. had they been followed, there would have been much more invormation freely available.

The most obvious is that there was a Coronial Inquiry, required in relation to each of those 35 deaths. They never happened. - Why?

I don't, for one minute, believe that BRYANT committed this massacre. I believe that he may have committed the first two murders at the farm house where the other weapons were supposedly aquired.

The rest of the story is just that - in my opinion, a story. I have no doubt that 35 people died that trajic day - and that they were one shot kills - and that there were no surviving witnesses.

I believe that "others" committed the crime and that the purpose of the thing was to disarm the Australian public generally. In this, it has been a monumental success and there are many here who are also outraged.

We have never had a War of Independence or a Civil War here so, as a country, have never really felt the need for a Bill of Rights. Our Constitution is based largely on the British model as is our legal system.
We have no rights that are set in stone as you guys do and this is what allowed our respective federal and state governments to get away with what they have done.

Guard your Bill of Rights and Constitution well. Don't let the maggots erode the fundamentals in it.

 

[jimsong]

Mick,
your signature line has always had meaning to me. It means a great deal more today!
Jim

 

[dawallace45]

I too find it hard to believe that some one who the press make out to be retarded with motor skills so low he couldn't even tie his own shoe laces was able to use a sophisticated firearm like a AR15 so effectively , Now I've owned AR15's and a CAR15 and many other Military style semi-auto firearms over the years and while I was quite proficient with them most people couldn't even work out how to make a AR15 shoot the first time it was handed to them

The reason the gunlaws were able to be passed so effectively was that Australia is the most urbanised country in the world now ,

95% of our population live in the cities or suburbs , in Queensland where Mick and I live the bulk of our population live in Brisbane , if you then include the towns of Rockhampton , Bundaberg , Mackay , Townsville , Cairns you have pretty much 95% of the state , In the whole country we only have about the same population of Los Angeles ,

Most people don't think further than their next beer [ we had a Prime Minister who reckoned you can do pretty much any thing you like to the Australian public as long as you don't try and take away their Beer , cigarettes , football , cricket and betting on horse racing , unfortunately in most cases I think he was right ] our media bombarded us with how bad firearms were and how we where going down the American road with gang and drug violence and how taking guns off the street was a good thing ,

The news papers were full of letters to the editor , all anti- gun ,[ there were actually more pro-gun letters sent in but there were never published unless they were from dyed in the wool nutters who were frothing at the mouth ], most of our politicians don't know one end of a firearm from another and they were told that they has to keep their mouths shut and vote the party fine or get thrown out and the ones who did were thrown out ,

We learnt which politicians were worth feeding very quickly and there weren't too bloody many of them , the pro gun pollies went on alone as independents but didn't have enough power to make a difference .

Strangely enough they are still in parliament and will continue to get voted in year after year until they want to retire because we remember that they tried to stand up and be counted , of course they were dragged through the mud and made out to be nutters and trouble makers by the press and the major parties ,

There were a lot of high profile footballers got up on TV and said how guns were bad and had to be banned , it seemed like the country was full of bloody soccer mums ,

The pollies closed ranks and wouldn't even see our representatives from the Sporting Shooters Assoc of Australia and then to make matters worse the mongrels from the NRAA [ National Rifle Assoc of Australia ] and Pistol Australia did a deal with the government and whiteanted us good and proper , bloody turn coat bastards

You in the USA need to learn from what went wrong here , you have your constitution and a pro-gun president but things change , the only thing politicians respect is numbers , your biggest pro-gun lobby group is the NRA , you may not always agree with every thing it does and if you don't , well just join up and tell the NRA but do it from inside , get involved , if you want to join up with one of the other pro-gun groups , fine , do so but be a member of the NRA as well , it's the biggest and when the Sh&* hits the fan it's the one that counts , I was talking to a mate of mine last week , he is State president of the SSAA here in Queensland and he was saying just the same thing , it's all about numbers and at the moment the SSAA and the NRA just don't have the numbers to do all that they want , they have to limit their fight to the battles they think they can win so as not squander resources ,

David

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

 

[Kayak Jack]

It sounds like someone spent a lot of time and money organizing the fiasco in Australia. To their credit, they did quite a good job of doing a very bad thing.

 

[dawallace45]

Not all of this is relevant to the direction this thread has taken but it was written by a acquaintance of mine Dennis La Varenne , he's been involved in the shooting sports for many many years and is a very good self bowyer and experimenter , it mainly deals with the new law banning duck hunting in Queensland , from what I can see most of the reasoning behind the ban is just silly , we have been in severe drought for many years now and so the numbers of people applying for duck licences in Queensland has been extremely low , all the keen duck shooters have been travelling interstate to hunt where the drought hasn't been as severe , the Australian Labor party has taken this chance to appease the greens and ban duck hunting , the SSAA has been saying this was going to happen for many years and asking people to take out licenses for years to keep the numbers up , this entails passing a duck identification test and that isn't all that easy , I'm not a duck hunter and have never been interested and I have to admit that there is now bloody way I could ever pass that test , I've seen it and the video is so bloody grainy they all look the same to me

The reason I post this is because it goes a long way to explain our political system and the problems we face and how such restrictive legislation as our anti-gun laws got passed

David

I write from my 15 years as a Secretary and submissions/research officer for the Victorian Shooting Sports Council of Victoria which did a lot of work in support of Duck hunting in Victoria and in also support of New South Wales duck hunters when asked. Victoria and NSW are the two principal duck hunting States in Australia.

The principal duck hunting organization in Australia is the Field & Game Association of Australia which does a lot of work in this area. Its membership in Queensland is and has always been small compared with the 3 States to the south – New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.

Until very recently, Queensland used to have a system of duck hunting licences up until this episode, but they were not supported by the duck hunting public of that State let alone the general hunting public.

Most people who shot ducks there did so illegally, but in small numbers. The numbers taken were always so small and hardly a threat to the duck population, but it was hardly worth the enforcement effort. The chances of being caught were pretty much zero.

Most Queensland duck shooters did not support their own licensing system, and those that did, did so in very small numbers. That made the system itself unviable from an administrative point of view. It simply cost more to run that it was worth.

If that State had the same strength of tradition which my State of Victoria has, there is a fair bet that it would not have been abolished there. Really, there wasn’t much to abolish, because hardly anyone hunted duck legally. Most if it was done illegally and sporadically. The people did not support the civil right they had and so suffered their own consequences.

The State of New South Wales suffered a similar fate about a decade ago. That state had a similar size population as my State of Victoria. It too had a duck licensing system like Victoria’s, which was supported mainly by Victorians going there during the season. At the time of abolition, NSW had 1500 licensed duck hunters. Victoria had something like 30 000, many of whom also held NSW licenses. The NSW Minister for Conservation (a Minister is equivalent to your Department Secretaries) was quoted in newspapers at the time as saying in response to outcry about his intention to permanently close the NSW Duck Hunting Season that he would not even get out of bed for 1500 duck hunters.

My own State of Victoria always had and has a very large (for Australia) active and dedicated duck hunting population and it has been a very strong tradition in Victoria – less so in recent years for a number of reasons and because of a 10 year drought which has dried up most of the wetlands. Shooting in the first weeks of the season in Victoria was always quite heavy but nevertheless, duck numbers were never threatened by shooting because it was always kept within sustainable numbers.

However, there is the chance that because we have not had a season for the past few years because of the drought that our season may be abolished from lack of use . . . because we haven’t had one for some years, we fear that Government will just decide not to declare it . . . permanently, without actually legislating it off the books. Its declaration is an executive order from year to year, so this option is very much on the cards.

So far as the matter of recall legislation goes, unlike so many of the US States, we do not have anything like that and are not likely to. There were moves some years ago to initiate Citizen Initiated Referenda, but the politicians, realising that the people would then have the power to over-ride decisions of the Parliament, collectively stopped any Bill being presented to introduce the matter, in their own interests of course.

There is a significant difference between the Westminster system of Government and that of the US in that the Executive controls the Legislature in the Westminster system. All of our Ministers of State (Department Secretaries and Governors in the US) are elected to the Parliament as legislators, with the majority party in a Parliament forming the Government and from whose ranks are selected the Ministers who then form the Executive. There is no effective or real separation of powers such as you have in the US.

The highest Executive officer in Australia is the Governor General who represents the English Monarch, but effectively has no executive power other than to dismiss a Government in certain circumstances or refuse to sign Bills of Parliament into law under certain circumstances. Effectively, the member of our Executive who has real and effective power is our Prime Minister who can dismiss the Governor General if he wishes by writing to the English Monarch on behalf of the Government of Australia.

Interestingly, the office of Prime Minister is not mentioned in the Australian Constitution anywhere. Few Australians know that fact.

The Prime Minister is merely the leader of the majority Party in the lower house (House of Representatives). However he has the equivalent powers to your President or State Governors and is effective head of executive government in Australia simply because the majority party forms the executive and introduces and passes any Bills it requires.

In the Westminster system, the Executive introduces Bills to the Parliament and by virtue of ‘Party discipline’ makes sure that its Bills are passed by its majority of members in that Parliament. It would be like your President or Governors being both head of the Executive and at the same time, Speaker of the House, and all his Department Secretaries being members of the House.

Effectively, the Westminster system is a dictatorship of the Parliament where the people have no effective voice other than the tri- or quadrennial elections. Westminster operates on the doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament based on the hypothesis that because it is elected, it therefore reflects the will of the people.

However, no Parliament or Executive is obliged ever to consider the will of the people from time to time between elections, and there is no mechanism for the people to over-ride any law which the people find intolerable unlike you can in some of your States by means of recall.

The system of compulsory voting ensures that the voice of any particular lobby group on any issue is diluted to inconsequentiality at election times, relying on the apathy of Australian voters who face a fine if they do not vote. The biggest political consequence of this voting system is that it creates safe seats for sitting members and political parties which endure for decades.

There are no rights guaranteed to the people under our Constitution (which I have read at least three times) other than trial by jury, unlike the US Constitution (which I have read at least four times) which has a Bill of Rights forbidding the US Government to interfere in certain areas of public freedom which the people of the US reserve to themselves over and above their Government and its powers.

The Westminster system operates on the doctrine of the supremacy of the Parliament (over and often against the people) who do not have any rights other than those legislated to them by that Parliament, or civil liberties which are those freedoms which have not been revoked by legislation.

Under Westminster, because of the principle of the supremacy of Parliament, all rights and liberties are subject to change by law. It is not a system of rule by the people, for the people and of the people as Lincoln famously said of the US system in his Gettysburg address.

Ours it the complete reverse of the US system founded on the belief that the people rule themselves and have inalienable rights concerning which the Congress cannot interfere.

Our constitution, by comparison is largely about the freedom of trade between the former colonies and a shorter section on the structure of the National Government. The rights of the people do not figure.

In its developmental days prior to Australian Federation in 1901, the US Constitution was carefully considered in the formulation of our own, but the only part of it that was copied in any significant degree was the bi-cameral system of Parliament (Congress to you) with a lower legislative house and an upper house of review, and that is about it. This system roughly parallels the English Houses of Parliament and Lords as well.

In Australia, we simply do not have the access to our legislature and executive that the people of the US do by way of recall. Consequently, the ability of the Australian people to do much about legislation which allow/prohibits unpopular laws is pretty much hypothetical.

An aspect of Australian popular culture which I have found that visitors to Australia find very surprising is the absolute contempt which Australians have for politicians. They rank somewhere between used car salesmen and paedophiles.

It is rare to find any citizen who will speak complimentarily about them because the Party discipline system prevents any politician crossing the floor to vote as a matter of conscience or principle. Unlike your Congressmen who quite often ‘cross the floor’ on issues which affect their constituents, ours NEVER cross the floor on behalf of the people who elect them. They only ever vote ‘en bloc’ according to party policy.

At any rate, I hope that the foregoing helps your understanding of why it is so easy in Australia to lose many of our civil liberties.

Regards,

Dennis La Varenne

 

[bearridge]

Friend David,

Most folks in the United States dont really know what it means ta have a king 'er a guviment give us some rights. The fellas who come up with our Constitution didnt have no guide. Far az I know we are the first modern try (if ya dont count France) of common folks claimin' rights. I hope we dont let everbody down.

Most of us dont understand our own Constitution. The biggest mistake I see iz when folks tell how the Constitution give us rights....like free speech, bein' armed, etc. That aint it at all. The Constitution points out how folks have rights before anybody come up with a Constitution. Thank Tom Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington 'n John Adams fer that. [Tom Paine, Ben Franklin 'n some more fellas helped out.] We wuz awful lucky ta have folks like that representin' us when it come time ta draw up some new rules.

Our Constitution iz there ta protect folks frum the guviment 'n ta keep the one in Washington frum gittin' too big 'n meddlin' too much. Jefferson 'n the others knew better'n anybody how bad any guviment will likely become 'n what ya gotta do when it gits outta line. A deep sadness come on me when I seen how some mitey fine folks in other countries have guviments that figger it "gave" folks some rights. If it gives the rights, it kin take 'em back.

regards
bearridge

No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no" and "not" employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights. Edmund A. Opitz

 

[a Bald Cypress]

c

Friend Bear,

There is no problem with our Constitution. The problem arises when [9] nine count em [9] nine “judges ?â€

 

[Kayak Jack]

Re: c

... I personally find it difficult to believe that just because you are inclined to be either an ele-funk or an ass that your way of thinking must be in lock step with others of that group. But alas, that seams to be the case in most instances.

And, as sorry as the system is - it's the least-worst in the world.

 

[Tom @ Buzzard Bluff]

I guess it's a sign of the decline of America,when I was in high school in western Oklahoma, we had a "Western Day". -----I vehemently disagree with those that call for universal restriction of fire arms.
I have gotten carried away, so I will shut up and brood awhile.

May I just say AMEN to your entire post?