Mall Killings in Sydney Australia..

oscash said:
I don't think the security guys need to carry guns for protection. Pepper spray can make a grown man fall into a heap. I believe it can cause immediate pain.
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I think they might need to if, say, they are night staff at a factory. Or when bikies run amok in an airport terminal. I have no problem with the guns, but I hope the security guards are required to receive good training on when and when not to use them.
 
I guess I didn't realize how different the viewpoint between Australia and the US is when it comes to guns and knives.
Interesting.
 

Cornhusker said:
I guess I didn't realize how different the viewpoint between Australia and the US is when it comes to guns and knives.
Interesting.
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Australia has several advantages over US when it comes to these matters.

One is that we don't have a firearms manufacturing industry that lobbies parliamentarians. All of our firearms are imported and the most dangerous are prohibited imports. We do not share a land border with any other country which is an advantage although the entire coastline is hard to surveil. Customs does a pretty good job of interception nevertheless based on good intel.

When it comes to imported weapons, they are subjected to customs inspection whether or not that they are personal property or imported for sale. This applies to blades as well as firearms.

All guns must be registered to the owner and safely stored. No different to registration of vehicles. If stolen, this must be reported. Unregistered firearms can be confiscated.

Prior to the massacre at Port Arthur in Tasmania (1996), where 35 people were shot dead and 25 others were wounded by a deranged young man, each state had its own laws regarding firearms. After the massacre, the worst to ever happen here to the white population*, the states** came together to agree to national laws to prohibit certain weapons and to establish a national data base of gun ownership. There was an amnesty period, a voluntary surrender of prohibited weapons and a gun buyback scheme to reduce the number of weapons in civilian hands.

Finally, our greatest advantage is not having any constitutional right to own as many highly lethal firearms as we may want. There are many reasons why someone may want to own a gun and also reasons why they should not be allowed to do so.

* Massacres of indigenous people occurred during the colonial wars. Shooting was not the only means of killing them or driving them from their lands.

** We only have 6 states, not 50. Agreement of all the states is not easy, but for 50 states I would say it is impossible.
 

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