Our hearts are saddened and our minds horrified by the events at Virginia Tech. I have checked flickr, keyword Virginia Tech and recent, to find non-news words of the situation.
When, oh when will someone do something about gun control! Senseless tragedy will always happen as long as there are humans about, but tragedy on this scale would be so much harder to perpetrate without the readily available weaponry.
that's a complex issue, Julie. There are those who say if the students had been armed they could have stopped him. There are also state-by-state issues. Concensus is tough for us to build.
If the students were armed? Jeesus, then it really would have been a bloodbath with everybody shooting at everybody else. If he hadn't been able to get a gun in the first place there'd have been no need to stop him.
I hear you. I was just going with the realities of the discussion. Our culture is different than yours on this subject, because the pro-gun people are very intent on keeping their weapons. What do you ahve to do to get a gun in Oz? Do you know anyone who carries?
Well, you have to be a member of a gun club for 6 months, then you can apply for a licence. A licence requires 2 forms of ID and a police check. To buy a handgun you also have to be checked out by the Federal police and ASIO (our equivalent of the CIA). It takes at least 12 months from first joining a club to getting your gun - a .22 or similar (hunting stuff only - no automatic weapons at all). I got all this from the gun shop next door. They had to be checked federally and by ASIO just to be able to get their license to sell. I know a couple of guys who have hunting rifles but I've never seen them. After the Port Arthur massacre in '96 (35 dead) the government really tightened up gun laws and made it really hard to get one. All unlicensed weapons were supposed to be handed in and scrapped. I don't think we've had a random shooting spree like that since. Of course, it doesn't stop the criminal element but they only seem to shoot each other so that's no loss really.
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When, oh when will someone do something about gun control! Senseless tragedy will always happen as long as there are humans about, but tragedy on this scale would be so much harder to perpetrate without the readily available weaponry.
that's a complex issue, Julie. There are those who say if the students had been armed they could have stopped him. There are also state-by-state issues. Concensus is tough for us to build.
If the students were armed? Jeesus, then it really would have been a bloodbath with everybody shooting at everybody else.
If he hadn't been able to get a gun in the first place there'd have been no need to stop him.
I hear you. I was just going with the realities of the discussion. Our culture is different than yours on this subject, because the pro-gun people are very intent on keeping their weapons. What do you ahve to do to get a gun in Oz? Do you know anyone who carries?
Well, you have to be a member of a gun club for 6 months, then you can apply for a licence. A licence requires 2 forms of ID and a police check. To buy a handgun you also have to be checked out by the Federal police and ASIO (our equivalent of the CIA). It takes at least 12 months from first joining a club to getting your gun - a .22 or similar (hunting stuff only - no automatic weapons at all). I got all this from the gun shop next door. They had to be checked federally and by ASIO just to be able to get their license to sell.
I know a couple of guys who have hunting rifles but I've never seen them.
After the Port Arthur massacre in '96 (35 dead) the government really tightened up gun laws and made it really hard to get one. All unlicensed weapons were supposed to be handed in and scrapped. I don't think we've had a random shooting spree like that since.
Of course, it doesn't stop the criminal element but they only seem to shoot each other so that's no loss really.
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