Gun grabbers like to point to Australia as the standard-bearer of “gun safety”.
As with all gun-grabber truisms – distrust, verify, and pretty much invariably distrust some more. Pretty much everyone in Oz that wants a gun can get one…
…provided they’re a criminal.
Read the while thing.
This story reminds me of the part of Kentucky where my fathers extended family lived. Although the area was “dry” up until twenty years ago, there was all the alcohol you would ever want if you were willing to break the rarely enforced law. And even though it was ‘dry’, they seemed to have more than their share of the attendant problems associated with alcohol like drunk driving and alcoholism. In my fathers families case, a few in the family were stone alcoholics (later sober, thanks to God’s Grace & Bill W) and his grandfather (a doctor) was killed by a drunk driver on the way to the hospital not long after my dad came home from the Pacific.
The last commenter, a pro-gun control type, cited the Australians’ mass confiscations of firearms a resounding success as there have been no more Port Arthur-type mass shootings since the ban was put in place.
It would be interesting to know how common such mass killings were before Port Arthur, and how the current murder rate compares to the post-ban rate. I suspect that it has increased, and the number dead probably surpasses the 30+ killed in the 1996 massacre. He apparently prefers his victims scattered about, even if more abundant, than in just one smaller but messy heap. Some logic defies borders and cultures …
Sort of related … the Supreme Court ruled against the guy who falsely indicated that he was the “actual buyer” of a pistol he bought for an uncle:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/16/justice/supreme-court-straw-purchase/index.html
I’d always thought that a false “yes” answer to that question on the FFL form was automatically a crime, even, as in this case, both the buyer and recipient were legally entitled to buy a gun. I always made sure to avoid such situations and advised others to do the same. I’m surprised it went that far up the ladder for a ruling. Additionally, I believe the uncle lived in another state, which, again, as far as I know, would be illegal; selling a handgun across state line w/o an FFL.
FYI …
But Merg, it’s not like they can just make them in a garage.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/bikies-diy-arsenal-pistolpacking-western-sydney-a-handgun-hotspot/story-fni0cx12-1226955331948
Joe, he actually transferred the license to his uncle through an FFL, so he obeyed the law on that point (see http://ww2.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/269289). He appeared to be trying to take advantage of a law officer discount on the weapon for his uncle. I doubt that it would have been prosecuted if not for all the other stuff going on with the guy (bank robbery charge, threats against officers, mental health evaluation), etc. It’s a stranger story than the CNN article indicates.
But it does bring up a situation that a friend almost got in. After a robbery, he gave his girlfriend money to get a gun. This little slip of a girl insisted on getting a .40 S&W until I let her shoot mine and it just about tore her wrist off. I always wondered how John Law would have taken it if she’d gotten the gun, then given it to her boyfriend when she found she couldn’t handle it. From the outside they could easily have been accused of a straw purchase.
Nerdbert … Thanks for the clarification. That alone should prove the honest intent behind the transaction. That aspect of the law has always been a quagmire. The circumstances you describe do pose other questions. How would you buy a gun as a gift for a good friend, juvenile friend/ relative, spouse, etc. without falsifying the document with the required “Yes” response?
Since the intent of this foggy law is to prevent prohibited persons from getting guns and to prevent non- FFL licensed individuals from “engaging” in the firearms business, a lot of the exculpatory evidence would be quite circumstantial and comes down to the intent at the moment of purchase. You could lawfully buy a gun in the AM, then get served with divorce papers in the PM and need an immediate cash injection. Pretty suspicious at face value, particularly if you make a small profit on the sale.
In any event, the subjective nature of the crime makes it quite time consuming (expensive) to defend against. Particularly when it’s one modest individual against a very hostile (to gun owners) government with unlimited resources and no sense of “fair play” or integrity.