US in the news here

1300 children shot dead last year in the US.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-20/guns-kill-nearly-1300-children-in-the-us-each-year/8635174

I guess you lot need more guns.
Being Oztralian, I have to admit we don't get your infatuation with guns.
We never had a gun culture here, and after the Port Arthur massacre the Australian government introduced laws to get rid of guns from the community.
We will never get rid of all of them, and farmers and hunters still have or can get guns if they want.
But our gun licence checks are very comprehensive, and there is a cooling off period.
Obama introduced laws to make it much harder for welfare recipients with mental disabilities to aquiere a gun, and Trump just got rid of it.
I guess the US will be a safer place now that nut jobs can get a gun faster.

 

I wonder if this new ability to access guns includes those welfare recipients with mental disabilities who voted for him and are now finding out that those job he promised do not exist.

What would be nifty in some circles here is to be able to get the same stuff that great leader just promised the Saudis. You know, the big shit.

 

I'm all for having the right to own a gun but believe that safety and training should be part of the requirement to do so. I don't see anything wrong with having to go through more hoops to obtain one either. In all honesty, it should be a lot more difficult to obtain a car or motorcycle license, as they seem to cause a lot of deaths here as well.

 

This pretty much sums it up...

 

This video is much more entertaining than the Aussie comedian

 

I agree with you on this for sure. The Genie is out of the bottle here in the US and they will never get rid of guns. But they really need to tighten up the laws.

 

I think secretly that gun manufactures and dealers loved when Obama was in office, they made truck loads of money. So much gouging going on too.

 

Seems maybe some don't understand the 'Bill of Rights'!

 

I understand them very well. I own quite a few myself and have been shooting my entire life, but I do believe that there has to be much better laws in place. The old adage of "How do you stop a bad guy with a gun? A good guy with a gun" may be true but if the bad guy did not have a gun to start with then ahead of the game.

 

When the rights were granted, the guns were not what they are today, having a couple of musket rifles and pistols capable of one shot each, versus having one automatic rifle with 100 rounds is a big difference. Not saying we shouldn't be able to have them, but there should be a way to make sure those who own them know how to store, operate and secure them. Although, there is the Darwin factor...

 

Perhaps you missed the part, "shall not be infringed"?

I'm not posting to argue, as I agree with this part of your post, "but if the bad guy did not have a gun to start with". We have over 2,000 gun laws in the books, yet they are not enough for those who wish to have more ineffective laws which do not provide the solution for which they seek. But if you have a law, which will prevent bad people from obtaining guns, without infringing on the rights of good people to protect thensleves and their families, I would be most interested in reading it.

 

"When the rights were granted" we didn't have the social media, the world wide web, or TV, which are all a considerable advantage to hand distributed printed pages available in the mid-1700's. "but there should be a way to make sure those who own them know how to store, operate and secure them", there is a relatively safe and inexpensive avenue for training, that we already have in place, simply incorporate the eduction in grade and high school as mandatory requirements.

 

I'm glad the nut job who killed 20 children and 6 adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre didn't have his rights violated.
I wansn't starting an argument, just bewildered by the importance the US places on gun ownership.
It seems that you prefer to lose a thousand inocent children a year then give up the right to go into a shop and walk away with a weapon.
You don't want to infringe on a mentally unstable person owning a gun, but its fine for an inocent child or bysttander to have his life cut short by a violent act.

 

If your post quoted here is to me (otherwise please disregard).......you don't live in this country, you are bewildered about this country, you don't know me, yet you make a few assumptions, which are completely wrong, to anchor your OP. I never said I prefer the loss of a thousand innocent children, I did not specify mentally unstable persons, nor have I spoken about innocent bystanders. You jump to many conclusions for which you have no grounds.

 

No, it wasn't directed at you or anyone. And I wasn't trying to point fingers.
I don't think anyone would support mad men getting guns and killing innocent people.
But we've seen this type of thing in the news here for years, yet nothing ever changes.
As soon as you get another massacre, like the 49 people dead at Orlando, the gun lobby is jumping up and down stating that there needs to be more guns.
For drug addicts you make drugs illegal, for gun viloence you make guns easier to get. It makes no sense to me and most Australians.

 

It appears to me that perhaps your news is not accurate and may be misleading you if you believe it. Although you speak for most Australians, I speak for only myself and what I see first hand and have lived. The really good part is, you get to live in Australia, and I get to live in the USA. That certainly suits me.

 

I'm sorry if you have taken any insult rom what I was saying.
That's not what I intended.
I was just referring to the news article I linked to on the first post that is making the news here this week.
People seem to get very defensive there as soon as you mention guns.
236 murders (gun, knife and everything else) here in 2015, or a rate of 0.98 per 100,000.
The US had 15696, or 4.88 per 100,000.
Visiting the US is something I would love to do, its a beautiful place and we are planing on taking the family there next year.
But I'm also very happy to live here.

 

the united states of america should have a name change to states of america.....the country is anything but united. as far as the dc thing, keep up the good work, they pass the laws, they should be balls deep in the ramifications of their actions, just like the general public.

 

No offense, but are you really so naive about crime? Crime is more directly correlated to demographics and socioeconomic issues than guns. You sitting in Australia criticizing the USA's overall murder rate would be like me sitting in our state of New Hampshire and criticizing the crime rate of Washington D..C. The irony is that New Hampshire has extremely lax gun laws - they can carry a concealed handgun there with no license and they can even openly carry a gun in public strapped to their hip with no license! In contrast, Washington D.C. has arguably the toughest gun law in the USA - in fact they were involved in the landmark US Supreme Court case which challenged their ban of handguns: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller )

And yet, New Hampshire's murder rate is only 1.1 murders per 100,000 people (about the same as Australia), while Washington D.C.'s murder rate is (are you sitting down?) 24.2 murders per 100,000 people!!! Using your logic it should be the reverse. Switzerland has some of the least restrictive gun laws in Europe yet their murder rate is even lower than Australia's (0.5 murders per 100,000 people in Switzerland compared to 1 murder per 100,000 people in Australia).

Obviously there is far more to murder rates than gun laws or the proliferation of guns. I'll let you figure out what Australia, New Hampshire, and Switzerland all have in common - LOL. That said, I hope you do get to visit the USA - despite all our warts we're still the best country in the world! And despite their crime rates, don't be afraid to visit NYC and Washington D.C., I just visited both and they are very safe as long as you don't venture off the beaten path