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“The failure of the Australian policy has been years in the making,” westernjournalism.com reports. “’There is little evidence to suggest that (the Australian mandatory gun-buyback program) had any significant effects on firearm homicides,’ University of Melbourne researchers Wang-Sheng Lee and Sandy Suardi wrote in 2008. ‘Although gun buybacks appear to be a logical and sensible policy that helps to placate the public’s fears, the evidence so far suggests that in the Australian context, the high expenditure incurred to fund the 1996 gun buyback has not translated into any tangible reductions in terms of firearm deaths,’ they added.”

As usual, facts have little to nothing to do with anti-gun policy, especially in the Land Down Under. And so we’re not surprised to read Reuters report that “Australia on Friday announced a gun amnesty for next year after a criminal intelligence report estimated there were 260,000 illegal firearms in the country.”

“The amnesty will provide an opportunity for those individuals who, for whatever reason are in possession of an unregistered firearm, to hand it in without fear of being prosecuted,” Justice Minister Michael Keenan told reporters in Melbourne.

“While Australia has some of the strongest firearm controls in the world, illicit firearms remain the weapon of choice for criminals.”

What does that tell you? One thing’s for sure: it tells presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the rest of the American civilian disarmament complex absolutely nothing. Should Ms. Clinton become president, how long before Americans are contemplating an amnesty for illegal “assault weapons”?

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52 COMMENTS

  1. 2 points:
    A. Doing the same thing over and over and over, expecting better results of the next “law” is the progressive’s way (to paraphrase Einstein, AKA SSDD).
    B. Please Vote November 8th.
    Thank you.

  2. If I hadn’t been caught since 1996, mate, I likely would not be inclined to relinquish my property now.

    And if I were a criminal, I certainly would not give up my tools of the trade so…

    Good luck with that!

    • The fact that so many “illegal” guns exist is pretty good evidence that people in OZ want to own guns regardless of the government prohibitions against owning guns. Whenever, you have this kind of cultural disconnection between laws and actual behavior a phenomenon called “patterned evasion of social norms” emerges. We saw the same thing here in the states during the National Prohibition era when it was illegal to make or consume alcohol in the US. Ultimately, National Prohibition simply collapsed from it’s own weight, as the administrative costs for trying to enforce an unpopular law far outweighed any benefits derived from the law’s existence. A good case can be made that National Prohibition actually caused alcohol consumption to increase during the course of its enforcement history.

      Despite the cultural disconnect and the corresponding tendency of people to find inventive new ways to circumvent coercive laws, governments continue to be wedded to laws of prohibition. The reason for this is that, regardless of the justifications given, the laws aren’t really about correcting specific behavior. Instead, governments use laws-of-prohibition as handy ways of exerting control over their own populations. The actual behavior is often just an excuse to extend the force of government into previously ungoverned areas of society. Like the American bootleggers of old, gun-runners love Australia’s prohibitive gun laws because, regardless of the number of laws passed and money spent on their enforcement, there’s always a ready market for the “forbidden” guns.

      • ^This

        Well said. Few people truly understand sociological, demographic and psychological impacts from their decisions – much less our politicians on the intellectual people. However the Democrats have for years fed their kool-aid to the less intelligent who have drank it straight from the pitcher without any clear thought-out analysis of their decisions.

        The more you restrict something from people = the more they will want it. The more people want it = the more some market – legal or not – will provide it.

      • One correction, sir, for the record:

        Amendment 18, Prohibition of Alcohol, 1919

        Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the transportation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States…for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

        Prohibition under the 18th Amendment did not prohibit the purchase or consumption of alcohol, unless lifting the glass or bottle from the bar to your mouth could be consider “transportation…for beverage purposes”.

  3. Sooooo stupid. Do they really think the criminals who are using their guns to commit violence will really turn them in and voluntarily disarm? Of course they don’t. What they hope is that the hundreds of thousands of Australians who never turned in guns that were made illegal in 1996 and 2003 will decide to turn them in now. Why, after 20 years of hiding such a gun, Bruce and Sheila will suddenly choose to comply with the law now is a mystery, but that must be what they think will happen.

    • IIRC, Aussies were first required to register their firearms, tho don’t worry, no one wants to take your guns. Once registered, of course, the next step was to take them, we know where they are, turn them in or we’ll kill you. That’s what “buyback” means. These guns they are now talking about are some subset of the 90% of guns which were never registered in the first place, won’t be registered now, so let’s just demand they be turned in. I am so sure.

    • and MA, and CN, soon to be followed by CA.

      It’s not just the Land Down Under. Law Enforcement in the UK has noted a serious uptick in the use of handguns in robberies, etc… and the criminals are using real as well as replica guns. The rate of car thefts, robberies, etc, is skyrocketing.

      • They have enacted their own cure: Roe v Wade. It is a very good bet the majority of the 50 million or so aborted fetus’ under this SCOTUS decision would have been born to Progressive Liberals. This explains why they have to fight for illegal immigration of undocumented Democrats – to replace the missing Liberal babies in their voter pool.

        • If you think that fertilized eggs are children worth fighting for and immigrant children aren’t, it’s time to stop pretending your arguments are about the sanctity of life.

  4. Ah. The failure of the left is awe inspiring to behold. I can only wait with bated breath until Trump comes into power and we smash these commie fucks once and for all.

    Oh… and for the “he’s losing in the polls crowd”… check out the latest WikiLeaks. The DNC drew up a coordinated plan to rig the pol numbers.

    • He’s winning in the daily tracking polls now. Most of what people quote is a week old. I had an argument about this with a brain dead lefty over on Breitbart yesterday. He had no idea what he was talking about or how polls work. He didn’t grasp the concept that a poll from 8 days ago tells us nothing about today and when added to an average only skews the current data. 538 can use statistical smoothing all they want, smoothing stale data is still using stale data.

      The only quibble I have with you here is that nothing will smash these guys once and for all. The commies got real quiet after the USSR fell, but by the early 2000’s they were back with a “new” set of ideas that were all the same shit slightly repackaged and they dissed the USSR for “not really being communist”.

      Revel’s book “Last Exit to Utopia” is a pretty detailed look at how commies and socialists fail, go away for a bit and then return with yet even more twisted logic about how every failed system wasn’t “true” communism or socialism. The fight with these folks will never end.

      • National level polls mean nothing because we don’t have a national election for President. We have 51 separate elections to choose Presidential Electors. Trump could be up a couple of points in national polls and still get trounced in electoral votes because it’s a four way race. As we get closer to election day I expect that the “I hate Hillary” Democrats in deep blue and deep reds states to abstain from voting for President or vote for Jill Stein but it won’t make a difference in electoral college.

        • I’m aware of how it works.

          I’m also aware that Trump is up +5 Iowa, +3 Ohio, +4 Nevada, +2 Florida depending on who’s polls you believe.

          Clinton might eek this out, but she’s not going to win in a landslide. The stuff you see from a group like fivethirtyeight is questionable at best for numerous reasons.

          Personally, I don’t make predictions based on polling but Trump certainly has a path to victory. The question is if he can walk it.

        • I love the “path to victory” crap, as if there is magic involved. Jill Stein has a path to victory, just win in all 50 states. The pretense is that talking heads know so much that we should all just listen to them in order to decide whether to vote and for whom. No, thank you, and meaningful polls would all be the same. Meaning that none are meaningful, just profit-driven, tell ’em bullshit and take their money. On Nov 8 we shall see.

      • “The commies got real quiet after the USSR fell, but by the early 2000’s they were back with a “new” set of ideas that were all the same shit slightly repackaged and they dissed the USSR for “not really being communist”.”

        So much this. Ever wonder why laundry soap always seems to have ‘New! Improved!’ on the packaging?

        Because people are stupid and fall for it nearly every time. They named their philosophy ‘Progressive’ for a reason.

        They equate it to ‘Progress’. Who can possibly not want progress?

        The Left is married to the very concept of Progressive-ism, and they fully mean the ‘until death do us part’ bit.

        When we get major wins, we tend to lose the ‘sense of urgency’ they have, and relax.

        Relaxing is our peril. We *must* get as emotionally wed to the concept of freedom as they do to their sick concept of ‘Utopia’.

        My .02 and worth half as much…

    • “… check out the latest WikiLeaks. The DNC drew up a coordinated plan to rig the pol numbers.”

      Yep, and here it is, and it’s quite fascinating:

      http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-23/new-podesta-email-exposes-dem-playbook-rigging-polls-through-oversamples

      What I don’t understand is their logic in doing this.

      There is no *love* of the HildaBeast on the Left. If they cook the polls to show she wins in a landslide, they won’t bother to go to the polls.

      There’s nothing anyone can do to keep me *away* from the polls. Show me I may lose, that redoubles my effort to vote.

      What am I missing on this???

      • I’m guessing we are missing podesta-types’ fear Conservative knowledge more (as in NYS “unSAFE compliance stats”`)

      • One of the Left’s favorite tactics is to try to marginalize viewpoints that disagree with their own. Perhaps they are doing that to their own here. I.E., make the Democrat Hillary-haters believe that their view is in the minority, in the hope that will convince (or bully) them to be good sheep and dutifully cast their vote for her.

  5. Oy vey….what we tried did not work,
    yet we paid them for the guns.

    We must………..DO SOMETHING!!!

    Let’s do that again…………

    “Stupid Is As Stupid Does.”
    -Ms.Gump

  6. If the Aussie G admits to 260k illegal guns, there may be twice that many or more. Most of those guns are owned by otherwise law-abiding citizens who were turned into criminals by their own government in 1996 for no good reason.

    But there is a reason, even if it isn’t good.

    “There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”

    — Ayn Rand

    Coming soon to an America near you.

    • It is already here, Ralph. Just look at how the IRS is being used and the Justice Department as well. Ayn Rand warned us, George Orwell warned us, and now Double Speak is on the ballot right next to Trump and those third party guys.

    • Its here already. There are so many rules, laws and regulations coming out of our out of control beauracricies that you are probably breaking laws every day and dont even know it.

      • Around 10 years ago, a judge here in Austin told a reporter that he did not believe he could drive the Interstate highway from north of the city limits to south of the city limits without breaking several laws. I was amazed at his perception and his honesty, surprised at nothing he said.

    • VA’s AG made his power move last year, before the budget was passed he was put in his place, VA now has more chances to have reciprocity with other states than before he acted stupid. Also they did away with 2 forms of ID to purchase anything with a threaded barrel, 21+ round mags, and think there were a couple of other things that required 2 forms of ID, everything only requires one.

      NOVA is the only problem, but the rest of the state rather likes firearms, I don’t foresee it getting worst in the near future, a lot of people flooded Richmond with calls, emails and in person to express their displeasure about the proposed change, those holding the purse strings wised up quickly. Governor if you are so scared of guns let’s take your VASP detail away by not funding them.

      Don’t judge the whole state by the morons in NOVA surrounding DC.

  7. And this is Australia, people. Practically a British commonwealth, with no 2nd Amendment or a history of telling tyrants to go f&ck themselves, there were still people who didn’t turn their guns in just because the .gov told them to. Same with Canada’s long gun registry. Why in the hell would anyone think in a million years that a more strict AWB and mandatory buy-backs and registration would ever work in the United States?

    • I’ve often wondered the same thing myself. Maybe more so than any other country in the world, defiance is a HUGE part of our national ethos. Hell, we told the most powerful nation in the world to FOAD when we didn’t like some (relatively petty) rules they wanted to force on us, and then backed up that defiance with violence. Liberals can’t admit that ANY of their ideas might be fundamentally flawed, so they ignore all of the inconvenient facts. Including America’s culture of defiance that guarantees the utter futility of any large scale gun ban.

      • To me, the greatest success of the AWB was it finally persuaded me to buy an AR. I’ll admit I was momentarily pissed when I discovered that it was meaningless, most iterations after that changed the name to something other than “AR15” because those were prohibited (is that stupid, or what?), dropped the flash suppressor (some dropped the threaded barrel altogether, others replaced with a muzzle brake (not “break”, guys!), and ground off the lug from the front sight/bayonet mount, continued to sell like that for the next 10 years. It was meaningless, here I wasted my money. Except, I liked the damn gun, so all is forgiven. Later, we somehow added 10-round mag limit (I don’t recall how) because the numbnutz don’t understand that there are tens of *millions* of 20- and 30-round mags, which will likely last forever. I have told grabbers that, and they cannot believe me, but at the National Matches at Camp Perry in 2002, 3, 4, I saw teenaged girls carrying their shiny new ARs with stainless crowned barrel and grinding marks where the lug used to be, through the street to the Army trailer to have the trigger weight certified prior to competition the next day. Sales never stopped. Meanwhile, for those not aware, a bayonet will only mount on a 20″ or a 14.5″ (I think) barrel, why a 16″ barrel is affected you’d have to ask someone else. The front sight was a one-size-fits-all item, included gas bloc, sight, and bayonet lug as a unit. Today we have a whole BUNCH of options, but then, if you wanted a 16″ AR, you had to buy a 16″ “Sporter” or whatever with the lug ground off. Stupidest law *EVER*!!!

    • Unlike Australia, Hillary`s government will go to extremes to enforce gun bans and or confiscation. They will not bother to give compensation, it will be turn in banned guns or take ten years in prison. There will be the use of informants ala East Germany. And if necessary the use of gun violence to make examples out of those who defy the bans.

  8. So they banned guns and it didn’t work. How stupid are the Aussies? All they had to do in the first place was to ban criminals. Oh, and maybe put up some signs declaring no crime zones.

  9. It’s all Asstralia’s attempt to comply with the UN’s agenda for 2030. (Our POS congress and senate are complicit too)

    After we defeat Hillary, we’ll get Trump to defund and deport the UN, if he won’t we’ll impeach the lot. I give the UN about a month sh_t itself in its new digs and we won’t hear any more of it for a good while.

    S T O P

    H I L L A R Y

    AND EVICT THE U.N.
    https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf

  10. ‘Although gun buybacks appear to be a logical and sensible policy that helps to placate the public’s fears,

    Fuck the public and their irrational, baseless fears. I’m sick of them.

    I’ve been trying to be on both sides of this issue, because I am a gun owner, but I work in a field dominated by left wing folks, so I know their minds. But a recent cop-lead active shooter response course I had to attend was the final straw. They put up the number 429 on the screen for how many had died. Someone asked “This year?!”

    No. that’s ever. Ever! Or as long as they’ve kept records, which is over a dozen years. All respect and sympathies to the dead and their families, but as a number, that is so statistically close to zero that I couldn’t even blow my nose with it.

    Meanwhile, 2,760 people are killed in automobile accidents in this country on average per month!

    But Armalite Rifles are the problem. Somehow.

    Fuck the public, fuck the media, fuck the politicians, and fuck the cops for playing along in order to gain power.

  11. And you should see the recent fuss over the Adler lever action shotgun, and in “rapid fire” lever action firearms in general.

    Probably from those whose only experience is in watching westerns.

    Anyone in the know already knows conventional bolt-action firearms are much faster to operate than a level action.

  12. If you think Australia never had any rebellions your very wrong. Most famous is Eureka and there were others but the authorities who were under orders to stop anything like American Revolution killed most of them
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Rebellion

    British settlement started here long after the American revolution as a place to dump convicts.

    I don’t like the current laws here and they were rammed through by federal government using the emotional excuse of 35 people being shot. A much bigger mass shooting then any in USA until the recent Florida nightclub event. Much larger in percentage terms out of the 18 million we were then

    The only thing that made it slightly bearable was the very high price paid for things

    As I have said here before it is easier to oppose than remove laws. No government or bureaucracy ever gives up power willingly.
    A majority of shooters here still not in any of the big organisations so far easier to ignore us

    I don’t imagine the current amnesty will do anything except maybe get rid of some old back of the cupboard inherited guns


    • RCC says:
      “If you think Australia never had any rebellions your very wrong. Most famous is Eureka…”

      I’m quoting from your link:
      “The rebellion lasted for less than half an hour and resulted in the deaths of at least 27 people, the majority of whom were rebels.”

      No offense intended to our Aussie friends, but I’m pretty sure as rebellions go, one that lasts a “less than half an hour” doesn’t really count.
      Rebellions generally require a little more time and effort – regardless of whether you win or lose.

      Still, I really like this Aussie song by the Seekers:
      I am, you are, we are Australian

  13. I just find it amusing, somewhere between double and triple that number would probably be close to the truth if the covering all classifications and not just SA, I know someone who ran and published the numbers a few years back and he came in the low 700K’s

  14. Tens of thousands of guns not turned in indicates tens of thousands of Aussies who understand that they have a god-given right to keep and bear arms, so they said “FVCK YOV” to the government. So why would anyone expect that they won’t just say the same thing again?

    Unless they have acquired a terminal illness and have no one to pass those guns on to.

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