Last week the NRA aimed its sights (metaphorically speaking, of course) at Australia’s gun laws. More specifically, the post-Port Arthur massacre legislation that included a national gun buyback confiscation which effectively disarmed most of Oz’s law-abiding firearm owners. The focus was put on Australia’s gun laws by our esteemed President who held them up as an example to be emulated here during an interview after the Charleston church shooting . . .
As they quote the would-be disarmer-in-chief, referring to the Port Arthur massacre,
“It was just so shocking—the entire country said, ‘Well, we’re going to completely change our gun laws,’ and they did. And it hasn’t happened since.”
In the NRA’s estimation,
To say that this is simply a reductive or naïve portrayal of events does not go far enough; it is almost certainly disingenuous. What occurred in Australia in 1996 was not just a stricter gun law—it was a mass confiscation. To paint it as the product of a national consensus is an insult to those Australians who were furiously opposed to being disarmed by their government.
And they conclude with this warning:
This is the gun-control regime that our president applauds for its decisive resolve. It robbed Australians of their right to self-defense and empowered criminals, all without delivering the promised reduction in violent crime. Australia’s gun confiscation is indeed a lesson to America: It is a sign of what is to come if we hold our rights lightly.
Of course, Australia didn’t have the right to keep and bear arms enshrined in their constitution. Many have argued that their civilian gun-grab accomplished little, if anything in terms of crimes prevented and lives lost. And it’s easy for those on the other side (as well as some on this one) to dismiss the NRA’s warning as just more sky-is-falling rabble rousing by an org that needs to portray the wolf as constantly at the door in order to keep the membership motivated (and donating).
But some have noted a change in the political landscape where gun control is concerned. The left has moved even farther to port. Where gun control used to be a third rail issue that candidates avoided like the plague, it’s now being actively promoted on the stump – at least by the inevitable Hillary Clinton. So given the president’s pumping for Aussie-style hope and change combined with Hillary’s vow to take on the big bad gun lobby if elected, is the NRA crying wolf?