Australia has no Second Amendment, no Fourth Amendment, no Fifth Amendment, no First Amendment. There are only a few rights actually protected by the Australian constitution, and they are weakly protected. But what about ours? From smh.com.au:
More than 80 illegally imported guns have been seized during raids across the country after a tip-off from US authorities.
The Australian Border Force seized the black market guns, as well as 43 firearm silencers and 37 kilograms of gunpowder, after raiding more than a dozen properties . . .
After receiving information from US authorities, Border Force investigators identified a large number of Australian customers buying “solvent trap” cleaning kits from a US-based website.
Items in the cleaning kits can be easily converted in sound suppressors, or silencers.
So an unidentified U.S. government agency is monitoring people who purchase solvent traps (which aren’t illegal and don’t require a license) and/or monitoring people who visit solvent trap web sites.
This unidentified agency or agencies sent the Aussies a list of people from Australia who purchased solvent traps. The Australian Border Force used the information to identify at least a dozen Australian homes to raid. What exactly did they find?
First, keep in mind Australians didn’t turn in all their guns during the infamous and mandatory Australian gun “buybacks” of 1996 and 2003. An estimated 80 percent of guns that were made illegal weren’t registered or turned in.
The article says that law enforcement seized more than 80 illegally imported guns. But the imprecision of such terms in the media is notorious.
Under Australian gun law, the air pistol in the upper left of the picture is treated the same as a real firearm. The laser training gun in the upper left may also be considered an illegal firearm, depending on the Australian state. (In New South Wales, the law treats computer code to print a toy gun the same as a real gun.)
The interchangeable use of “black market” and “illegally imported” in the article probably means that many or most of the guns seized were simply “not registered” — a serious offense in Australia
Back to the U.S. side of these arrests . . .
People have told me they don’t join the NRA or a local Second Amendment activist group because “they do not want to be on a list.” Too late.
Do you go to gun related sites on the Internet? Read gun related stories on establishment media? Purchase ammo or gun accessories with a credit card? Buy a hunting license? You are already effectively on a list.
All of that data is already collected and stored. If laws are passed to “deal” with gun owners, government officials can cross index and create such lists in a matter of minutes.
Bottom line: Americans have lost the battle for privacy. If gun owners want to protect themselves from unauthorized use of their firearms-related data they’ll have to remain vigilant, litigious and politically active.
©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.