ADVOCATES OF STRICTER GUN LAWS KILLING AUSTRALIANS

No, I don't mean by virtue of their objections to Australians owning guns for self-protection or anything like that. I’m referring to something far more pervasive and insidious, about which there is next to no discussion or debate whatsoever. 

It’s the result of ideological obsession so all-consuming that its adherents would happily sacrifice human lives rather than address the very concerns they claim to be motivated by.

I’m talking about ego, about limited intellects, about people who have no place in productive public discourse on the topic of firearms ownership, and the people of influence and intelligence who nourish and give voice to the views of fools.

I'm talking about the media, the Australian Greens and the likes of Gun Control Australia, and an example of the fruit of the crops they sew can be seen in the press clipping below.

Clipping from the Adelaide Advertiser, April 6th, 2016

It’s a little grainy, so for your convenience here's a transcription...

“JOHN Howard, who introduced national gun control laws 20 years ago after the Port Arthur massacre, says the laws should be tightened.  

“Speaking on SBS’s Insight program to Alpha Cheng, son of NSW police employee Curtis Cheng who was shot dead last year by IS teen killer Farhad Jabar, the former Prime Minister said he’d “encourage sensible strengthening” of existing laws.

“I would have thought that everybody would agree, if 15 year-olds can get hold of weapons like that, there is something wrong with the laws,” Mr Howard said.” 

In essence, “gun laws are not 100% effective, so gun laws must be tightened up!”


This is the message of the social engineer and the media (sorry about the stammer) who claim to know a better way forward. 

It is unimaginative, uninspired, unhelpful and even worse, it's bloody irresponsible!

Tightening gun laws cannot, in and of itself, address gun crime. 

Yet whenever there’s a debate such as the SBS Insight program promised and failed to deliver, whenever a former Prime Minister is released momentarily from Coventry to bask in adulation, or when another gun related tragedy occurs, the ideologues trot out the same myopic solution – tighten-up gun laws.

It is this ideological obsession with keeping all the “gun control” eggs in one basket that puts lives at risk. 

It discourages the consideration and debate of other strategies that might address the shortcomings of “gun laws”.

“Gun control” and “gun laws” are two very different animals that society must harness together effectively if there’s to be progress in the minimisation of gun crime.

"Gun laws" are already very strict and indeed punitive for many, because they have their greatest impact on those who wish to own and use guns in a responsible and legal manner. 

Gun owners are sitting ducks, as it were, making them easy to control and this in turn allows advocates, politicians and the media to crow about the various impositions they’ve created in order to keep the community safe.

The community, having no real desire to think about the problem of gun violence beyond blaming responsible gun owners for their insecurities, will applaud the anti-gunners for persecuting the law-abiding. 

They will venerate their champions as saviours and visionaries, even though their crusades have accomplished nothing but division where it need not exist, and the creation and perpetuation of their own celebrity.  

They have accomplished nothing with regard to the mitigation of gun crime, because doing so effectively requires a genuine commitment and a degree of strategic thinking they’re just not up to.

“Gun control” is a complex, even daunting undertaking. It’s a combination of “gun laws” and other laws and initiatives aimed at the “control of guns”.

These other laws and initiatives are the things we pay little or no attention to. The media doesn’t discuss them with anything like the frequency it bleats about the need for stricter “gun laws”.

The Greens and Gun Control Australia are absolutely mute on the topic of “gun control”, placing 100% of their focus on “gun laws” instead. 

The reason for this is simple.  As strategic thinkers they are profoundly uninspired. They have no idea what to do or even what to suggest, so rather than have the spotlight drift over to someone who does, they cry “tighten gun laws!”

Gun crime will never be addressed for so long as we (Australians) are happy to entertain simplistic and failed solutions.

Australia will begin to address gun crime only when advocates begin to look at the bigger picture, including things like organised crime, illegal underground access to ‘orphan’ guns resulting from insufficient border security and customs checks, black market import loopholes including piecemeal mail-order and assembly, better detection of terrorist intent, tougher and perhaps even mandatory sentencing for gun crime, the confiscation of the proceeds of gun crime along with a litany of other as yet unidentified holes in the illegal firearms security net.

All of this requires the 'tightening' of laws and processes that don't relate directly to firearms at all. 

Interestingly, the only stakeholders currently recommending this course are.....yes, you guessed it, law abiding firearms owners and their representatives such as the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party and the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia et al. 

These are the only true “gun control” advocates active in Australia at the present time. 

Five barriers to effective gun control

The likes of the Greens, Gun Control Australia and society’s social media simpletonry are simply fanatics consumed by fear and obsessed with stricter “gun laws”. 

They are little picture thinkers, frustrated by their own intellectual mediocrity, basking in the warm glow of hero worship given them by people who are impressed by any activity or loud voice, as long as “somebody is doin’ sumpfink.”

They are correct in only one regard.  Australia’s very strict gun laws have failed to deliver the result they promised and people expected.

The statistical evidence for this has been clear and available for years, yet those who claim to be the only people you can trust, ignore and even bury the evidence to retain their popularity and the perks that come with it.

The Griffith University report "A systematic review of quantitative evidence about the impacts of Australian legislative reform on firearm homicide Aggression and Violent Behavior" by Senior Research Fellow, Dr Samara McPhedran is just one example of evidence which, although essential to informed debate and policy development, the Greens and Gun Control Australia supporters will neither see nor share.

Why? Because it reveals that Howard's gun laws accomplished zip!

Strict gun laws will always fail to deliver unless complimented by equally strict laws in a plethora of seemingly unrelated areas habitually overlooked.

Until that concept is understood and espoused by the public, the media and especially by the multitude of faux gun control lobbyists, they will remain high on the list of those responsible for Australia’s continuing gun violence and crime.

Anyway, I’ll get outaya way now.... 

©gmallard2016 all rights reserved 

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