They will never get rid of firearms anyware as long as they sell mills and
lathes they will be made.


"Geoffrey Barnes" wrote in message
news
Americans seem to have no concept of what it is like to live in a
largely gun free society. They view safety as having a gun, and hoping
that if it comes to the worst they will be able to shoot the other guy
before they get shot. In Australia, you don't have a gun and go around
pretty confident that no-one will get shot at all.

I do, Andrew, but then again I lived in Canberra for 15 months... an no
Canberra jokes! Yes, it is a bush capital, and yes, they do close all the
restaurants at something around 8:00 PM, but we really liked it there!

I understand what you are saying, but it's pointless to explain it to most
U.S. citizens. The right to "keep and bear arms" was written into our
very
constitution when our nation was founded. Which would be fine, except
they
authors quite frankly put enough additional and vaugely-worded verbage
into
the second ammendment that their true intent will never be fully
understood.
As a result, there are fewer hot-button issues for Americans than this
one.
It's bigger and far more passionate than Pauline Hanson ever even tried to
be.

You are correct in many of your assertions, of course. Australia, and the
UK, and nearly all other western nations have very strict gun control, and
yet they have basically the same crime rates at the United States. In
fact,
total violent crime rates in all these nations is more or less at the
same.
People attack one another just as much in Australia as they do here. The
only noticible difference between these nations relates to the number of
deaths caused by such attacks. You are just as likely to be attacked here
in Pittsburgh as you are in Melbourne, but you are far more likely to die
as
a result of your wounds. Firearms are the reason behind this difference,
of
course, but a good 50% of my fellow citizens will dispute this
relationship
until thier dying breath. If you don't believe me, watch what happens in
the replies to this posting.

I must admit that there is a certain logic to the belief that having an
armed populace will reduce crime. The theory beind this belief is obvious
and from all outward appearances, quite sound. But theories have to be
supported by scientific data to be valid, and the data have never really
supported this one.