What no one seems to be asking is the obvious question: how the fuck did these attackers get hold of guns? This is Australia folks not fucking America. We have laws to stop exactly this. How, where and by whom were they circumvented? More importantly: how can we prevent this from happening again?
Hunting with firearms is not illegal in Australia. They are relatively common in rural areas, they have their use. All you need is someone stealing guns one way or another and then smuggling them to the city. It’s not like the police will stop you to rummage through your belongings… unless you drive like an absolute reckless imbecile.
I don’t think you can prevent this from happening again. You can definitely take measures to make it more difficult to happen again, ie. police cordoning an area where there is a religious gathering. But there is always a way. You can’t control everything. When it’s not guns it’s a car driving over people or explosives or poisoning or whatever.
Their gun laws are strict, compared to America. But the notion that Europeans and other first-world citizens can’t have guns is far from the truth. Hell, some laws are looser. Most (all?) Europeans can buy a suppressor, and I gather those are mandated in some places, or at least you’re frowned upon for not having one.
One of my favorite GunTubers was visiting and interviewing in a central European gun shop (forget the country, sorry) and I was like, “Well, shit. They can buy about anything we can buy!”
America doesn’t have a gun problem. America has a culture problem. I could tell you a dozen stories of idiot Americans not understanding the laws we already have. Many of those idiots are dead or in prison.
What no one seems to be asking is the obvious question: how the fuck did these attackers get hold of guns? This is Australia folks not fucking America. We have laws to stop exactly this. How, where and by whom were they circumvented? More importantly: how can we prevent this from happening again?
Hunting with firearms is not illegal in Australia. They are relatively common in rural areas, they have their use. All you need is someone stealing guns one way or another and then smuggling them to the city. It’s not like the police will stop you to rummage through your belongings… unless you drive like an absolute reckless imbecile.
I don’t think you can prevent this from happening again. You can definitely take measures to make it more difficult to happen again, ie. police cordoning an area where there is a religious gathering. But there is always a way. You can’t control everything. When it’s not guns it’s a car driving over people or explosives or poisoning or whatever.
You can get semi automatic hunting weapons relatively easily, same as in New Zealand.
The problem is, there’s enough people with a legitimate use case of firearms that banning them completely isn’t possible.
This is the exact question i asked my spouse when told it was in Australia. I was under the impression that their gun laws are fairly strict?
Their gun laws are strict, compared to America. But the notion that Europeans and other first-world citizens can’t have guns is far from the truth. Hell, some laws are looser. Most (all?) Europeans can buy a suppressor, and I gather those are mandated in some places, or at least you’re frowned upon for not having one.
One of my favorite GunTubers was visiting and interviewing in a central European gun shop (forget the country, sorry) and I was like, “Well, shit. They can buy about anything we can buy!”
America doesn’t have a gun problem. America has a culture problem. I could tell you a dozen stories of idiot Americans not understanding the laws we already have. Many of those idiots are dead or in prison.