Ziad wrote:I get your point Member-Deleted, I suppose my mind is still in the general public mindset. I suppose my second point was moe related to currently crims only use handguns and rifles, I haven't heard of semi being used anywhere, if they are easily obtainable than there IS a chance they canbe stolen and used, thus results in larger damage. I don't think the mentality he is of solving issues by taking the gun to school/work and shooting them, so that's not a concern 4 me.
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Mate, that is a very good description, "the general public mindset," and a very easy mindset to take up, given the massive amount of bias and misinformation being put out by the anti gun politicians, media and others, their campaign is based on their need to see us disarmed, as such they use sound good, emotional, fact void rhetoric.
In relation to firearms being stolen and being subsequently used in a crime, here are some more facts, in 2016 there were around 2,890,000 registered firearms in Australia, in 2016 there were around 816,000 licensed shooters in Australia, approximately 1,600 firearms are stolen annually, which equates to 0.05% of the 2,890,000 registered firearms, of the 1,600, 0.08% or 12.8 firearms have subsequently been found to be used in a crime.
There was an incident a while back where a large number of Glock handguns were sent by post to Australia, they were intercepted at a post office in Sydney and were destined for the criminal market, less than 3% of containers coming to Australia are checked and our borders are extremely porous, the lack of security and checking at out ports is amazing, I know people who legally import firearm parts through the mail, the packages are clearly marked as such, yet they are rarely checked or questioned as to the legality, it is very easy for criminals to get their hands on firearms, without having to rely on stealing from LFO's, generally long arms are not the preferred choice of criminals, handguns are much easier to conceal.
Another point worth noting relating to firearms in the hands of LFO's is, in 1979, there were 685 deaths as a result of a firearm, this rate has been in steady decline to 2016, where there were 211 deaths as a result of a firearm, this reduction despite the fact that there are now many more legally owned firearms in the hands of licensed shooters, which shows we are not the cause of gun crime.
I hope the information above helps clear up some of your concerns, as I said, the anti's are winning the information battle, mainly because of the, "might happen", type of scare tactics and other emotional sound good misinformation they like to spread, and the fact the media rely on this sensational scary rhetoric to sell their products.
I realise there are many new shooters coming on board, which is great to see, so before we can hope to educate the general public on the facts, we probably should start within our own ranks, to this end I am going to put up a post in this section in another thread, which might provide some basic information on firearm laws and what we would like to see changed and the reasoning behind these wishes.