Originally Posted by 5.56X45mm

Of course I voted Yes, I own firearms

What??? You????

I don't own many firearms since I have a rather nice collection available at work..

Originally Posted by 5.56X45mm

Senojekips was a legal law abiding citizen. He jumped through all the hoops and yet he was still punished because of some nutter. Registration leads to confiscation. Why should I give the government any information about my firearms? Oh, because the registration is for the safety of the children???? Nope.... History has proven over and over again that REGISTRATION LEADS TO CONFISCATION.

I have no doubt he is a law abiding citizen but as I do not know the Australian laws on these things I can not comment on whether he chose to get rid of his weapons because he didn't jump through government hoops to keep them or whether there just no way he could keep them I am sure he is more than capable of supplying us with those details.

I can however comment on New Zealand law and apart from building an appropriate storage system and agreeing to get permits to buy new weapons I have not noticed any attempt to confiscate weapons in fact I have had a great deal of support from out local authorities which includes fast tracking permits for weapons that were going to be destroyed otherwise.

I do know that since these laws were enacted (as a result of the 1990 Aromoana shootings) we have had no further incidents and that is all that really matters as for the rest well I can happily report that while I do not necessarily support or trust my government all the time I certainly do not fear them as it appears you guys do but perhaps that is one of the benefits of living in a small country.

So while I don't really care what gun control methods the US chooses (basically if you like the annual school shoot outs thats your business I know in New Zealand they are not so popular) I will fight tooth and nail to ensure that we don't try and emulate you because I like knowing that the best armed people in my community (next to me) is the police force and not the gang next door.

I am a human being with freedoms and rights. One such right is the right to keep and bears arms. That right is a higher right. It is not a right given to me by the government. It is a right that is given to me for simply drawing breath and being human. No government or person will strip me of those rights.

I know I don't read the bible as much as I should have but in the limited knowledge I have I don't recall the section on the right to bear arms and could of sworn the only place I remember seeing it was in the laws of various countries around the world which would indicate that it is a right given by governments unless of course you are claiming that these laws were written by [insert deity of choice here]?

Originally Posted by MontyB

I have no doubt he is a law abiding citizen but as I do not know the Australian laws on these things I can not comment on whether he chose to get rid of his weapons because he didn't jump through government hoops to keep them or whether there just no way he could keep them I am sure he is more than capable of supplying us with those details.

When the new laws were introduced, basically it made the ownership of all automatic and semi auto weapons illegal, plus there were other stupid provisions like the one that bans weapons with "pistol grips" etc.

Effectively that would have ripped the guts out of my military collection and left me with a couple of bolt action rifles. So I bit the bullet before the law was passed and got rid of them all. As I stated earlier, I was a licenced pistol shooter at the time and this made it necessary to be seen as absolutely clean. Pistol shooters attract a great deal of attention from the Licencing Branch anyway so there was no point in attracting further attention to myself.

Although I complied with the law, and still do, I will never forgive those responsible for this knee jerk reaction. I often wish that I had never registered my firearms in the first place, but.... like most people, when given the chance I try to be a law abiding citizen.

IMO It is gun laws such as ours that make otherwise honest men into criminals. No doubt there's plenty out there.

It seems your law changes were very different to ours, we have always had the ban on automatic weapons (well for as long as I can recall) but it was circumvented to a large degree by getting a collectors license, pistols have also been incredibly hard to get licensed but being a registered member of a pistol club made it possible to get pistols.

We have a lot of little impositions as well but nothing that really restricts my ownership or usage, I think the funniest one is a six monthly inspection by one of the local arms officers to ensure storage compliance that always ends up in a visit to a local police range to "test" things and an evening in the police bar.

The major change for us after Aramoana was the introduction of the Restricted weapons classification which effectively banned military style semi-automatics without a restricted license (basically a revenue gathering exercise for the government under the pretext of safety) and further security checks prior to getting a gun license along with stronger storage requirement.

IMO It is gun laws such as ours that make otherwise honest men into criminals. No doubt there's plenty out there.

I agree.

Originally Posted by major liability

Wow senojekips, if they robbed all those wonderful firearms from me I'd get to thinking maybe it's time to start the revolution.

Boycott is better than revolution.

so far I have a 16 gauge shotgun and a .22 rifle. And I just got an AK-47 for my birthday!!

When the new laws were introduced, basically it made the ownership of all automatic and semi auto weapons illegal, plus there were other stupid provisions like the one that bans weapons with "pistol grips" etc.

Thats right and even when you stored them at a gun club, you still had to hand them over.

Originally Posted by Kiwi

Thats right and even when you stored them at a gun club, you still had to hand them over.

It's been some time since a nutter went off the rails with a pistol grip. Mind you, if the pistol grip has a "strap" from the bottom back to the butt it ceases to be a pistol grip and then becomes a thumb hole stock.

Hmmmm.... legislators, what planet do they live on. Well, I think I know the answer to that also, it's called "Easy street". They figure, "We don't have to work, we've got jobs".

A nutter is a nutter and the can kill off other people without Autos or semis.

Franky if you where going to go off your face, using a high powered bow in the middle of the city is a better way to go, because one there is no sound plus many people would be too shocked to run for it. You can reload the bolts fast and do max damage.

One gun shoot people hit the decks.

Topic reminder: Who owns firearms or has fired them?