By Alex Thomas
In the wake of yet another horrific mass shooting at an American school, multiple prominent liberal news outlets have once again begun to push for Australian-style gun laws in America which would include gun confiscation under the threat of violence.
Despite the fact that for years gun control groups and anti-gun liberals have claimed that they only want “common sense” gun control, news outlets such as Salon and Slate are once again openly praising Australia’s controversial 1996 gun control law, a law that included a mandatory gun buyback program under the threat of government force.
After the Oregon school shooting, highly trafficked liberal news outlet Slate republished an article praising Australia’s gun control law that was originally released in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre.
In the days since the recent shooting the article has become the top-read report on the site as well as linked by dozens of other liberal news outlets. (emphasis mine)
On April 28, 1996, a gunman opened fire on tourists in a seaside resort in Port Arthur, Tasmania. By the time he was finished, he had killed 35 people and wounded 23 more. It was the worst mass murder in Australia’s history.
Twelve days later, Australia’s government did something remarkable. Led by newly elected conservative Prime Minister John Howard, it announced a bipartisan deal with state and local governments to enact sweeping gun-control measures. A decade and a half hence, the results of these policy changes are clear: They worked really, really well.
At the heart of the push was a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-automatic shotguns and rifles, or about one-fifth of all firearms in circulation in Australia.
The country’s new gun laws prohibited private sales, required that all weapons be individually registered to their owners, and required that gun buyers present a “genuine reason” for needing each weapon at the time of the purchase. (Self-defense did not count.) In the wake of the tragedy, polls showed public support for these measures at upwards of 90 percent.
Like most other articles praising Australia’s gun laws, the author of the Slate article completely leaves out the fact that the buyback program was mandatory which means that anyone who refused to go along with the program was subject to government raids and or violence.
Another article published in the wake of the Oregon shooting, this time on liberal clickbait rag Salon.com attempts to attack the NRA by using Australia as a shining example of gun control.
Remember, these are the same liberals who claim that they do not want to take away all Americans guns while literally writing articles promoting a gun law that not only included gun confiscation but also banned purchasing guns for use in self-defense!
The author of this direct attack on the 2nd Amendment even reveals that yes, we are absolutely talking about completely banning guns outright.
So if Americans aren’t using their guns for self-defense, does it make sense to do away with the charade of “sensible gun restrictions” talk and just get real about banning at least some guns outright?
Of course, America is awash in guns with approximately one gun for every U.S. citizen, but would examining Australia’s model on guns, as President Obama has suggested, be instructive for our gun violence crisis?
“When Australia had a mass killing … it was just so shocking the entire country said, ‘Well, we’re going to completely change our gun laws,’ and they did. And it hasn’t happened since,” the president recently told comedian Marc Maron.
[…]
The National Firearms Agreement and Buyback Program, as the package of legislation was called, prohibited the sale of shotguns as well as semiautomatic and self-loading rifles. Waiting periods and safety courses became mandatory for new gun owners and limits on the sale of ammunition were imposed.
Most importantly, perhaps, the legislation allocated $250 million for a gun buyback program, allowing for newly outlawed rifles and shotgun to be destroyed by the Australian government. Ultimately more than 640,000 firearms were either purchased by the Australian government or voluntarily handed in.
So did the confiscation work?
A 2012 study estimated 260,000 illegal guns were still in circulation Down Under, and a more recent report from Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp (I can sense the eye rolls) found that 37,000 new gun licenses were issued in the last five years, reportedly resulting in no increased gun related crimes.
It worked in Australia so let’s go ahead and push for it here in America regardless of what that pesky “living document” called the Constitution says.
The two articles quoted above are an extremely small sample size of the plethora of articles across the mainstream media promoting confiscation by government force while still trying to trick naive Americans into believing all they want is “common sense” reform (there’s that buzzword again).
Make no mistake, when outlets like Salon and Slate call for Australian gun control in America they are calling for gun confiscation under the threat of government coercion and conflict as well as openly admitting that they are willing to risk an all-out civil war in order to achieve this agenda.
An outstanding report in the Federalist that was published in June of this year details what gun confiscation in America would actually require while destroying the myth that liberals just want to stop mass shootings.
Australian-style gun control, in other words, would require government force and coercion on a massive scale. Now, progressives don’t understand the nature of coercion, so maybe they would not see police action to enforce gun confiscation as coercion. Or, perhaps, they actually do understand that their ideal form of gun control requires it, which is why they keep speaking in code and talk about “Australia” and not “wholesale confiscation.”
Let there be no doubt. Gun confiscation would have to be administered by force of arms. I do not expect that those who dismissed their fellow citizens for clinging bitterly to their guns are so naive that they imagine these people will suddenly cease their bitter clinging when some nice young man knocks on their door and says, “Hello, I’m from the government and I’m here to take your guns.”
As though somehow those who daily espouse their belief that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to allow citizens to resist government oppression and tyranny will not use the Second Amendment to resist what they see as government oppression and tyranny. Or maybe they are so naive.
Many on the Left—and for this they are to be commended—have voiced their opposition to the increasing militarization of America’s police. Yet only a militarized police could enforce an Australian gun-control scheme in the United States. To take arms from men requires men with arms. There’s no other way to do it.
Yet because of the numbers of guns and men with guns in this country, any policy to remove those guns will inevitably depend on some measure of coercion, quite possibly a heavy measure.
Does anyone honestly believe this country has the will or resources to seize 60 to 105 million firearms from 105 to 160 million Americans? “Progressives believe it,” I hear you answer. Yes, but the ones who do, believe this dishonestly.
And, as I noted above, a mandatory gun confiscation program in America (which is literally being called for throughout the mainstream media at this moment) would most likely lead to a new civil war. (emphasis again mine)
When someone says the United States ought to adopt Australia’s gun laws as its own, he is really saying the cause of gun control is so important that he is willing to impose these laws even at the cost of violent insurrection.
Make no mistake, armed rebellion would be the consequence. Armed men would be dispatched to confiscate guns, they would be met by armed men, and blood would be shed. Australia is a valid example for America only if you are willing for that blood to be spilled in torrents and rivers. To choose Australia is to choose civil war.
At this point the anti-gun agenda has completely and fully revealed itself as having absolutely NOTHING to do with “common sense” gun control and everything to do with full-scale gun confiscation and the eventual complete banning of legal gun ownership in America.
The liberal media and their globalist masters, by continually claiming that they only want to stop mass shootings while at the same time openly calling for confiscation, have also revealed that they truly do believe that the American people are mindless sheep who will believe anything they hear on TV.
Going forward it is extremely important for all Americans to understand what media pundits and gun control groups are actually calling for when they bring up Australia while also using calls to model US laws on the country as direct proof that there is nothing common or sensible about the “reforms” they are pushing.
Image Credit: AK Rockefeller/Flickr
About the Author
Alex Thomas is a reporter and opinion journalist who has worked in the alternative media for over three years. His work has been featured on numerous news outlets including Infowars and RT. You can contact him here. Alex is an exclusive weapon of Intellihub.
Read more articles by this author here.
Feel free to post this article in part or in full, leaving the byline and all original links intact.
Understand their motivation. The guilty are afraid of being apprehended, prosecuted, and punished for their economic crimes against humanity, so they will spend trillions of shekels to disarm us. They disarmed and murdered megadekamillions in the 20th century.
judaism101.proboards dot com/thread/43/jews-gun-control
Why do you think U.S. police receive Israeli Military Training?
central bankers
Good reason not to register your guns!
last monday I got a great McLaren F1 since geting a check for $18350 this last 5 weeks and-a little over, 17-grand lass-month . it’s certainly the coolest job I have ever had . I actually started 10-months ago and practically straight away was bringing in minim..um $97 p/h . read the full info here
.nt….
>➤➤➤➤➤➤ http://www.DailyFinanceReportz.ml
!!#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#!!
91 people die everyday in car accidents on American roads. 33,000 people die every year on American roads. Who is the real killer? McDonald’s and Cars. Dont buy into the disarming.
There hasn’t been Mass shooting in 18-19 yrs. Yes, they have had shooting but by their definition in Australia 4 or more shot by 1 person. The 4-5 shootings in last 18 yrs were 3 or less killed by 1 person. The US has 200 killed everyday thru out the country.
You didn’t write about new laws. The new gun laws included a ban on many types of semi-automatic, self-loading rifles and shotguns. Each gun required a separate permit with a 28-day waiting period, and Australia created a national firearms registration system. Guns could only be sold by licensed firearms dealers, and limits were placed on the amount of ammunition that could be sold. Firearm owners had to be 18, complete a safety course, and have a “genuine reason” for owning a gun, such as sport shooting, hunting, or occupational requirements (“personal protection” did not count as a legitimate reason). Licenses expired every five years, and could be revoked if police found “reliable evidence of a mental or physical condition which would render the applicant unsuitable for owning, possessing or using a firearm.”
The Buyback did get a lot of guns.& NO raiding homes.The new laws also included a national gun-buyback program for newly prohibited weapons. The program cost $230 million, which was raised through a small health-insurance tax increase, and ultimately more than 700,000 firearms were purchased by the government or voluntarily handed in. Some firearms weren’t turned in, and in 2012 an estimated 260,000 illegal guns were still in circulation.
Australia just wanted the senseless killing to stop. They valued human life more than guns, which is a nice thought.
U.S. could take some cues from other countries’ successful efforts to combat gun violence — such as banning assault weapons, expanding background checks, and increasing waiting periods — without implementing gun-control laws as strict as Australia’s. “When you’re talking about reducing motor vehicle accidents, you don’t only rely on seat belts, you don’t only on speed limits, you don’t only rely on highway design, you don’t only rely on motor vehicle standards, but you have a set of them,” Peters told ABC News. “Similarly, they’re a set of measures that together constitute regulation to prevent gun violence.”
post all states just dont pick the ones you want
“At the heart of the push was a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-automatic shotguns and rifles, or about one-fifth of all firearms in circulation in Australia.”
The term “buyback” is a euphemism for “compensated confiscation” – as it was used in Ausseland.
The usual question here is: “How does a government ‘buyback’ something it never owned in the first place?”
An auto manufacturer can “buyback” from its customer a vehicle it sold them and has become a “lemon”;
a vacuum cleaner manufacturer can “buyback” from its customer a vacuum cleaner that they have been unsuccessful at repairing (another “lemon”);
a firearms manufacturer can “buyback” a firearm that they determined to be defective (the Taurus recall and “buyback” of their PT-111 Millennium as one such example);
etc.
But in each case above the entity “buying back” the item actually owned and sold the item they are “buying back”.
Trust me on this: the “Australian Method” of gun confiscation desired (demanded?) by POTUS candidate Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton does NOT include monetary compensation – she is intending confiscation by brute force wherever noncompliance or resistance is encountered.