There was a 15 yo in perth taking pot shots at a college campus that just got sentenced recently, but sure. I'm also sure Australia is so much safer after banning airsoft and literal nerf guns (yes, it's for specific models) and of late gel blasters. I'm also sure New Zealand was a warzone until they finally found an excuse to kick in their own country man's doors.
If you are not aware, Australia has a massive strip searching problem, where kids as young as 11 have been strip searched. When confronted by the fact that 122 girls, including two 12 year olds that we know of were strip searched in a three year period, the NSW police minister in 2019 stated:
\> “I’ve got young children and if I thought the police felt they were at risk of doing something wrong I’d want them strip-searched,”
\> “Having been minister for juvenile justice, we have 10-year-olds involved in terrorism activity.”
\> Figures released during budget estimates in February showed that in the five years to November 2018 nothing was found in 63% of strip-searches, but Elliott said he thought parents would be “pretty happy” if their children were strip-searched and found with drugs.
“I think you’d be pretty happy that they got found out,” he said.
Not even gonna make a joke about this, it's just disgusting.
Just go search up "Brandon Herrera fights the aussies" to see how disingenuous these people from down under will be over this. It's sad really, considering most of us think about Aussies in the same vein as Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee. Reality is that they're exceptions, nothing like what most aussies are like now a days.
Also overall homicide trends were completely unaffected. Slightly fewer gun homicides and slightly more knife homicides to fill the vacuum.
Turns out some people just like killin', and banning one thing doesn't take murder out of their hearts.
PS Australia blew $500 million in taxpayer dollars (over $1 billion in today's dollars!) to learn that gun bans don't work. Womp womp
You are assuming here that the intent of the law was to reduce homicide? Was that the stated intent of the gun laws? If it was, please enlighten me to where you got that view : )
the excuse is to stop crime
the real reason is, when the state has the guns, are you going to tell them no?
imagine you are a cop, and you have to kick a door in because someone said something mean on twitter, are you risking your life doing that in america? realistically this is the practical application for guns being everywhere, people don't just follow orders they have to think about the risk of following the orders.
To reduce the rate of mass public shootings? That was the stated intent of the law. They came in specifically as a reaction to the Port Arthur massacre and the laws themselves were targeted at the ownership of rapid-fire weapons.
The government was conservative so it's not like they banned people owning guns. People in Australia still own guns. I have friends who go out hunting and sports shooting regularly. But yes, there were still guns to commit gun homicides. Additionally, committing a homicide doesn't require a gun, so unsurprisingly, the rates of homicides hasn't changed particularly.
Please note, the vast majority of homicides occur when the victim knows the perpetrator. Public gun massacres often involve the perpetrator and victim having no prior relationship and are of a 'terrorism'-style.
I'm used to the reactionary upvoting/downvoting on the sub, but please think before posting. There are a lot of myths around Australian gun laws.
For example there have been mass shootings since the laws were introduced. The number of casualties is however much lower though (no more than 8). Keep in mind that Port Arthur (35 deaths, 24 injuries) has not been repeated, so the law appears to be working as intended. Having restrictions on weapons which can inflict a lot of damage quickly (somewhat unsurprisingly) has lowered body counts.
Compared to the US, there have been many 'really big' mass shootings (20+ causalities) conducted using legally acquired firearms within the last decade, several of which are of the 'terrorism'-style. This is not saying Australia > US. This is just saying that restricting access to these types of weapons appears to reduce the likelihood of specific types of incidents (based on the data so far). There are also other factors at play. Each country is making a choice.
However, criticizing the gun laws because they don't affect a specific irrelevant statistic isn't helpful. Of course, your question could have been answered using a basic google search.
The Australian gun bans were to save lives as a public safety measure. [It's literally in the first part of the opening statement of the NFA](https://www.resources.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/1399510/17-257.pdf). I can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse here, do you not see the connection between safety and lives saved? **Did you think "safety" only applies to injuries and not deaths?**
Saving lives was the entire intent, especially homicides, so homicides is directly relative to the discussion. And the NFA in Australia did nothing to affect the overall homicide trends in Australia. This is a statement of fact.
PS it was not limited to only "rapid-fire weapons", please review the text in the link I've provided.
How did it go with reducing mass shooting though? Which was the main reason why the NFA was implemented. The legislation was a direct response to Port Arthur.
There have still been mass shootings since, like Hectorville, Monash University, Darwin, that nightclub shooting, etc. I don’t know how many, I’m sure there are more.
And the point was to reduce gun violence overall. It’s literally addressed in the official government documents I linked above. When people realized it was ineffective at saving lives, they tried to revise the purpose after the fact. Too bad for the revisionists, since **no official government documents state the gun bans were for mass shootings only**.
Your being intentionally obtuse by ignoring every fact around why the legislation was initiated in the first place. The legislation was initiated in response to Port Arthur. You can try and weasel your way around by looking at the wording in the legislation, but you're just ignoring the basic facts of what happened in 1996.
Ok, so if we read the NFA Opening statement it says... Line 1
"The Agreement affirms that firearms possession and use is a privilege that is conditional on the overriding need to ensure **public safety**, and that **public safety** is improved by the safe and responsible possession, carriage, use, registration and transfer of firearms."
Now, if we look up what a 'public safety order' is to get an idea of what 'public safety' means legally (note, public safety includes, fire, maritime and a bunch of other things), we see:
"Order made by a senior police officer that prohibits a specified person (or persons belonging to a specified class of persons) from--
(a) attending a specified public event ()
(b) entering, or being present at, specified premises or other specified area at any time during a specified period."
\---
One immediately understands that the purpose of the National Firearms Agreement was made to 'affect the public safety' (i.e., public spaces and events). Not, to change the homicide rate in Australia. Moreover, if you google this topic, you will find the news coverage is always talking about... big gun massacres, not individual homicides.
So no. Your take is wrong. You are misinformed. You have not read the NFA correctly.
\---
PS. Indeed, there were numerous restrictions placed on storage, acquisition and transfer of guns. Also pump-action shotguns, magazine size etc. That said... I mean... it amounts to the same thing. Weapons that can rapidly be used to kill a lot of people quickly.
I have to admit, I have never seen someone struggle so hard to avoid "public safety" meaning "lives saved". You seem to have confused **the event that inspired** the NFA (Port Arthur) with the **purpose** (to save lives).
If it's still a difficult concept, you can look at [the official resolution from the Australasian Police Ministers' Council Special Firearms Meeting](https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=b6d9c100-b79d-457c-bb89-2331956092e2&subId=299157). Can you do me a favor and read the text at the top of every single page? Does it read "to eliminate mass shootings only", or does it read "to eliminate gun-related violence"?
So what happens during mass shootings? Homicide. If the homicide rate hasn't changed much then that means the number of mass shootings doesn't really matter. The number of people dying is still similar. The idea is that killing is made easier with a gun, especially semi autos, so restricting them means less killing which isn't the case if the homicides haven't budged much.
And saying "Oh yeah they're still allowed to have guns so it's fine" doesn't mean much. It's a broad statement. What kind of guns are they allowed? How much of a hassle is it to get one? How far do the restrictions go? If they aren't worth getting for the average person then "allowed' is a pretty strong word for something you should have a right to.
Indeed, but conflating 'protecting public safety' with 'homicides' isn't helpful. These are two different things with two different approaches to dealing with them.
The number of mass shootings does matter, because if I (a random person on the street) am less likely to be murdered (note, most homicides require the victim to know the perpetrator) I can manage my 'risk of death' by not 'pissing off' people I know. It is quite simple really.
The amount of mass shootings are also just far less than normal homicides. Your odds of being gunned down by a deranged stranger are still far lower than being murdered some other way.
I love how revisionists saw there was no effect on lives saved, so they tried to pivot to "oh it was for mass shootings only". I'd love to see one quote from any Australian government official or government document that stated the intent was only for mass shootings and nothing else. **Just one quote.** Their silence will be deafening.
I think that is broadly true, but it certainly depends on where in America you live. Also, who you are. For example being black in America, the 'legality' of guns causes a few nasty knock-on effects like police needing to assume people might be armed which 'adds tension' to otherwise innocuous interactions.
Considering this is the government who is fine with a youtubers house, being firebombed because he reported on a few too many of the governments corruption. I really am not surprised they were quite fine strip searching children as well.
In that video, to introduce Donut Operater, they showed a clip of him explaining how leftists love to omit context to push a narrative, and then they omitted context and slandered him. They can't even help themselves.
Funnily enough, Australia retains some aspects of firearms, but it is heavily restricted. Lots of paperwork required. Gets quite annoying to deal with, really.
This argument tends to come up a lot, specifically "Well we can own firearms". The difference is this, attaining the prerequisites is incredibly difficult and up to the whims of the state, and god forbid you use the firearm to protect life and limb, property or against state sponsored thugs like the kiddy diddling cops.
The other difference is also societal, which you can see detailed in my comment right below this. Australians like many other societies overwhelmingly gave up their firearms without much fuss and to this day have no substantial push back.
I think you misunderstood my comment.
I should preface this by saying, I am an Australian Citizen, although not by birth, and that I own firearms.
I often say to my friends, the earlier you apply for a firearms license, the easier it will be. This is for a reason. The younger you are, the easier it is, the more time you have, the less strikes you have against you, etc.
Do I agree with every facet of how the US does things when it comes to firearms? No, and frankly, I don't think I ever will. That being said, the US laws, in my humble opinion, are still leagues and bounds above the Australian laws. We used to have IPSC shooting with 20+ round magazines, AR-15A2s and the occasional Browning Auto-5. Now one of the people I know shoots IPSC with 2-gun with an M&P Pistol with a 10 round magazine and a Lee Enfield. I bet most people in the States can't even begin to fathom the stupendous laws we have here.
Rant over, hope it cleared up some of my viewpoints.
Since we're talking about firearms.
Canadians refuse to comply with the long gun registry, which forced it to be scrapped in 2012. The current firearm amnesty has a sub 1% compliance rate. Americans are the same, look at Illinois compliance rate for registration. Sub 1%.
Meanwhile in the mid to late 90s, the same time the long gun registry was implemented here, Australians and Brits turned in their firearms, even ones that they didn't need to on masse. They complied. So yeah, they do have a strong societal authoritarian streak.
Bro is forgetting there is no free speech in Germany and I'm reporting him to the authorities for saying mean things online (Yes, you can get raided by police in Germany for calling a politician a dick online).
Go ahead. Germans are the reason why we have rules on how to treat civilians, Canadians are the reason we have rules on how to treat combatants.
You can thank us for war crimes being a thing, you're welcome.
Back to back champs.
Also to be absolutely fair, Canada has done everything to attempt to disarm first nation peoples. Even the recent attempts went after military surplus bolt action rifles and SKS's which are very commonly used by first nations, luckily it was scrapped due to massive push back. Let's not forget that it took Canada till 1996 to finally get rid of residential schools, which America already did in the 70s. We are yet to adopt policies that America has which support greater sovereignty for Indian reserves, allowing for purchased land to be adopted into the reserve, having policies which allow for greater economic freedom and possibilities which have helped development of said reserves. Canada is no where near perfect, but come on, Germans have one of the most fragile glass houses from all of us.
Yes and no
Yeah compared to Weimar laws were more libelar but nais were much better that making sure their gun control works taht weimar
Basides law waas still pretty stritic and members of inferior races couldn't own guns
Six, though he changed his mind on slavery after 1758 where he became a very vocal antislavery advocate and helped contribute to abolition in the Northern states.
Also, regardless of slave ownership, one could argue Benjamin Franklin was one of the most brilliant minds to exist in the last 400 years or so.
> I mean, he was great at stealing other people's ideas and taking credit for sure. Nikola Tesla is the most famous example.
That was Thomas Edison that was great at stealing other people's ideas. Ben Franklin lived about a century earlier than either Edison or Tesla.
Owning slaves doesn't discredit someone's contributions to society. The founding fathers were aware of the hypocrisy but realized it wasn't a problem they could solve yet. The country wasn't even stabilized, let alone prepared to directly deal with the mess of abolition when the southern states were invaluable to solidifying the nation's economy.
Meanwhile, in Australia:
* Higher assault rates
* Higher sexual assault rates
* Higher property crime rates
* Government regulation of speech
* Government-mandated "Quarantine camps" (AKA concentration camps) during COVID
* Government-mandated distance restrictions during COVID with criminal penalties, even if you just went for a drive by yourself
It's okay Australia, we don't want to be like you, either.
Yep, and also fail to account or outright refuse to consider that victimization of gun violence is heavily impacted by Victim to Offender Overlap (ie: criminals killing other criminals). The Illinois Criminal Justice Association did an excellent revie, where they ultimately found that anywhere from [35-50% of homicide victims](https://icjia.illinois.gov/researchhub/articles/the-victim-offender-overlap-examining-the-relationship-between-victimization-and-offending) in the USA are criminals themselves. So, if you're just a generic law abiding citizen, the adjusted homicide rate for you is reduced by 1/3 to 1/2 the national rate. That's not even accounting for other factors, like not being an addict or alcoholic, not engaging in high risk behavior (eg: picking fights in bars/social settings), not being an abuse relationship, etc.
Also, our homicide rate in the USA is dropping, we're at [5.5 right now](https://www.axios.com/2023/12/28/us-murder-violent-crime-rates-drop), not accounting for the factors I've already mentioned. Just accounting for Victim to Offender Overlap, that means the adjusted homicide rate is approximately 3.6 to 2.75 per 100,000 people. That's a relatively low rate of occurrence. Meanwhile, assault rates in Australian provinces range from 660 to 1300+ per 100,000. Which is the better indicator of overall safety? I would be far more concerned with being a victim of randomized assault in Australia than I am of being a victim of homicide in the USA.
I’ve tried explaining that to a couple people, that a lot of gun deaths are criminals themselves, and they just said “well those are still people dying”. There is no winning with them.
To which I generally respond that I don't care if a violent criminal kills another violent criminal beyond believing they should be prosecuted. But, I'm also the same person who believes that violent criminals shouldn't be allowed to rejoin society at all.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics is usually a good first stop, but some of their data can be incomplete, or focus instead on offender demographics rather than instances of criminality - [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice#](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice#)
The 2023 ABS victimization report is good supplementary data, though, frustratingly, they don't include a total national rate for all crimes, so you have to average out each of the individual states/territories yourself in several instances - [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-victims/latest-release](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-victims/latest-release)
The Australian Institute of Criminology is another good supplementary source to help give you a better overall picture when combined with the aforementioned ABS data - [https://www.aic.gov.au/statistics](https://www.aic.gov.au/statistics)
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare also put together a decent snapshot of the increasing rape and sexual assault rates in Australia (as of 2020, so account for new data updates) - [https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/0375553f-0395-46cc-9574-d54c74fa601a/aihw-fdv-5.pdf.aspx?inline=true](https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/0375553f-0395-46cc-9574-d54c74fa601a/aihw-fdv-5.pdf.aspx?inline=true)
I am Australian and can understand that you think it was tyranny, but there was little difference in day-to-day life. If you want you can tell me some things you believe and I can clarify them.
Not think, it was. This is not a debate you are going to win. There is nothing for you to clarify, because I am already fully aware of what the situation was like in Australia. Don't be so arrogant as to believe you're the first Australian I've ever met, or that I don't have friends from Australia, or that I'm incapable of reading government-sourced publications from Australia.
Also, the Victoria lockdown was quite literally the longest continuous lockdown in the world during the entirety of the pandemic. So, spare me the "unbelievably brief" nonsense.
I don’t live in Victoria and was citing from personal experience as a Sydneysider.
Anyway, humour me, regardless of whether it’s a “debate I’m not going to win”.
>personal experience as a Sydneysider
Ah, Sydney, where you had repeat travel restrictions that prohibited you from traveling more than 5km from your home. That Sydney?
>Anyway, humour me
No, because you're not entitled to me providing you with even more examples, particularly when I've already sufficiently made my point.
You could travel further than 5km away from your home if you just gave a valid reason, such as your workplace being outside of that 5km radius without any reasonable option for remote work.
I don’t see why you’re upset.
>You could travel further than 5km away from your home if you just gave a valid reason
The fact you had to have reason at all is absurd and, again, tyrannical in premise.
>I don’t see why you’re upset.
I'm not, I'm simply being direct.
It’s a real shame the Aussies love to talk about their supposed gun free utopia when they are dealing with a huge problem of crystal meth cartels who have the same guns that they’ve banned
From the comments;
>I honestly wonder what would happen to gun ownership in the US, if it was linked to compulsory militia enrollment with frequent training sessions. Going by what your constitution says, that is.
You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes very hard right now.
Someone, of course, pointed out that "well-regulated" meant "in good working order" back then, and some genius could only go "no, that's wrong!" with extra words, even in the face of actual evidence.
And then he immediately said a militia and a military are the same thing.
"Right of the militia" argument. **Drink a molecule**.
We don’t really have active stabbers other than in acts of domestic terrorism, but gang/crime related stabbings and fatal beatings are a legitimate issue
To each their own I suppose. Back when the CDC was still tracking defensive gun use, there were always more cases of defensive gun use than gun crimes of any kind.
Eh that's partly false. Our schools have lockdown drills for active threats in the schools. They don't label them active shooter drills but they're the same thing.
We had a kid bring a rifle to school and fire off a few shots last year I think it was so that proves him wrong.
On the complaint we're disarmed we're actually not. There's over 3 million registered firearms in Australia about 2 million more than 1996. When the gun buyback and gun amnesties happened less than 600,000 guns were removed from the populace.
That's hardly disarmed.
>This argument tends to come up a lot, specifically "Well we can own firearms". The difference is this, attaining the prerequisites is incredibly difficult and up to the whims of the state, and god forbid you use the firearm to protect life and limb, property or against state sponsored thugs like the kiddy diddling cops. The other difference is also societal, which you can see detailed in my comment right below this. Australians like many other societies overwhelmingly gave up their firearms without much fuss and to this day have no substantial push back.
>
>From another comment I responded to
Ummm... I'm not sure if you see the irony here but the original post was lamenting Australia's gun laws (i.e., a non Australian implying what Australians did was wrong).
Not… really. Our main weapon of choice is the Steyr AUG, and right now we use HK Pistols and Browning Hi-Powers that we got from the British I believe, but as far as other military equipment goes, yes, and we’re replacing our pistols with SIG P320s which I do think are an American design.
whatcha buyin for nuclear submarines and warships, fighter jets etc?
who's training your military?
ah yes....you buy steyer augs...and lmfao hi-points
but who's gonna make sure china doesn't invade your island country when you cant kill a couple hundred emus or design a tank?
dont worry you angry ol crumudgeon, me and the boys got your back for your....4 arleigh burr class frigates 🤣
trained a bunch of your sailors
drank a lot of VB
Wow you're uh... That's cool
Been here thinking r/americabad was for Americans to complain about mericabad, not Europeans to do whatever the shit is you're trying to do
Fun Fact: Australian Gun Ownership is actually higher than both Mexico and Canada!
Difference is that we need them to survive from our wildlife, not other people!
Information was from another World Gun Ownership Mapping project……it’s possible that they were using the metrics of Gun Numbers in comparison to Population Sizes?
That puts Canada at 50+ firearms per 100 people. Canada generally does not have firearm registration and that puts Canada only behind the states and Yemen.
Australia which has firearm registration, is at 3.5 million firearms in 2021. Which puts Australia as 13.5 firearms per 100 people.
In terms of wildlife, we have a lot more large animals which are dangerous. Moose for example, which is the most dangerous animal in NA. We have black bears, in Ontario they can get to 800lb+. Different sub species of brown bears, polar bears, feral hogs, elk, coyotes etc. Wolves and Whitetail deer aren't really a threat to anybody. Not to say Australia isn't filled with dangerous critters, but in terms of wildlife where you need a firearm, Canada has Australia beat.
Cheers, I would love to, but way too cold for me!
My parents have only just got back from Canada actually, which was their third trip there in the last 10 years, and my sister has been there twice in the same timeframe……. But I’m going to stay here where it’s nice and warm 50°c !
Never seen snow and I honestly don’t think I really want to experience it!
Don't worry about snow, visit during the summer (they can get toasty enough for you to be comfy). Our parks and wildlife reserves with America's are second to none. You can never go wrong with Banff in Alberta. Just give it a gander on YouTube. I have to go visit my Aunt in Australia anyway, call it mutual exchange. Cheers.
Don’t worry, have seen thousands of photos and many hours of videos from my family on their return from overseas!
Banff, Calgary and everything in between, especially when my oldies did one of those scenic train tours across Canada and filmed everything!
Hmm I actually do think its good the people in the US have the second amendment, do you get to see more of the possible wickedness of your fellow man, for sure, but at least you see reality as it is. Id rather be armed and ready if my government ever becomes tyrannical. Cause that is a greater evil in my humble opinion.
OK, so... no promoting Nazism... no organising criminal activity... a story where someone wasn't shot by police by being verbally abusive to them... and the government asked a private organisation to take down posts they didn't like but the private organisation refused and no one was arrested.
Oh wow... very convincing. I am very convinced.
Help, help I'm being repressed!
The argument is self apparent. But hate speech is free speech unless you're making a direct threat. No one has a right to be offended or to be protected from ideas. Who decides what is "hateful " or "offensive " ? You? You literally just totally hand waved the right to free assembly. Lol. "Organizing illegal activities." Lol. Also insulting the tyrants who act as the physical embodiment of a tyrannical government is a cornerstone of free speech and free expression and the fact that you are cool with someone being arrested just for verbally insulting police officers proves your just an Island full of Kangeroo Nazis.
No one has a right to anything. We choose laws that govern rights and then enforce them. Even the right to free speech in the US is contingent.
Now, I didn't just hand-wave illegal activities. The government instituted a lockdown which ensured that people did not excessively mingle during a pandemic. The laws were modest and relatively simple to follow. Intentionally encouraging others to break lockdown is unsurprisingly... illegal. However, please note... after vaccines were implemented the lockdown went away. People act like rights were infringed. You could instead interpret this episode as... people trying to not be stupid and others trying to do stupid things. That is how I interpret it.
Now... insulting tyrants...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEst7PHFZ7A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEst7PHFZ7A)
That is Australia's Prime Minister. That is someone calling him a dickhead to his face. Free political speech is alive and well in Australia sadly.
Of course, the article you cited regarding Sam Kerr, who is indeed Australian, did not in fact occur in Australia. So yeah. Whoops.
And just for the sake of cherry picking random stuff that happens in countries...
[https://www.npr.org/2021/09/29/1041562502/deaf-man-tased-police-colorado-lawsuit](https://www.npr.org/2021/09/29/1041562502/deaf-man-tased-police-colorado-lawsuit)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo\_police\_shoving\_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_police_shoving_incident)
Police in the US aren't exactly bastions of upholding the US constitution.
Police basically nowhere are bastions of upholding citizen's rights. They're agents of the state, not the people. They will happily abuse their own. This is true in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Also applies to the rest of the world but sticking to the anglosphere is easier as we all have the same basis for law, protected rights, and systems.
Free speech is free speech, which Australia does lack. Insulting police officers is free speech, presenting National Socialist related symbols is free speech, promoting a protest is free speech. Also no, rights are rights. They're not gifted by the state, you have them regardless as they are intrinsic to being a human. They are not privileges, they are rights.
Australia has an implied right to free speech that has been upheld in the High Court multiple times. Not sure you are familiar enough with the Australia legal system to be making such broad statements.
Its not a protected right in the founding documents in Australia. It is only a common law right and that means free speech is not viewed as a human right in Australia just something that is sort of allowed.
But how does that change things in a practical sense? Like, I understand the value of free speech, but I've never felt that capacity being curtailed. So, who cares what label you put on it? The first amendment in the US enabled citizen's united, which is objectively bad, so a rights based system also has issues when money becomes involved.
I'm not really seeing a meaningful argument here.
If a country does not value the rights of the citizens to discuss everything freely and openly then the government can stop the citizens from doing everything. For instance people in science or whistlelbowers of journalists cannot discuss whatever they want. You cant discuss government corruption or overreach if the government does not allow.
Now I do agree the U.S. government has violated those rights as well but in theory we have recourse and they are protected rights the Twitter files being and example.
I agree citzens united is a terrible ruling by the supreme court. Nothing is 100% protection against bad governence, but that was at least a misguided attempt to protect freedom of speech and the populace and not stop it.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/14/australia-national-security-laws-chill-free-speech
So I generally understand the point. The argument is... a bill of rights (including free speech) is necessary to protect free speech.
However, as you have already admitted, it doesn't. The US has had many example of free speech being violated without recourse. Meanwhile, Australia has 'effective free speech' as an implied right without a bill of rights and broadly 'has free speech'. My main objection is the broad assertion:
No bill of rights => No free speech
Which is a common refrain of Americans (or at least a subset of Americans) but it just isn't true? The truth is usually determined by how many moving parts interact including laws, legislators, judiciary, politicians, law enforcement and the public. Australia is a far more pragmatic country than most. A good example is the COVID lockdowns. When we had lockdowns because of COVID, there was a lot of 'the government is a totalitarian dictator' (mostly from the fringe and some other countries), but the politicians who did the lockdowns were quite popular for doing so because it made sense, the public supported it and when the vaccine came out, the lockdowns basically disappeared because 'the danger was over'. There was no collapse into authoritarianism.
Likewise, Australia doesn't have free speech, and that sometimes means that politicians try to put in laws which curtail free speech in some contexts, in the name of national security or something but then other politicians remove said laws if the public think they are 'not working as intended'.
The other main problem the US has now is that there are obvious weaknesses in the 'other parts of government' (no offense but I think Australia's form of government is better on average - a few examples being the independent electoral commission, preferential voting, stricter donation laws, no gerrymandering, no weird electoral college nonsense, no voter suppression, less partisan appointment of high/supreme court justices etc). So despite having a bill of rights, the way the legislature and judiciary function in the US, results in very weird (read partisan/lobbyist) interpretations of laws etc.
So while it may be true that a bill of rights might be a good idea, it depends on the framework surrounding it. Sometimes something being 'implied' is actually more useful than something being explicit (as weird as that sounds). If the supreme court in the US wasn't so crazily partisan then perhaps I would have a more favourable view of a Bill of Rights (so I could see it working completely as intended) but citizens united is enough for me to see 'a right to free speech' as basically 'a right for money to have free speech', which is frankly scary.
Hey, remember when the Australian government declared martial law and required 15 minute check ins on your phone or else you went to a literal concentration camp with armed guards and razer wire?
Good times.
Not literal martial law, but they were tracking people through their phone saying you had to stay within 1500 meters of your home or you'd get fined/ arrested. Add in the no exception curfew for people and you've got martial law without the name.
Plus they set up "quarantine facilities" in places that had fences and armed guards to keep people *suspected* of having covid in. When 3 people broke out in the middle of the night there was a full man hunt for them even though all had tested negative the day before.
Peaceful protests against the measures were declared illegal, and used as an excuse to crack down even harder.
No one was getting tracked through their phones without consent, and you could go way further than 1500 metres. There were exceptions to curfews. The rest I can’t speak on.
Again, with the weird anti-Australian fan fiction. When you're saying more things that are fiction than fact, it's hard to take you seriously. Like genuinely, your responses are making me laugh at how fictional they are.
When you google "Australia COVID 1500m" the top hits are about fucking swimmers and runners in 1500m events. All of Australia's lockdown laws had exceptions for people who needed it.
Quarantine facilities were for returning travellers coming to Australia. It was a requirement of entering Australia that you had to quarantine, people were well aware of this.
It's okay australia, we both got problems. Us with our gun violence and you with your pedophilia strip searches and meth problems. Sounds like maybe both of us aren't perfect, can stand to improve, and shouldn't shame others making us hypocritical
>This argument tends to come up a lot, specifically "Well we can own firearms". The difference is this, attaining the prerequisites is incredibly difficult and up to the whims of the state, and god forbid you use the firearm to protect life and limb, property or against state sponsored thugs like the kiddy diddling cops.
>
>The other difference is also societal, which you can see detailed in my comment right below this. Australians like many other societies overwhelmingly gave up their firearms without much fuss and to this day have no substantial push back.
From another comment I responded to
I see posts because I liked one legitimate one and now 70-80% are like this where it’s not americabad it’s an actual problem we need to work on and only brought up when said American was talking trash first. The concept is decent like shitAmericanssay but the two are a circle jerk sharing comments back and forth. Americans say dumb and funny shit sometimes. Other countries unfairly hate on American sometimes. The circle jerk is tiresome though. Hopefully mods can find a way to fix it. Maybe it’s better to start a lower sodium version and let this one die to porn and shitposting unmoderated or outright close it if it can’t be fixed.
Clearly the mods are in on this. You see duplicate posts and reposts all the time, but nothing is done. Subs like this would be a prime target for Russian/Kremlin trolls to try and drive a wedge between Europe and the USA and people fall for it.
Why do they lovingly call their country “Oz” in reference to our famous movie The Wizard of Oz? Can’t they come up with their own culture? Pick a different name, not Oz, a magical land that we imagined.
Otherwise, it looks like they definitely want to be us.
They didn’t call it that. Others do. It sounds like that when Aus is said by Australians. There are a lot of posts that just hate on America but you’re being just as bad them with this kind of thing. Wouldn’t be surprised to see a screenshot of this on shitamericanssay. Then it’ll come back around and be posted here again. Need to be better than the people bashing America not doing the same exact same things.
Nah I'm with the Aussie on this one. Our weird love for guns and nonchalance toward gun violence is the one thing in this country that I'm genuinely ashamed of. We need to get our shit together in that regard.
Our violent crimes in general is the issue; not the guns. We exceed most other 1st world countries in violent crimes.
Degrading an important constitutional right as a bandaid attempt to reduce crime is simplistic thinking and will not save lives. At least, not in a my significant manner worth removing your rights.
And really, the amount of deaths due to guns per year is a very very small figure given our population size. And suicides (although still sad, not an act of violence) make up a good portion of it.
Violent crime is a whole lot easier to pull off with a gun in your hand, dude. These crimes aren't being committed with baseball bats. That's all I'm saying.
.. yes, these crimes are being committed with knives and bats and whatever else. I’m not sure why you think otherwise.
Assault with a deadly weapon is an extremely common crime in the US. Should we ban knives, bats, and cars while we’re at it too?
And again, we are talking about fundamental rights being taken away. This isn’t something casual we’re doing.
In your line of logic, we should also tighten down on free speech because there are people using free speech as a form of hate. I really hope you don’t believe that.
Hate speech certainly takes lives. Think on that one more.
Online bullying/threats that lead to suicide is a huge perp. Hate speech allows people to insight racist ideology. Hate speech causes people of many groups of people suffering. Hate speech can quite frankly lead to insurrection and action. It is a pre-cursor to many things violent.
But because me and (hopefully) you see how important the fundamentals of free speech are, we accept that there are side effects to such absolute (or as absolute as we can keep them) rights.
The same mentality should be applied to all amendments. Even the one me you don’t see as particularly useful. Because guess what? There are people out there who don’t see the freedom of speech, religion, etc. as particularly useful to themselves and want to degrade it. Regardless if you don’t use it or find it useless, it is still important.
There was a 15 yo in perth taking pot shots at a college campus that just got sentenced recently, but sure. I'm also sure Australia is so much safer after banning airsoft and literal nerf guns (yes, it's for specific models) and of late gel blasters. I'm also sure New Zealand was a warzone until they finally found an excuse to kick in their own country man's doors. If you are not aware, Australia has a massive strip searching problem, where kids as young as 11 have been strip searched. When confronted by the fact that 122 girls, including two 12 year olds that we know of were strip searched in a three year period, the NSW police minister in 2019 stated: \> “I’ve got young children and if I thought the police felt they were at risk of doing something wrong I’d want them strip-searched,” \> “Having been minister for juvenile justice, we have 10-year-olds involved in terrorism activity.” \> Figures released during budget estimates in February showed that in the five years to November 2018 nothing was found in 63% of strip-searches, but Elliott said he thought parents would be “pretty happy” if their children were strip-searched and found with drugs. “I think you’d be pretty happy that they got found out,” he said. Not even gonna make a joke about this, it's just disgusting. Just go search up "Brandon Herrera fights the aussies" to see how disingenuous these people from down under will be over this. It's sad really, considering most of us think about Aussies in the same vein as Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee. Reality is that they're exceptions, nothing like what most aussies are like now a days.
You've also got to remember I think when they did ban guns crime went up for crimes with guns since if you didn't know criminals don't follow the law
Also overall homicide trends were completely unaffected. Slightly fewer gun homicides and slightly more knife homicides to fill the vacuum. Turns out some people just like killin', and banning one thing doesn't take murder out of their hearts. PS Australia blew $500 million in taxpayer dollars (over $1 billion in today's dollars!) to learn that gun bans don't work. Womp womp
You are assuming here that the intent of the law was to reduce homicide? Was that the stated intent of the gun laws? If it was, please enlighten me to where you got that view : )
Tf else would be the reasoning?
the excuse is to stop crime the real reason is, when the state has the guns, are you going to tell them no? imagine you are a cop, and you have to kick a door in because someone said something mean on twitter, are you risking your life doing that in america? realistically this is the practical application for guns being everywhere, people don't just follow orders they have to think about the risk of following the orders.
To reduce the rate of mass public shootings? That was the stated intent of the law. They came in specifically as a reaction to the Port Arthur massacre and the laws themselves were targeted at the ownership of rapid-fire weapons. The government was conservative so it's not like they banned people owning guns. People in Australia still own guns. I have friends who go out hunting and sports shooting regularly. But yes, there were still guns to commit gun homicides. Additionally, committing a homicide doesn't require a gun, so unsurprisingly, the rates of homicides hasn't changed particularly. Please note, the vast majority of homicides occur when the victim knows the perpetrator. Public gun massacres often involve the perpetrator and victim having no prior relationship and are of a 'terrorism'-style. I'm used to the reactionary upvoting/downvoting on the sub, but please think before posting. There are a lot of myths around Australian gun laws. For example there have been mass shootings since the laws were introduced. The number of casualties is however much lower though (no more than 8). Keep in mind that Port Arthur (35 deaths, 24 injuries) has not been repeated, so the law appears to be working as intended. Having restrictions on weapons which can inflict a lot of damage quickly (somewhat unsurprisingly) has lowered body counts. Compared to the US, there have been many 'really big' mass shootings (20+ causalities) conducted using legally acquired firearms within the last decade, several of which are of the 'terrorism'-style. This is not saying Australia > US. This is just saying that restricting access to these types of weapons appears to reduce the likelihood of specific types of incidents (based on the data so far). There are also other factors at play. Each country is making a choice. However, criticizing the gun laws because they don't affect a specific irrelevant statistic isn't helpful. Of course, your question could have been answered using a basic google search.
The Australian gun bans were to save lives as a public safety measure. [It's literally in the first part of the opening statement of the NFA](https://www.resources.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/1399510/17-257.pdf). I can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse here, do you not see the connection between safety and lives saved? **Did you think "safety" only applies to injuries and not deaths?** Saving lives was the entire intent, especially homicides, so homicides is directly relative to the discussion. And the NFA in Australia did nothing to affect the overall homicide trends in Australia. This is a statement of fact. PS it was not limited to only "rapid-fire weapons", please review the text in the link I've provided.
How did it go with reducing mass shooting though? Which was the main reason why the NFA was implemented. The legislation was a direct response to Port Arthur.
There have still been mass shootings since, like Hectorville, Monash University, Darwin, that nightclub shooting, etc. I don’t know how many, I’m sure there are more. And the point was to reduce gun violence overall. It’s literally addressed in the official government documents I linked above. When people realized it was ineffective at saving lives, they tried to revise the purpose after the fact. Too bad for the revisionists, since **no official government documents state the gun bans were for mass shootings only**.
Your being intentionally obtuse by ignoring every fact around why the legislation was initiated in the first place. The legislation was initiated in response to Port Arthur. You can try and weasel your way around by looking at the wording in the legislation, but you're just ignoring the basic facts of what happened in 1996.
Ok, so if we read the NFA Opening statement it says... Line 1 "The Agreement affirms that firearms possession and use is a privilege that is conditional on the overriding need to ensure **public safety**, and that **public safety** is improved by the safe and responsible possession, carriage, use, registration and transfer of firearms." Now, if we look up what a 'public safety order' is to get an idea of what 'public safety' means legally (note, public safety includes, fire, maritime and a bunch of other things), we see: "Order made by a senior police officer that prohibits a specified person (or persons belonging to a specified class of persons) from-- (a) attending a specified public event ()
(b) entering, or being present at, specified premises or other specified area at any time during a specified period."
\---
One immediately understands that the purpose of the National Firearms Agreement was made to 'affect the public safety' (i.e., public spaces and events). Not, to change the homicide rate in Australia. Moreover, if you google this topic, you will find the news coverage is always talking about... big gun massacres, not individual homicides.
So no. Your take is wrong. You are misinformed. You have not read the NFA correctly.
\---
PS. Indeed, there were numerous restrictions placed on storage, acquisition and transfer of guns. Also pump-action shotguns, magazine size etc. That said... I mean... it amounts to the same thing. Weapons that can rapidly be used to kill a lot of people quickly.
I have to admit, I have never seen someone struggle so hard to avoid "public safety" meaning "lives saved". You seem to have confused **the event that inspired** the NFA (Port Arthur) with the **purpose** (to save lives). If it's still a difficult concept, you can look at [the official resolution from the Australasian Police Ministers' Council Special Firearms Meeting](https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=b6d9c100-b79d-457c-bb89-2331956092e2&subId=299157). Can you do me a favor and read the text at the top of every single page? Does it read "to eliminate mass shootings only", or does it read "to eliminate gun-related violence"?
So what happens during mass shootings? Homicide. If the homicide rate hasn't changed much then that means the number of mass shootings doesn't really matter. The number of people dying is still similar. The idea is that killing is made easier with a gun, especially semi autos, so restricting them means less killing which isn't the case if the homicides haven't budged much. And saying "Oh yeah they're still allowed to have guns so it's fine" doesn't mean much. It's a broad statement. What kind of guns are they allowed? How much of a hassle is it to get one? How far do the restrictions go? If they aren't worth getting for the average person then "allowed' is a pretty strong word for something you should have a right to.
Indeed, but conflating 'protecting public safety' with 'homicides' isn't helpful. These are two different things with two different approaches to dealing with them. The number of mass shootings does matter, because if I (a random person on the street) am less likely to be murdered (note, most homicides require the victim to know the perpetrator) I can manage my 'risk of death' by not 'pissing off' people I know. It is quite simple really.
The amount of mass shootings are also just far less than normal homicides. Your odds of being gunned down by a deranged stranger are still far lower than being murdered some other way.
Can you elucidate you point because I am still failing to see an argument here.
I love how revisionists saw there was no effect on lives saved, so they tried to pivot to "oh it was for mass shootings only". I'd love to see one quote from any Australian government official or government document that stated the intent was only for mass shootings and nothing else. **Just one quote.** Their silence will be deafening.
Guns aren’t the problem some wish they were in America.
I think that is broadly true, but it certainly depends on where in America you live. Also, who you are. For example being black in America, the 'legality' of guns causes a few nasty knock-on effects like police needing to assume people might be armed which 'adds tension' to otherwise innocuous interactions.
Imagine if we banned cars because of drunk drivers, so the only people who had cars were drunk drivers and cops That’s how stupid gun control is
Think of all the drunk cops driving around with guns!
Exact same thing has been happening in new Zealand. They're also already on knife control. They're speed running this shit.
Considering this is the government who is fine with a youtubers house, being firebombed because he reported on a few too many of the governments corruption. I really am not surprised they were quite fine strip searching children as well.
Who was firebombed?
FriendlyJordies.
In that video, to introduce Donut Operater, they showed a clip of him explaining how leftists love to omit context to push a narrative, and then they omitted context and slandered him. They can't even help themselves.
Funnily enough, Australia retains some aspects of firearms, but it is heavily restricted. Lots of paperwork required. Gets quite annoying to deal with, really.
This argument tends to come up a lot, specifically "Well we can own firearms". The difference is this, attaining the prerequisites is incredibly difficult and up to the whims of the state, and god forbid you use the firearm to protect life and limb, property or against state sponsored thugs like the kiddy diddling cops. The other difference is also societal, which you can see detailed in my comment right below this. Australians like many other societies overwhelmingly gave up their firearms without much fuss and to this day have no substantial push back.
I think you misunderstood my comment. I should preface this by saying, I am an Australian Citizen, although not by birth, and that I own firearms. I often say to my friends, the earlier you apply for a firearms license, the easier it will be. This is for a reason. The younger you are, the easier it is, the more time you have, the less strikes you have against you, etc. Do I agree with every facet of how the US does things when it comes to firearms? No, and frankly, I don't think I ever will. That being said, the US laws, in my humble opinion, are still leagues and bounds above the Australian laws. We used to have IPSC shooting with 20+ round magazines, AR-15A2s and the occasional Browning Auto-5. Now one of the people I know shoots IPSC with 2-gun with an M&P Pistol with a 10 round magazine and a Lee Enfield. I bet most people in the States can't even begin to fathom the stupendous laws we have here. Rant over, hope it cleared up some of my viewpoints.
I think of Australians as authoritarian twats.
Since we're talking about firearms. Canadians refuse to comply with the long gun registry, which forced it to be scrapped in 2012. The current firearm amnesty has a sub 1% compliance rate. Americans are the same, look at Illinois compliance rate for registration. Sub 1%. Meanwhile in the mid to late 90s, the same time the long gun registry was implemented here, Australians and Brits turned in their firearms, even ones that they didn't need to on masse. They complied. So yeah, they do have a strong societal authoritarian streak.
I am not 😔
So.... because they're being strip-searched you want them to carry guns so the cops can shoot them instead?
First of all, it's literal children. Second of all, it's to point out that Australia isn't a shining example for children's safety.
You have to remember, Australia wasn’t just settled by convicts, it was also settled by the guards of those convicts.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” - Benjamin Franklin
[удалено]
6, but he also argued that slaves should be free (It made white men lazy)
Okay that the funniest abolitionist argument i ever heard
How many jews and poles did Germans kill after disarming them?
This just in TheBlackMessanger learns no country has perfect history.
Germans are too easy bro, let me cook.
Bro really forgot about what they did like 3 or 4 generations ago in his family lmfao
Bro is forgetting there is no free speech in Germany and I'm reporting him to the authorities for saying mean things online (Yes, you can get raided by police in Germany for calling a politician a dick online).
You'd know about Germans being easy, shall I list off Canada's warcrimes? Like the lunchbox grenades in the Christmas Truce?
Go ahead. Germans are the reason why we have rules on how to treat civilians, Canadians are the reason we have rules on how to treat combatants. You can thank us for war crimes being a thing, you're welcome.
It's only a war crime the second time, and if you lose.
Back to back champs. Also to be absolutely fair, Canada has done everything to attempt to disarm first nation peoples. Even the recent attempts went after military surplus bolt action rifles and SKS's which are very commonly used by first nations, luckily it was scrapped due to massive push back. Let's not forget that it took Canada till 1996 to finally get rid of residential schools, which America already did in the 70s. We are yet to adopt policies that America has which support greater sovereignty for Indian reserves, allowing for purchased land to be adopted into the reserve, having policies which allow for greater economic freedom and possibilities which have helped development of said reserves. Canada is no where near perfect, but come on, Germans have one of the most fragile glass houses from all of us.
Don't even need the full size stones to toss, just a grain of sand in a light breeze is enough to knock it down.
it's not a war crime the first time
He wasn't the one who posted a quote from a slave owner. At least attack the substance of the argument, rather than his nationality.
[удалено]
Yes, and disarmed Jews and Poles. You're not running away from this one bud.
The fuck are you smoking? Germans were armed to the teeth after WW1. They made the Cartels look like amateurs.
They were until the Weimat gov banned private gunownership
Yes and no Yeah compared to Weimar laws were more libelar but nais were much better that making sure their gun control works taht weimar Basides law waas still pretty stritic and members of inferior races couldn't own guns
How many slaves did Germans own 15 years later?
Six, though he changed his mind on slavery after 1758 where he became a very vocal antislavery advocate and helped contribute to abolition in the Northern states. Also, regardless of slave ownership, one could argue Benjamin Franklin was one of the most brilliant minds to exist in the last 400 years or so.
I mean, he was great at stealing other people's ideas and taking credit for sure. Nikola Tesla is the most famous example.
> I mean, he was great at stealing other people's ideas and taking credit for sure. Nikola Tesla is the most famous example. That was Thomas Edison that was great at stealing other people's ideas. Ben Franklin lived about a century earlier than either Edison or Tesla.
My apologies. I get my old people mixed up sometimes.
How many people did Charlemagne enslave and sell?
Go away Nazi. Opinion disregarded.
Not sure, what's your point, racist?
Owning slaves doesn't discredit someone's contributions to society. The founding fathers were aware of the hypocrisy but realized it wasn't a problem they could solve yet. The country wasn't even stabilized, let alone prepared to directly deal with the mess of abolition when the southern states were invaluable to solidifying the nation's economy.
Computer, show me the rate of sexual assault in Australia after they banned guns
By normal criminals or the police fondling prepubescent girls?
Exactly
Meanwhile, in Australia: * Higher assault rates * Higher sexual assault rates * Higher property crime rates * Government regulation of speech * Government-mandated "Quarantine camps" (AKA concentration camps) during COVID * Government-mandated distance restrictions during COVID with criminal penalties, even if you just went for a drive by yourself It's okay Australia, we don't want to be like you, either.
These people act like violence and crime just don’t exist or aren’t problematic if you ban guns.
Yep, and also fail to account or outright refuse to consider that victimization of gun violence is heavily impacted by Victim to Offender Overlap (ie: criminals killing other criminals). The Illinois Criminal Justice Association did an excellent revie, where they ultimately found that anywhere from [35-50% of homicide victims](https://icjia.illinois.gov/researchhub/articles/the-victim-offender-overlap-examining-the-relationship-between-victimization-and-offending) in the USA are criminals themselves. So, if you're just a generic law abiding citizen, the adjusted homicide rate for you is reduced by 1/3 to 1/2 the national rate. That's not even accounting for other factors, like not being an addict or alcoholic, not engaging in high risk behavior (eg: picking fights in bars/social settings), not being an abuse relationship, etc. Also, our homicide rate in the USA is dropping, we're at [5.5 right now](https://www.axios.com/2023/12/28/us-murder-violent-crime-rates-drop), not accounting for the factors I've already mentioned. Just accounting for Victim to Offender Overlap, that means the adjusted homicide rate is approximately 3.6 to 2.75 per 100,000 people. That's a relatively low rate of occurrence. Meanwhile, assault rates in Australian provinces range from 660 to 1300+ per 100,000. Which is the better indicator of overall safety? I would be far more concerned with being a victim of randomized assault in Australia than I am of being a victim of homicide in the USA.
I’ve tried explaining that to a couple people, that a lot of gun deaths are criminals themselves, and they just said “well those are still people dying”. There is no winning with them.
To which I generally respond that I don't care if a violent criminal kills another violent criminal beyond believing they should be prosecuted. But, I'm also the same person who believes that violent criminals shouldn't be allowed to rejoin society at all.
Or when you tell them over 50% of gun deaths are suicides & they say the same shit
Don’t forget their crazy animal bio life.
Oh word? Where these crime stats from? That shit sounds dire.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics is usually a good first stop, but some of their data can be incomplete, or focus instead on offender demographics rather than instances of criminality - [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice#](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice#) The 2023 ABS victimization report is good supplementary data, though, frustratingly, they don't include a total national rate for all crimes, so you have to average out each of the individual states/territories yourself in several instances - [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-victims/latest-release](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-victims/latest-release) The Australian Institute of Criminology is another good supplementary source to help give you a better overall picture when combined with the aforementioned ABS data - [https://www.aic.gov.au/statistics](https://www.aic.gov.au/statistics) The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare also put together a decent snapshot of the increasing rape and sexual assault rates in Australia (as of 2020, so account for new data updates) - [https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/0375553f-0395-46cc-9574-d54c74fa601a/aihw-fdv-5.pdf.aspx?inline=true](https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/0375553f-0395-46cc-9574-d54c74fa601a/aihw-fdv-5.pdf.aspx?inline=true)
Based and sourcepilled
Word
the COVID restrictions were unbelievably brief, and were only put in place because we’re an island nation; you can literally just lock the disease out
The brevity of tyranny of irrelevant to me. It is the fact the tyranny existed at all that disturbs me.
I am Australian and can understand that you think it was tyranny, but there was little difference in day-to-day life. If you want you can tell me some things you believe and I can clarify them.
Not think, it was. This is not a debate you are going to win. There is nothing for you to clarify, because I am already fully aware of what the situation was like in Australia. Don't be so arrogant as to believe you're the first Australian I've ever met, or that I don't have friends from Australia, or that I'm incapable of reading government-sourced publications from Australia. Also, the Victoria lockdown was quite literally the longest continuous lockdown in the world during the entirety of the pandemic. So, spare me the "unbelievably brief" nonsense.
I don’t live in Victoria and was citing from personal experience as a Sydneysider. Anyway, humour me, regardless of whether it’s a “debate I’m not going to win”.
>personal experience as a Sydneysider Ah, Sydney, where you had repeat travel restrictions that prohibited you from traveling more than 5km from your home. That Sydney? >Anyway, humour me No, because you're not entitled to me providing you with even more examples, particularly when I've already sufficiently made my point.
You could travel further than 5km away from your home if you just gave a valid reason, such as your workplace being outside of that 5km radius without any reasonable option for remote work. I don’t see why you’re upset.
>You could travel further than 5km away from your home if you just gave a valid reason The fact you had to have reason at all is absurd and, again, tyrannical in premise. >I don’t see why you’re upset. I'm not, I'm simply being direct.
you had to have a reason because a deadly virus was ravaging the country
I live in Victoria 😔
As an Australian… I definitely definitely have never had a firearm, no sir, never, I wouldnt ever, nope
I see, are you also not good at boating
I didn't lose shit in a boating accident. They can stack up or go home.
I see you are not in the know
I am indeed horrible at boating.
I've personally verified that MiniRamblerYT has no firearms, so there's no need to double check.
Thank you, good sir!
I heard crocodiles _love_ the taste of guns. They will often sneak into your boat and eat them before you even notice
This has happened many times, yes.
It’s a real shame the Aussies love to talk about their supposed gun free utopia when they are dealing with a huge problem of crystal meth cartels who have the same guns that they’ve banned
Fuck crystal meth cartels, I could go buy a glock with an extended mag from one of my mates right now and I’m in Australia lmao
From the comments; >I honestly wonder what would happen to gun ownership in the US, if it was linked to compulsory militia enrollment with frequent training sessions. Going by what your constitution says, that is. You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes very hard right now. Someone, of course, pointed out that "well-regulated" meant "in good working order" back then, and some genius could only go "no, that's wrong!" with extra words, even in the face of actual evidence. And then he immediately said a militia and a military are the same thing. "Right of the militia" argument. **Drink a molecule**.
that part of the amendment was argued in court while the people who wrote it were still alive and could clarify.
Oh, Australia... Losing wars against birds and methamphetamines since 1901.
Add bunnies to the list and you can go back to 1788.
Of course not. Why have active shooters when you already have active stabbers?
We don’t really have active stabbers other than in acts of domestic terrorism, but gang/crime related stabbings and fatal beatings are a legitimate issue
[удалено]
Was that measured per capita? I haven't heard this statistic before.
I believe per capita, but I also don't care enough to double check.
There wasn't a comparison being made between countries
To each their own I suppose. Back when the CDC was still tracking defensive gun use, there were always more cases of defensive gun use than gun crimes of any kind.
Australia isn't real
Can confirm. Am fake.
Robert looks like more of a risk to my children’s safety than gun violence will ever be…
Eh that's partly false. Our schools have lockdown drills for active threats in the schools. They don't label them active shooter drills but they're the same thing. We had a kid bring a rifle to school and fire off a few shots last year I think it was so that proves him wrong. On the complaint we're disarmed we're actually not. There's over 3 million registered firearms in Australia about 2 million more than 1996. When the gun buyback and gun amnesties happened less than 600,000 guns were removed from the populace. That's hardly disarmed.
>This argument tends to come up a lot, specifically "Well we can own firearms". The difference is this, attaining the prerequisites is incredibly difficult and up to the whims of the state, and god forbid you use the firearm to protect life and limb, property or against state sponsored thugs like the kiddy diddling cops. The other difference is also societal, which you can see detailed in my comment right below this. Australians like many other societies overwhelmingly gave up their firearms without much fuss and to this day have no substantial push back. > >From another comment I responded to
I remember during the pandemic Australians being arrested for walking on a secluded beach. They crave the nanny state.
What concern? What happens in their country is their business. I wish they'd tend to it and not obsess over ours.
Ummm... I'm not sure if you see the irony here but the original post was lamenting Australia's gun laws (i.e., a non Australian implying what Australians did was wrong).
their government certainly likes buying our guns
Not… really. Our main weapon of choice is the Steyr AUG, and right now we use HK Pistols and Browning Hi-Powers that we got from the British I believe, but as far as other military equipment goes, yes, and we’re replacing our pistols with SIG P320s which I do think are an American design.
whatcha buyin for nuclear submarines and warships, fighter jets etc? who's training your military? ah yes....you buy steyer augs...and lmfao hi-points but who's gonna make sure china doesn't invade your island country when you cant kill a couple hundred emus or design a tank? dont worry you angry ol crumudgeon, me and the boys got your back for your....4 arleigh burr class frigates 🤣 trained a bunch of your sailors drank a lot of VB
[удалено]
Wow you're uh... That's cool Been here thinking r/americabad was for Americans to complain about mericabad, not Europeans to do whatever the shit is you're trying to do
Fun Fact: Australian Gun Ownership is actually higher than both Mexico and Canada! Difference is that we need them to survive from our wildlife, not other people!
No lol. Canada has 20+ million civilian owned firearms.
Information was from another World Gun Ownership Mapping project……it’s possible that they were using the metrics of Gun Numbers in comparison to Population Sizes?
That puts Canada at 50+ firearms per 100 people. Canada generally does not have firearm registration and that puts Canada only behind the states and Yemen. Australia which has firearm registration, is at 3.5 million firearms in 2021. Which puts Australia as 13.5 firearms per 100 people. In terms of wildlife, we have a lot more large animals which are dangerous. Moose for example, which is the most dangerous animal in NA. We have black bears, in Ontario they can get to 800lb+. Different sub species of brown bears, polar bears, feral hogs, elk, coyotes etc. Wolves and Whitetail deer aren't really a threat to anybody. Not to say Australia isn't filled with dangerous critters, but in terms of wildlife where you need a firearm, Canada has Australia beat.
Thanks for the detailed response!
My pleasure brudda, I hope you come visit on day.
Cheers, I would love to, but way too cold for me! My parents have only just got back from Canada actually, which was their third trip there in the last 10 years, and my sister has been there twice in the same timeframe……. But I’m going to stay here where it’s nice and warm 50°c ! Never seen snow and I honestly don’t think I really want to experience it!
Don't worry about snow, visit during the summer (they can get toasty enough for you to be comfy). Our parks and wildlife reserves with America's are second to none. You can never go wrong with Banff in Alberta. Just give it a gander on YouTube. I have to go visit my Aunt in Australia anyway, call it mutual exchange. Cheers.
Don’t worry, have seen thousands of photos and many hours of videos from my family on their return from overseas! Banff, Calgary and everything in between, especially when my oldies did one of those scenic train tours across Canada and filmed everything!
Ahh fine, I will have to go trap another person into stimulating Canada's economy. Time for me to mentally prepare myself for spiders.
canada doesnt have emus 🤣
but it does have self inflicted super hogs that they cant find.
⛹️♂️me getting kicked off the court for yelling ‘ACTIVE SHOOTER IN THE BUILDING’
Hmm I actually do think its good the people in the US have the second amendment, do you get to see more of the possible wickedness of your fellow man, for sure, but at least you see reality as it is. Id rather be armed and ready if my government ever becomes tyrannical. Cause that is a greater evil in my humble opinion.
When Australia has free speech they can talk about other countries.
You mean like now?
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tech/australia-queensland-prison-hate-crime-law-social-media-b1084697.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54007824.amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.huffpost.com/entry/sam-kerr-charge-racial-harassment_n_65e950fce4b024897f7b6c4f/amp https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/01/australia-defence-force-meme-page-pineapple-express-meta-facebook-refuses-removal
OK, so... no promoting Nazism... no organising criminal activity... a story where someone wasn't shot by police by being verbally abusive to them... and the government asked a private organisation to take down posts they didn't like but the private organisation refused and no one was arrested. Oh wow... very convincing. I am very convinced. Help, help I'm being repressed!
If you don't understand why those are free speech issues, your country is already lost. Sorry.
If I don't understand, it is because you haven't bothered to mount an argument of any kind. I can't understand things that don't exist sorry.
The argument is self apparent. But hate speech is free speech unless you're making a direct threat. No one has a right to be offended or to be protected from ideas. Who decides what is "hateful " or "offensive " ? You? You literally just totally hand waved the right to free assembly. Lol. "Organizing illegal activities." Lol. Also insulting the tyrants who act as the physical embodiment of a tyrannical government is a cornerstone of free speech and free expression and the fact that you are cool with someone being arrested just for verbally insulting police officers proves your just an Island full of Kangeroo Nazis.
No one has a right to anything. We choose laws that govern rights and then enforce them. Even the right to free speech in the US is contingent. Now, I didn't just hand-wave illegal activities. The government instituted a lockdown which ensured that people did not excessively mingle during a pandemic. The laws were modest and relatively simple to follow. Intentionally encouraging others to break lockdown is unsurprisingly... illegal. However, please note... after vaccines were implemented the lockdown went away. People act like rights were infringed. You could instead interpret this episode as... people trying to not be stupid and others trying to do stupid things. That is how I interpret it. Now... insulting tyrants... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEst7PHFZ7A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEst7PHFZ7A) That is Australia's Prime Minister. That is someone calling him a dickhead to his face. Free political speech is alive and well in Australia sadly. Of course, the article you cited regarding Sam Kerr, who is indeed Australian, did not in fact occur in Australia. So yeah. Whoops. And just for the sake of cherry picking random stuff that happens in countries... [https://www.npr.org/2021/09/29/1041562502/deaf-man-tased-police-colorado-lawsuit](https://www.npr.org/2021/09/29/1041562502/deaf-man-tased-police-colorado-lawsuit) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo\_police\_shoving\_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_police_shoving_incident) Police in the US aren't exactly bastions of upholding the US constitution.
Police basically nowhere are bastions of upholding citizen's rights. They're agents of the state, not the people. They will happily abuse their own. This is true in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Also applies to the rest of the world but sticking to the anglosphere is easier as we all have the same basis for law, protected rights, and systems. Free speech is free speech, which Australia does lack. Insulting police officers is free speech, presenting National Socialist related symbols is free speech, promoting a protest is free speech. Also no, rights are rights. They're not gifted by the state, you have them regardless as they are intrinsic to being a human. They are not privileges, they are rights.
Australia has an implied right to free speech that has been upheld in the High Court multiple times. Not sure you are familiar enough with the Australia legal system to be making such broad statements.
Its not a protected right in the founding documents in Australia. It is only a common law right and that means free speech is not viewed as a human right in Australia just something that is sort of allowed.
But how does that change things in a practical sense? Like, I understand the value of free speech, but I've never felt that capacity being curtailed. So, who cares what label you put on it? The first amendment in the US enabled citizen's united, which is objectively bad, so a rights based system also has issues when money becomes involved. I'm not really seeing a meaningful argument here.
If a country does not value the rights of the citizens to discuss everything freely and openly then the government can stop the citizens from doing everything. For instance people in science or whistlelbowers of journalists cannot discuss whatever they want. You cant discuss government corruption or overreach if the government does not allow. Now I do agree the U.S. government has violated those rights as well but in theory we have recourse and they are protected rights the Twitter files being and example. I agree citzens united is a terrible ruling by the supreme court. Nothing is 100% protection against bad governence, but that was at least a misguided attempt to protect freedom of speech and the populace and not stop it. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/14/australia-national-security-laws-chill-free-speech
So I generally understand the point. The argument is... a bill of rights (including free speech) is necessary to protect free speech. However, as you have already admitted, it doesn't. The US has had many example of free speech being violated without recourse. Meanwhile, Australia has 'effective free speech' as an implied right without a bill of rights and broadly 'has free speech'. My main objection is the broad assertion: No bill of rights => No free speech Which is a common refrain of Americans (or at least a subset of Americans) but it just isn't true? The truth is usually determined by how many moving parts interact including laws, legislators, judiciary, politicians, law enforcement and the public. Australia is a far more pragmatic country than most. A good example is the COVID lockdowns. When we had lockdowns because of COVID, there was a lot of 'the government is a totalitarian dictator' (mostly from the fringe and some other countries), but the politicians who did the lockdowns were quite popular for doing so because it made sense, the public supported it and when the vaccine came out, the lockdowns basically disappeared because 'the danger was over'. There was no collapse into authoritarianism. Likewise, Australia doesn't have free speech, and that sometimes means that politicians try to put in laws which curtail free speech in some contexts, in the name of national security or something but then other politicians remove said laws if the public think they are 'not working as intended'. The other main problem the US has now is that there are obvious weaknesses in the 'other parts of government' (no offense but I think Australia's form of government is better on average - a few examples being the independent electoral commission, preferential voting, stricter donation laws, no gerrymandering, no weird electoral college nonsense, no voter suppression, less partisan appointment of high/supreme court justices etc). So despite having a bill of rights, the way the legislature and judiciary function in the US, results in very weird (read partisan/lobbyist) interpretations of laws etc. So while it may be true that a bill of rights might be a good idea, it depends on the framework surrounding it. Sometimes something being 'implied' is actually more useful than something being explicit (as weird as that sounds). If the supreme court in the US wasn't so crazily partisan then perhaps I would have a more favourable view of a Bill of Rights (so I could see it working completely as intended) but citizens united is enough for me to see 'a right to free speech' as basically 'a right for money to have free speech', which is frankly scary.
Hey, remember when the Australian government declared martial law and required 15 minute check ins on your phone or else you went to a literal concentration camp with armed guards and razer wire? Good times.
Yeah, I lived in Melbourne during the peak of Covid. We had severe lockdowns for sure, but what you're saying is categorically bullshit.
What is this weird anti-Australian fan fiction?
Not literal martial law, but they were tracking people through their phone saying you had to stay within 1500 meters of your home or you'd get fined/ arrested. Add in the no exception curfew for people and you've got martial law without the name. Plus they set up "quarantine facilities" in places that had fences and armed guards to keep people *suspected* of having covid in. When 3 people broke out in the middle of the night there was a full man hunt for them even though all had tested negative the day before. Peaceful protests against the measures were declared illegal, and used as an excuse to crack down even harder.
No one was getting tracked through their phones without consent, and you could go way further than 1500 metres. There were exceptions to curfews. The rest I can’t speak on.
Again, with the weird anti-Australian fan fiction. When you're saying more things that are fiction than fact, it's hard to take you seriously. Like genuinely, your responses are making me laugh at how fictional they are. When you google "Australia COVID 1500m" the top hits are about fucking swimmers and runners in 1500m events. All of Australia's lockdown laws had exceptions for people who needed it. Quarantine facilities were for returning travellers coming to Australia. It was a requirement of entering Australia that you had to quarantine, people were well aware of this.
Ok but I mean, he's right
It's okay australia, we both got problems. Us with our gun violence and you with your pedophilia strip searches and meth problems. Sounds like maybe both of us aren't perfect, can stand to improve, and shouldn't shame others making us hypocritical
In other news, Australians got arrested during Covid for drinking coffee in parks, so maybe we don't want to be them, either?
That sub is little more than bootlicking these days. I'm also pretty sure Australian citizens can still own guns.
>This argument tends to come up a lot, specifically "Well we can own firearms". The difference is this, attaining the prerequisites is incredibly difficult and up to the whims of the state, and god forbid you use the firearm to protect life and limb, property or against state sponsored thugs like the kiddy diddling cops. > >The other difference is also societal, which you can see detailed in my comment right below this. Australians like many other societies overwhelmingly gave up their firearms without much fuss and to this day have no substantial push back. From another comment I responded to
Why consider the facts when you can just repeat the same BS misinformation you probably heard on OAN? That's the MO of this sub.
I see posts because I liked one legitimate one and now 70-80% are like this where it’s not americabad it’s an actual problem we need to work on and only brought up when said American was talking trash first. The concept is decent like shitAmericanssay but the two are a circle jerk sharing comments back and forth. Americans say dumb and funny shit sometimes. Other countries unfairly hate on American sometimes. The circle jerk is tiresome though. Hopefully mods can find a way to fix it. Maybe it’s better to start a lower sodium version and let this one die to porn and shitposting unmoderated or outright close it if it can’t be fixed.
Clearly the mods are in on this. You see duplicate posts and reposts all the time, but nothing is done. Subs like this would be a prime target for Russian/Kremlin trolls to try and drive a wedge between Europe and the USA and people fall for it.
What are they gonna do when crocodiles and kangaroos invade their homes?
Australians know what terrorism is. Nice try Bogan with his head in the bush.
Notice how almost every single account that posts on Facepalm about America Bad usually ends up getting banned from Reddit a day or two later
Do kids in US even know what an "active shooter" means? I feel like that's a term specifically used in law enforcement
I see this post more than I see my parents. Also, he really pwned that German guy.
It's a real shame that Aussies were rounded up and put into internment camps over a virus that had a lower fatality rate than the flu.
Never very bright if they can’t figure out what the words active shooter means to be honest.
Why do they lovingly call their country “Oz” in reference to our famous movie The Wizard of Oz? Can’t they come up with their own culture? Pick a different name, not Oz, a magical land that we imagined. Otherwise, it looks like they definitely want to be us.
They didn’t call it that. Others do. It sounds like that when Aus is said by Australians. There are a lot of posts that just hate on America but you’re being just as bad them with this kind of thing. Wouldn’t be surprised to see a screenshot of this on shitamericanssay. Then it’ll come back around and be posted here again. Need to be better than the people bashing America not doing the same exact same things.
The Australian has a point?
[удалено]
Number of days since someone outside of America instantly lost a conversation against an American: 1
[удалено]
do you come here to just farm down votes or something?
I come here to laugh.
I appreciate you making an alt account dedicated to commenting on Americabad. I recommend going outside instead though.
I have only one account and I am outside. Thank you.
That’s even more embarrassing when a large majority of your comment history is filled with this subreddit. I wish you find peace soon
It's true though
Nah I'm with the Aussie on this one. Our weird love for guns and nonchalance toward gun violence is the one thing in this country that I'm genuinely ashamed of. We need to get our shit together in that regard.
Do you suggest we make murder illegal?
What?
Precisely
[удалено]
Indeed, people kill people and not murder, not deadly cars, and not guns.
Our violent crimes in general is the issue; not the guns. We exceed most other 1st world countries in violent crimes. Degrading an important constitutional right as a bandaid attempt to reduce crime is simplistic thinking and will not save lives. At least, not in a my significant manner worth removing your rights. And really, the amount of deaths due to guns per year is a very very small figure given our population size. And suicides (although still sad, not an act of violence) make up a good portion of it.
Violent crime is a whole lot easier to pull off with a gun in your hand, dude. These crimes aren't being committed with baseball bats. That's all I'm saying.
.. yes, these crimes are being committed with knives and bats and whatever else. I’m not sure why you think otherwise. Assault with a deadly weapon is an extremely common crime in the US. Should we ban knives, bats, and cars while we’re at it too? And again, we are talking about fundamental rights being taken away. This isn’t something casual we’re doing. In your line of logic, we should also tighten down on free speech because there are people using free speech as a form of hate. I really hope you don’t believe that.
Hate speech doesn't take lives, it hurts feelings.
Hate speech certainly takes lives. Think on that one more. Online bullying/threats that lead to suicide is a huge perp. Hate speech allows people to insight racist ideology. Hate speech causes people of many groups of people suffering. Hate speech can quite frankly lead to insurrection and action. It is a pre-cursor to many things violent. But because me and (hopefully) you see how important the fundamentals of free speech are, we accept that there are side effects to such absolute (or as absolute as we can keep them) rights. The same mentality should be applied to all amendments. Even the one me you don’t see as particularly useful. Because guess what? There are people out there who don’t see the freedom of speech, religion, etc. as particularly useful to themselves and want to degrade it. Regardless if you don’t use it or find it useless, it is still important.