Being driven round the S bend

[mandru]

There is of course the serious need for self defense side of this too but PZ covered that and I agree with what he said.  When a family or individual is in their home (or wherever they may be) needs protection in a matter of a very brief matter of seconds it's not reasonable for them to be expected to have to wait minutes for the police to arrive.

What we need is for the scores and scores of existing gun laws to be aggressively enforced not have new laws heaped on top of what's already there only to have the President's office selectively dictate which laws will enforced or ignored and which groups of the the populace will be scrutinized and persecuted.

[fragger]

Thanks for the responses chaps :) And thanks for giving up your morning mandru! I didn't expect you to do that, but I appreciate it and am grateful for you to do so.

I realize there can be no easy answer to this. Like you guys said, there is a multitude of aspects to it.

Just as an exercise, allow me to paint a portrait of an "average" American as seen by non-Americans who know next to nothing about American history, have no grasp of any facet of the American character, and who have never really gotten to know, nor have ever had any close friendships with, any Americans. So this portrait is in fact not a portrait at all but a crude, cartoony caricature:

The American is loud, arrogant, opinionated, self-absorbed, fanatically patriotic, a great lover of money - and possesses an all-consuming love of firearms.

There's an impression many non-Americans have that there's some kind of fervently patriotic American mindset that enshrines the gun up there with any kind of archetypal object of worship one can care to name. There's a sense that there's something more to American gun-love than just having the right to own one, something profoundly cultural or psychological, that makes an American react to any proposed changes to their "God-given" right to own a firearm almost as grievous a threat as one to their very existence. Other American civil liberties have been eroded, especially since 9/11, but whenever the right to bear arms is attacked, Americans scream blue murder, like it's the one right that is sacrosanct above all others.

This impression is driven home further whenever there is yet another mass-shooting reported in the U.S. I've heard people here say things like "Well, as long as Americans continue to worship their guns and refuse to give them up, these things will keep happening". People seem to believe that America is the world's leader in gun-related death, which is of course not true (but sadly to say, it is up there).

I stress that these impressions are ones held by many who have never been to the U.S. or have never really known any American people. Those of us that have, and do, know better, but the impression remains rampant nonetheless. When ignorant non-Americans see Charlton Heston waving a rifle over his head and yelling "From my cold, dead hands", see movies and TV shows pouring out of the U.S. full of violent gunplay and see news reports of shooting rampages on almost a regular basis, it's not hard to see how the impression gets fed.

I don't share these impressions, but even so, I do wonder if there isn't a kernel of truth to them. I also wonder sometimes how it is that the Second Amendment is viewed - or rather, is allowed to be viewed - by some Americans as giving them carte blanche to own anything at all that goes bang and makes a hole in something, no matter how loud the bang or how big the hole (and for some, the bigger of both the better).

I totally understand and agree with what those of you in the U.S. are saying when it comes to home defense and I personally see nothing wrong with having a handgun in the house for defensive purposes (even though in this country you're not even allowed to have that). As long as it's handled responsibly, every effort is made to keep it strictly out of reach of children (if such a thing is entirely possible) and all household members who have access to it and may have occasion to use it are fully trained in its proper use including correct safety procedures, I don't see a problem at all. PZ (and I'm sure mandru) has the proper attitude towards a weapon (PZ, I was taught the same thing during basic weapon training in the Air Force - don't chamber an initial round unless, or until, you're about to fire). In PZ's case it's understandable that he own a gun. If there was an outside possibility that something big, fierce and furry might attack me while I'm doing something outside the house, I'd want to be armed too :-() And from what mandru has sometimes reported about his neighbourhood, I would certainly want to pack some heat myself if I was living there.

But I take issue with the Second Amendment being effectively used like a license by some private citizens to amass small arsenals of high-end personal weaponry by claiming, "It's my right". I've seen clips on YouTube of ordinary civilians demonstrating military-grade weapons that they own. I don't think it's very wise to allow private citizens to own such weaponry, unless they are very, very thoroughly screened and vetted and can provide some legitimate reason for ownership. A handgun for home and personal protection is one thing, but who needs a .50 cal Barrett M82 sniper rifle or an M2 Browning machine gun in their home? Who needs an Uzi for that matter? This is what I don't get - how this is allowed under the Constitution as it stands. I admit I'm not cognisant with America's complete set of gun ownership laws, so for all I know it isn't in fact legal for these folks to have these weapons and they're risking penalties by posting their clips online, but they act as though they have every right to have these things, i.e. such ownership is "guaranteed" by the Constitution, and they don't seem to be in fear of any kind of legal action being taken against them by publicly displaying their toys.

From what you said in your last post mandru, it sounds as if there might in fact be laws to govern who can own what kind of guns. If the powers that be are aware that people own these kinds of weapons, and if that ownership is illegal but they just let it slide, then as you say mandru the problem lies with those whose duty it is (supposed to be) to enforce the laws. Maybe it's fear of being politically mauled by the NRA, or maybe it's just fear of losing votes from a lot of ticked-off gun-loving constituents, but there seems to be a very laissez-faire attitude toward preventing any G.I. Joe wannabe from getting his hands on whatever extremely lethal piece of combat weaponry takes his fancy. I can't help but think of that nine-year-old girl a year or two ago who was given the opportunity to fire an Uzi at a gun range as a birthday present from her father, and who consequently lost control of it on full-auto and shot the instructor in the head. Not only has the instructor's family been devastated, but that young girl will now have to grow up with the knowledge that she killed someone.

How in the world was that allowed? I think there's something seriously wrong when a Constitutional clause is taken as tacit approval by a father to allow his child to play with a weapon as lethal as a fully automatic 9mm Uzi. I find it astounding. If I'd been that instructor I would have told the girl's father to get the hell off the range and buy his daughter a new Barbie outfit instead. But Dad probably would have just taken his girl to another range with a more amenable instructor.

To boil it all down, I can understand the resistance to what is viewed as a threat to a basic civil liberty, but I can't understand why there is such stiff resistance to introducing some kind of common sense application of the Second Amendment or adjusting it to take into account the more than two centuries' worth of technological advancement that has been made in the sphere of weaponry and the fact that America is no longer in danger of a land invasion which will require its citizens to answer a call-to-arms. If America is attacked today, the attack would probably come in the form of nuclear, biological or chemical weaponry, against which the weapons of militiamen or armed citizens will be useless. Today, a Beretta handgun is a reasonable choice for personal protection, an Ak-47 isn't, unless you think your home might be invaded by a Spetsnaz squad. I also don't think that such an over-proliferation of firearms allowed by a 240-year-old Constitutional Amendment, possibly more guns than there are people to fire them, is a healthy thing.

It seems to me a bit like having a wolf by the ears. On the one hand you have a right to bear arms, on the other you have the possibility of people getting killed by them, on purpose or by accident. A flat-out ban on firearms will certainly not solve the problems. In Australia you can't own a handgun unless it's for competition shooting (in which case it must be kept locked up at the range, you can't take it home with you) yet drive-by shootings by Middle Eastern crime gangs in Sydney have become alarmingly frequent. Making them illegal won't keep them out of the hands of criminals.

There's no easy answer, and any weapon of defense can become a weapon of attack depending on whose hands it's in. Sometimes I think the world would have been a better place if guns had never been invented. But there'd still be clubs, spears, knives, daggers, swords, halberds, pikes, maces, battleaxes... fists...


Btw mandru, now we're even Steven. You gave up a morning, I gave up an evening :-()

[Art Blade]

interesting read so far. :-X

[mandru]

Sorry about your evening fragger but happy to get a reply and I guess I'm balancing out your initial post.  ;)

I'll give a bit of background bio here that may shed some light on my exposure and roots into the firearm culture.

When I was 8yrs old I was out in the front yard goofing around probably doing something stupid out of boredom like beating the hell out of the puffball mushrooms that always popped up in the lawn.  My dad stepped out of the house, tossed me the keys to our hydraulically equipped (both front and back) Ford tractor that had interchangeable forks, buckets, plows, harrows and so on.  The front lift could hoist about 1500 Lbs (680 Kilos) before the back wheels would start to get loosey-goosey and losing traction, so it was a real workhorse.   He said "There's the tractor, the cable is in the bucket (front lift), go pull that stump and put it over there in the middle of the clearing to start me a burning pile." and went back in the house.

I'd driven the tractor before on occasion which you could call dad training me in on operating it but had never actually been allowed to engage in a "w@&k" task.

Longer story made shorter I walked around the stump (it was about 12 to 14 inches across and cut maybe 2 ft above the roots) sizing it up, noted where the roots were placed, gave it a couple exploratory nudges popping up roots on one side and then used the gap created under the exposed root to loop the cable through and then back up around the main body of the stump a few time at different angles so that the cable couldn't slip it's grip and come back and slap me.  I dragged the stump to the indicated place, coiled the cable placing it back in the bucket and put the tractor back in its spot before returning the keys to dad.  While he was inside the whole time I'm sure he never stepped away from the concealment of the kitchen window curtains while watching me like a hawk.

When I returned the keys to him he said "Good, I'm going to keep the keys on the hook in the utility room and switch over to the forks for the tractor.  Every day when you get home from school and before I get home from w@&k I want you to go out and spend an hour pulling out that patch (almost an acre and a half of trees with 6 inch trunks and smaller) of new growth alders.  Get the dirt all good and shook off the roots so you can stack them over there with that stump and we'll burn them each time we get a good sized pile." 

The weight of the new chore hit me like a stiff prison sentence.  ???   But about a month later I was given a BB gun and dad and I went out back with his scoped 30-06 rifle and he walked me through proper handling, loading, aiming and firing.  I was also given the injunction that I would treat the BB gun with the same handling respect or it would be taken away until I was old enough to able to obey the skills for proper usage.

As time went on getting piled with various new and more demanding chores (no matter how grudgingly I complied) there were also additional adult perks added.  At 10 yrs old I was given a .22 rifle that had been passed down through the family and for a month we attended a gun handling class (a series of four classes every Monday night) at the local elementary school gymnasium taught by the County Commissioner who actually lived in our area and wanted competent new gun handlers in areas where he himself might be hunting.  Ironically in the same setting where now kids get expelled for pointing a finger and saying bang, bang or in playing with their buddies pretending to pull the pin and throw a hand grenade I learned the skills of how to (solo or as part of a hunting group) carry a firearm, safely board and debark from a rowboat, how to climb though a barbwire fence and the ultimate skill of simply not kill yourself or possible companions stupidly.

Somewhere between 10 and 12 I started to help my dad by Gofer-ing (go fer this - go fer that) in the ongoing effort of clearing more of our land by working with dynamite blasting old massive redwood stumps (some up to 8 feet in diameter) that had been selectively logged for lumber to build early settlers in the area's homes (a hundred years earlier - those old cedars last forever) along with the large alders we ourselves were cutting for firewood.  At 14 I was carefully walked through the steps getting the read of a stump to find its weak points, determining proper depth and placement and size of simple charges and finally the arming a charge with either crimp cap (timed fuse) or electrical blasting caps.  At 17- 18 I did some solo odd jobbing blasting stumps for some of the neighbors so I could buy cases of canned vegetables and put my foot down on slaving away weeding in the bloody 2 acre garden (remember that patch of alders I had to take out with the tractor instead of being allowed to be a kid?  :'( )  my dad insisted on planting every year.

Then when I graduated from high school (after a brief summer job with a logging crew) I skipped over the hill and escaped from the rural life into Seattle and I never looked back.

But it was always my showing responsibility that preceded the trust earned to allow an expansion of what my father wanted me to learn.


Now that's out of the way.  On to my reply to your last post fragger.

As to the rest of the world's perception of us I don't really pay too much attention about that.  I've got my own more pressing concerns that are much closer to home and I personally can't do much to affect the attitudes of an impressionable world.  I spend a lot more time dwelling on the crime in our cities and how almost universally the law enforcement's hands are being tied to the detriment of polite society in the name of political correctness.  But from your description of world perception of us there's a lot that is being overlooked as well as spun to make us look like cruds.

The world fails to realize that 99.9% of U.S. citizens aren't the people being shown in rap videos or the latest top box office movie smash hit.  ::)

As to the concept that we spend family time all joy riding around in our armor clad SUV's target practicing on traffic signs and minorities for giggles with our Uzi's while passing around a gallon jug of Jack Daniels is also a large misconception.  The news channels and the on-air talking heads (even within our borders) shovel more hot steaming crap in the form of lies and misleading information than the nation's total byproduct output from all our dairy farms.  They intentionally fail to properly educate the uninformed viewers by making the distinction between semi-auto (legal) and automatic weapons (only legal with extensive qualifiers and intrusive background clearance).  They often go out of their way to push the thought that there are millions of crazy gun nuts running around with kill sticks set up so that a single pull of the trigger sprays an unending stream of murder.  :D

If somebody's not maimed or massacred it's unlikely to reach the news cycle and sweet and light doesn't sell news papers.

The necessary requirements for licensing to be qualified to legally own and operate an automatic weapon is brutally thorough to the point that I wouldn't be surprised to hear that only 1 in 10,000 U.S. citizens are properly licensed and that the number of known violent criminals with automatic weapons out weigh those legally held easily by a margin of 10 to 1.  I honestly believe the core of our trouble arises from many of those "known violent criminals" being part of a protected group and are being shielded by the very highest levels of law enforcement.

It's like we have to accept the fact and conditions that there are races or religions even in the premise that there are some who must never be profiled.  Regardless of what the shooter was screaming as they slaughter people their protected group must remain unnamed but it is perfectly OK for news casters as well as in news print, blogs, etc... to defer attention and aim public wrath elsewhere by skipping the facts of the incident (supplied by clearly racist eye witnesses  ::) ) and propose that the shooter is possibly a christian NRA member.  That may sound odd to you but blaming the diametrically opposing non-protected groups happens over and over.



Just to be a Concealed Carry (CC) in my State I took a mandatory study course on the local laws so that I could learn all the ways I could foul up and land in jail.  I've submitted forms with my full personal information, I've been photographed, fingerprinted and every 24 hours my extensive personal file (like the ticking of a clock) is fed through the Federal crime data base to see if I've been involved in any infraction that would result in local State law enforcement showing up at my door to confiscate my license and notify me that my Privilege (notice that CC is not a Right) of carrying a concealed weapon has been rescinded.

As I've said elsewhere there are scores and scores of laws surrounding our firearms.  Decent citizens obey those laws while being held under the microscope and observed with a scornful eye.  Then every time a criminal improperly uses a gun its regaled as absolute proof that the vast law abiding population are all blood thirsty killers at heart and all guns need to be stripped away from them.

Are we the legal and law obeying gun owners fervently and aggressively standing up for our 2nd Amendment Rights?  Damn straight!

We're sick and freaking tired of being the law abiding cat who wants little more than to sit quietly by our warm hearths and constantly getting the snot beat out of us every time the scofflaw dogs come in and crap on the living room rug after a night of carousing and stealing carrion out of the neighbors garbage cans.

It only makes sense that even in the presence of a harshly punishing new law that makes all firearms illegal hardened criminals won't ever stumble on a bump of conscience or reach a moment of epiphany and say to themselves "Oh, guns are illegal now?  I better go straight away and turn mine in" so that all guns once and for all vanish from our country.  And only a fool or politician with a highly amoral agenda would think (or pretend to think) otherwise.

[PZ]

Well written gents, and it is interesting to read of other's perspectives  :-X

A good illustration of the phrase "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" is this: The whack jobs that go on shooting sprees in public spaces here usually choose one of two main venues: schools and Churches.  What both have in common is that no one in either institution is armed.  The cowards always choose places where there will be no possible resistance to their cowardice.  I fearfully imagine the increase in victimization if weapons were outlawed (not that it will ever happen in the U.S. - even I will fight for my 2nd amendment rights in that event)

[Art Blade]

mandru, I give you a +1 :-X for that last post of yours. Thank you for writing/sharing :-X

when you mentioned biased news and said, "sweet and light doesn't sell," it reminded me of our news and generally speaking media and why I haven't watched TV for more than 15 years now, haven't listened to any radio for more than 5 years. "Important" news (hell, there usually are no important news) reach me through people's talk or friends mentioning them. Those news I then try to find on the net from at least three different sources, preferably from three different countries so I can filter out the crap. The crap that's on the media melts my brains but doesn't help me with my life. It only eats up my time.

However, I like conversations with people who still have a mind, preferably so if it is of their own.

[fragger]

Thanks again mandru, wonderful post +1 And thanks for sharing the details of your early life, I'm touched and flattered that you think well enough of us to share that with us :) Geez, you had a tough upbringing mate ??? I already had a great deal of respect for you, but that respect has now increased by a couple of magnitudes.

And thanks for clearing up some of my questions regarding firearm ownership laws in the U.S. I was never silly enough to think that all you need to do is walk into a gun store and pick up a shiny new assault rifle like buying a new power drill, but I truly didn't know what was required there, so now I have more of an idea. You don't ask, you don't learn :-()

Maybe I was a bit harsh with a few of the things I said. I still think it's a terrible thing to let a little girl fire an Uzi as a birthday present, but I didn't mean that as an indictment on the U.S. or its laws. I just think there's a failing, or something that needs fixing, if there is any kind of loophole or whatever in a system that allows a nine-year-old onto a firing range with a fully automatic weapon in her little hands, but I know that's not indicative of the country's attitude as a whole (and obviously, neither the girl's father nor the instructor were subjected to anything like mandru's extreme lessons in responsibility). I really included that example as a demonstration of part of the impression-forming process, even though I do find it personally shocking.

Are we the legal and law obeying gun owners fervently and aggressively standing up for our 2nd Amendment Rights?  Damn straight!

I fearfully imagine the increase in victimization if weapons were outlawed (not that it will ever happen in the U.S. - even I will fight for my 2nd amendment rights in that event)

But see, this is exactly what I meant at the beginning of this discussion. As someone who has grown up in a country where the presence of a firearm in the house would be about as unlikely as finding the Holy Grail sitting on the mantelpiece, the level of vehemence in defense of the Second Amendment seems difficult to comprehend. I repeat, I'm not intending to be critical, just trying to understand the cultural differences that have driven us to have such diverse attitudes. I just find it interesting.

Nobody in this country is allowed to own a firearm of any sort unless they're a farmer, a competition shooter, or engaged in some other line of w@&k in which a firearm is necessary. Outside of those, exceedingly few Aussies own, or ever have owned, a firearm (I've never owned one and I don't know anyone who has), yet they feel no compulsion to get one regardless of any threat of personal attack or home invasion. Even the drive-bys being committed by Middle Eastern gangs in Sydney that I mentioned earlier are not making Aussies flock to the gun store clamouring for a weapon to protect themselves. This is why we have trouble understanding why Americans appear to have such an attachment to their guns. We don't seem to feel such a need to own one. Is it because we never fought a foreign power on our own soil? Because we never fought a major armed conflict against one another? Because we don't have anything like the population size or the crime rate? Who knows, but even though Americans and Australians have a lot in common, there are some huge differences between us. The attitude towards guns seems to be one of them, possibly the biggest one.

Now if they were to propose outlawing beer in Australia... :-() But there you go, this is another example of caricaturing. Aussies are in fact one of the world's largest consumers of beer, yet this no more makes us a nation of belligerent drunkards any more than America's enormous rate of gun ownership (compared to ours) makes them a nation of rootin' tootin' hell-raisers.

As to caricatures, here's the Australian one (probably every nationality in the world has its negative caricature):

The Australian is loud-mouthed, beer-bellied, perpetually drunk, stupid, boastful, ill-mannered, scornful of anything non-Australian, disrespectfully treats the world like a personal playground.

As with all nationality caricatures, there is a tiny percentage of individuals who do in fact fit it. There is a kernel of truth, like I said before. The overwhelming majority of American gun-owners may have the proper responsible attitude, but it can't be denied that there are those who don't, and unfortunately these are the ones who cause the rest to get tarred with the same brush. The above caricature is as hurtful to me as the American one is to the overwhelming majority of Americans who don't fit it, but there are Aussies who do behave badly overseas and give us all a bad name (especially in Bali. They hate us there, and as far as I'm concerned, with good reason. Being a virtual stone's-throw away and with everything there being cheap, it's a magnet to every booze-swilling Aussie ratbag in the country. They go there for a cheap and boozy good time with no respect for the local people or their culture, then wonder why they get bombed in nightclubs by west-hating Muslim extremists).

The negative impression of Aussies overlooks the facts that Australia has long had one of the world's highest literacy rates, produces a disproportionately large percentage of leading scientists, engineers and medical researchers (disproportionate meaning the numbers in these professions per head of population) and has one of the world's highest standards of living. Aussies are bright, well informed, have good intentions and love to travel. But to many in the rest of the world, we're beer-swilling yobs bent on piss-marking as many other countries as we can and annoying the dickens out of everybody.

In the end, I'd rather hang out with a responsible American gun owner than an Aussie who lives up to the caricature :-()

As I said earlier, the impressions of what makes an American tick that are held by many people overseas are certainly not ones that I share, nor would anyone with more than half a brain who either reasons with common sense or simply knows better via first-hand experience. Those gross caricatures of "the ugly American" are the product of ignorance and vile, uninformed judgmentalism, fed by a sensationalist mainstream media which can be almost on a par with politicians when it comes to being, shall we say, economical with the truth. And since only bad news sells, and since most people who watch/read the news would never bother to verify elsewhere if what they're watching/reading is honestly reported and all facts are fully researched and faithfully disclosed, their warped perception of reported events gets warped even further (on top of the initial warping performed by the media as part of the selling process).

I watch the news sometimes but only through what I call my "reality glasses". I like to have some idea of what's going on in the world but I never take anything as gospel from the media. If there is anything that piques my interest (such as anything to do with space exploration, which the mainstream media have about as much grasp of as I do of macrame technique) I'll verify it through whatever more trustworthy means may be available to me. Most of the "news" is triviality. Take away the sport, the celeb gossip, and all the other trite twaddle and there's very little left that's actually newsworthy or important enough that people truly need to be made aware of it.

But anyway, my thanks to my American friends here who have set me straight on a few things :) I admit I still don't fully understand but I've gotten a lot closer to doing so. Heck, I don't fully know what makes Aussies tick :-() And I've met some people whose behaviour I could never fathom - probably because nobody could...

[Art Blade]

I find it interesting that if I had had the intention and the words, I would have said and written essentially the same posts as fragger just did. Meaning, over here we have the same questions and ideas and all that regarding Americans and their guns. Also, we're not allowed to carry guns and all that just the same way fragger described. To me it is strange to think of someone walking around with a weapon let alone having an arsenal at home or taking a kiddie to the gun range.

This site and its core members have shed light on many aspects of their private life as well as their culture in a way no other source could have. I am really enjoying the company of the fine people of our multi-cultural circle.

Fragger, to you too a +1 :-X for all of the above that you wrote and for getting those replies in exchange. :)

[fragger]

Thank you Art :) I agree, we have some wonderful people here.

And I have to say, the replies from mandru and PZ have only served to increase my respect for both gentlemen, as well as giving me a better insight into the cultural attitudes of their country. Thanks for that, you guys :) I greatly value these exchanges and I learn from them.

[PZ]

Thanks for the comments fragger, and you have a good point.  From the earliest days of my life we have been exposed to the wild west and their "shootouts at the OK coral".  As youngsters, we played "army men" in our neighborhoods nearly every day so real and imagined weapons were part of our lives from the very beginning.

When I was a young adult (still living at home) I purchased my first .22 rifle and my friend and I went hunting for pleasure much like one would get geared up for fishing (the same sense of excitement).  As I became older, I purchased other weapons, one of them a 22.250 Remmington 700 BDL with bull barrel - so accurate we could hit objects the size of a quarter dollar at over 300 yards (I reloaded my own custom ammo).  It was fun while I was young, and while I still have that weapon, I have not fired it in at least two decades.

I now only carry a 9 mm Glock as a personal defense weapon as I mentioned, so there had been quite the transformation in my weapon-owning lifetime.

Your point about us being exposed to, and owning weapons our entire lives is a good one, and is likely why I personally am possessive of what I have.

[nexor]

Man, this is good, thanks to all you guys for the interesting reading.     :-X
Here in SA we are also fighting for the right to own and carry a firearm for self protection, while the criminal elements walk around carrying AK-47's and will not hesitate using it even if they just want to steal your nice wrist watch.
If you shoot the ba$t@rd, you get locked up immediately and have to prove to the court that you shot him in self defence, and if he didn't fire the first shot, your goose is cooked, and you need a damn good attorney.     :o
There are bad apples everywhere, not just in the USA. Unfortunately movie makers and their like has created a misconception about the American people, yes, I have met the occasional American as fragger described  (loud, arrogant, opinionated, self-absorbed, fanatically patriotic, a great lover of money - and possesses an all-consuming love of firearms), by changing fanatically patriotic, to non-patriotic it describes many of my fellow countrymen.       :-\\
I have met a number of Americans and they no different from people I've met from other countries, anyway, America's history is a damn site more interesting than SA's history.   My wife and I often watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition, what those people do is amazing and it shows the world what the American people really are, I promise you, none of that will ever happen here.        :'(

[mandru]

Thanks guys for the 1 ups and an extra thanks for putting up with me being a bloviating old buffoon.  I have to struggle to keep some of my longer posts focused on covering a topic to convey information instead of turning the post into a preachy personal journal with all the merit of a "Kilroy was here" graffiti tag.  :(

Some additional info I unintentionally omitted about purchasing a firearm (at least where I live).  Requirements vary from State to State but in the State of Utah we are able to go into a shop, select a gun and the shop clerk (by phone) will call to run our identification number (Federally recognized ID card required) through the Federal Crime Registry.  Typically if an inquiry is clear the shop will receive a call back within 15 to 20 minutes to report an OK to purchase notification.  Many States do have a 3 day waiting period before a purchase is allowed.

Also I found it interesting that I'm checked every 24Hrs through the Federal Crime Database but police officers are only run through once or at most twice a year.

[Art Blade]

 ??? that's a difference.

Then again.. someone working for the police should generally be considered OK regarding that Federal Crime Database or you'd essentially be saying that all police officers are criminals. They may be incompetent but not criminal. :-D

[fragger]

...thanks for putting up with me being a bloviating old buffoon.

Nonsense :)

[Art Blade]

rubbish. :-D

[nexor]

You guys are lucky mandru, over here you first have to acquire a competency certificate from a recognised firearm training centre, then you can go purchase the firearm, if you buy it from another person the firearm must be handed in at a registered dealer for safekeeping, if from a dealer he keeps it until you have the licence.

You have a mountain of paperwork to be completed, you also need four passport photos, at least two photos taken of your bolted to a wall gunsafe which must be an approved SABS (South African Bureau Of Standards) safe, at least two character witness letters, one must be from your spouse. They also contact your spouse by phone just to double check.

The firearm is kept by the dealer until you receive your firearm licence which can take up to six months, the licence must be renewed every five years, and all the above must be done over again, accept, the firearm does not have to be handed in, oh, and if you and your spouse each have your own firearm, you need separate safes, you may not have access to hers and she may not to yours.   

[fragger]

What if you don't have a spouse, or you live alone?

That's a pretty hefty procedure, nex ???? But here, you can't have a gun at all, period, unless you can prove you have a valid reason for ownership as I mentioned earlier. You can't even own a single-shot, compressed air pellet gun, which is not much more than a toy, without a licence. I looked into it a few years ago as I had one when I was a kid (no licence required then) and I thought it might be fun to pop off at some inanimate targets in the backyard from time to time. But nope, I'm not allowed to have one.

[Art Blade]

I too have got a compressed air pellet rifle (actually, gas cartridge) and the rifle got a proper scope, too. I acquired it more than 20 years ago when there were no licences needed. As far as I know, I may keep it but wouldn't be allowed to buy one these days.

[mandru]

I do think we're lucky nex.  I'm really grateful to be living in this time, in this place and under my current circumstances but the 'go along to get along' movement that is attempting to turn us all into one mind/one body sheeple where freedom of thought is guaranteed as long as you think the way they want you to - really gets my goat.  ;)


Jeez fragger that's so hard for me to even get my head around.  It's counter to the image I always had in my mind's eye of the typical independent Aussie and there were really none of the negatives you mentioned.  Even the inclusion of barroom brawling as part of that picture I carried was probably best represented by a scene from an old John Wayne movie Donovan's Reef.  A group of Australian navy men had come into a small bar where they determined that there was more of them than the number of American sailors present for a good punch em up.  Among the Aussies there was a pair of brothers so to even things up the older brother turned to the younger brother and turning his cap around backwards said "There, now you're a Yank".  Accepting the terms and conditions the younger brother nodded and promptly punched the older brother in the face knocking him to the floor. 

And the row was on.   There was no adversarial hostility, it was all in the spirit of a sporting event and I don't think that anyone was really bothering to keep score.  :)


So what's left,  Bow and arrow?  Get really good with a boomerang?  Perhaps you're allowed to sprinkle an attacker with a small swarm of freshly and carefully collected Jack Jumper Ants from a Prince Albert tobacco tin that you carry in your breast pocket?  ???

They haven't illegalized darts in bars have they?

Sounds pretty much like you're not allowed to fight back until after you've been stabbed.  Maybe not even then.  :(

[nexor]

What gets my blood pressure up is that since the new gun laws had been introduced gun control has not improved.

Just this morning I had a conversation with a Police Colonel and he agreed that the new legislation is aimed at ridding the law abiding citizen from owing a gun that can kill the comrades of the new regime, because statistics show that 99.9999% of our criminals are
"new South African", and this Colonel is not even white!! 

[fragger]

Same old story huh, nex? Legislation seldom is passed to benefit the common people. It's always those in power who are the intended beneficiaries.

Bloody hell, I thought Apartheid was over... Looks like it's going the other way now. Or has it been for a while now? When it was "abolished" I wondered at the time if there wouldn't be a pendulum swing in the opposite direction.

@mandru, that's pretty much right, there have in fact been instances where someone has inadvertently killed a would-be assailant in self defense and have found themself looking at a manslaughter charge and jail time. Almost always common sense has prevailed before it came to that, but it shouldn't even be a consideration. As far as I'm concerned, if someone tries to rob you, and if in fighting back you accidentally fatally harm that person, well tough luck, the robber brought it upon themself. I could throw a wadded-up piece of paper at someone in play and it could be made into an assault charge if the targeted person had no sense of humour or had a vindictive streak towards me.

This is a society where a woman once had a man sued - successfully - for sexual harassment because he committed the heinous crime of holding the door open for her at a restaurant on their first, and naturally only, date. She claimed that this act constituted humiliating and belittling treatment. The date, I might add, was arranged via a dating service, which suggests to me that this was the woman's plan all along.

This country has definitely become a bleating nanny state. The rugged, bronzed, in-your-face Aussie seems to have become a museum relic, like a fossil. Those tough-as-nails bastards who fought at Gallipoli in WWI must be rolling over in their graves at what this place has become. To think we once staged an armed uprising back in the gold rush days to fight extortionate government mining licence practices at a place on the goldfields which later became known as the Eureka Stockade, and even though the miners lost the contest of arms, the purpose was achieved. That's about the nearest thing we've had to a revolution, and the "Eureka Flag"

[smg id=8558 align=center]

with its stylized Southern Cross became an unofficial national symbol. I'd actually like to see it become the national flag, as would many of my peers, but it won't happen as long as the country is ruled by anglophiles and kowtowers to the British Royal Family, so we're stuck with that bloody Union Jack in the corner of the flag for the foreseeable future. Also, for those in power the Eureka flag is an uncomfortable reminder of a time in history when they had it royally stuck to them by those they were trying to rip off, that there was a time when corrupted authority was actively challenged by force. They don't want people remembering or identifying with that.

That spirit appears to be going by the wayside. These days everything is political correctness, a society where one can be charged with vilification if one tells an innocent, good-humoured joke at the expense of a particular nationality and someone, not necessarily of that nationality, happens to overhear and takes offense. I can't say actress, hostess or stewardess anymore without being taken to task by some righteously indignant flouncing fop. I'm sick of being told how to live, what to think and what attitudes I should have. I don't like being told what I can or can't say. I try to be mindful of other people's sensibilities, but if I say anything that someone feels is derogatory or takes issue with, they should take it up with me in person, not go dobbing me in to the courts like some crybaby in a schoolyard running off to tell the teacher. If they express their disapproval to my face, I'll respect them for doing that and I'll apologise for any hurt or offense I may have caused. If they try to sue me for it behind my back, they can get stuffed and I'll see the gutless wonder in court.

But getting back to firearms licences here, how's this for ridiculous: If I was a farmer, I would be allowed to obtain a firearms licence for a rifle (I think up to 30-06 caliber), but that licence would not entitle me to own any type of Airsoft gun ???? So I'd be allowed to fire real and hefty rounds that can kill, but not little plastic balls that might leave a welt on someone's skin. Airsoft weapons fall under Category A firearms licences, which includes replicas as well as sidearms and longarms that fire projectiles, lethal or not. This category also includes pellet guns, BB guns, and paintball guns (Skirmish site operators are allowed to have licenses for these last, but the guns have to remain at the site. Players can't buy their own, they have to use the site's guns).

In fact, in my state, NOBODY is allowed to own an Airsoft weapon under any circumstances. The reasoning, we're told, is because they so strongly resemble real firearms that they could be used in armed hold-ups, and if responding police see a perp wielding what appears to be an actual gun, they may open fire.

Point one: Since when is an armed holdup reliant on the perp having a firearm? When I worked in a gas station, I was held up twice - once with a mini-speargun and once with a screwdriver. Heck, you could just threaten to beat someone up with your fists in order to rob them. Point two: This "reasoning" simply demonstrates the trigger-happiness of the police (our cops are a tad eager to pull their Glocks, even though when they actually shoot someone, and even when they do in fact have very good cause, they get hauled over the coals for it by the media, by armchair critics, and by their own internal investigations department).

In Britain, regular police officers don't carry firearms at all, yet any citizen can own an Airsoft gun, which is a typical example of English common sense.

Give the Aussie powers-that-be time and they'll get around to banning Nerf guns eventually.

Madness, I tell you.

[nexor]

You're right fragger, the tables have turned, unfortunately not for the better of the country.
The new government introduced what is called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and is forcing big companies and organizations to have at least a 50% of other colour people in most levels in the workforce up to top level management positions, even up to shareholder level.

Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) is a racially selective programme, seen as racist by certain citizens, launched by the South African government to redress the inequalities of Apartheid by giving certain previously disadvantaged groups (Blacks, Coloureds, Indians, and Chinese who arrived before 1994)[1] of South African citizens economic privileges previously not available to them. Although race is the overriding factor, it includes measures such as Employment Preference, skills development, ownership, management, socioeconomic development, and preferential procurement.

All would have worked well if the transition was done in a proper manor that would keep the standard of expertise up, but many highly trained and experienced people were "retrenched" to make way for a inexperienced arrogant chip on the shoulder "New South African", but the funny thing is, unemployment rate has gone up since the change to the country with more millionaires now than 20 years ago, don't make sense, does it?

The New South Africans has virtually been given "the keys to the town", they can call you all sorts of names and you have to swallow it, if you call him anything else but Sir! your a$$ gets dragged to court for making racist remarks.

At least once a month our TV broadcasters show either a documentary program of how the black people of the country struggled during the apartheid era or a movie of how their "brothers" struggled in the USA.
I'm sure by now the whole world knows about the Marikana massacre in August 16 2012,
Only the people who were there at the time have an idea of what actually happened. Knowing the black people of this country,  with every get together being a protest, strike or displeasure towards anyone they carry some form of weapon, in some footages taken during the Marikana incident it shows these thousands of strikers carrying weapons, yet the unions  maintain it's peaceful, you carry a weapon to a meeting and claim you are peaceful? like hell!!!
Now put yourself in a cop's shoes, you see a wall of shouting bodies waving deadly weapons above their heads charging you, somewhere a gun goes off, is it a panicking cop, or one of these strikers who fired the shot? nobody knows, and nobody will ever find out. The cops, mine owners and the Government are blamed for everything, the strikers are the innocent victims.

[nexor]

I was born and grew up in the midst of the Apartheid era, yes there were segregation, some rules were downright idiotic but all of us had to abide by those rules.

Black people lived out of town in townships, they had their own public transport, public toilets were a no go, there were even separate entry/exit doors at our Airports, but once inside the terminal they could go anywhere accept there were designated rest rooms.

Most big towns and cities had a 6pm curfew, they were only allowed in the street after curfew if they had written permission from whomever they worked for and their "passbook" (later years all South Africans were issued a similar book at the age of 16y it was then called an ID book). all black people had to carry their passbooks wherever they went no matter the day or time, if not and the cops catch them they get locked up, appear in court the next day and get 30days in prison.

They were not allowed to buy or have any alcoholic drinks in their possession, I remembered as a youngster,  Fridays were payday and my dad would arrive home after w@&k with three bottles of Brandy he bought from the local bottle store, he then sat outside on the porch scratching all the labels off the bottles with his pocket knife. After dark three black guys working under my dad would arrive, the bottles were wrapped in brown paper and the three guys left with the bottles.

While growing up we spent all our Christmas holidays on relatives farms and my cousins and I. played with the farm workers kids, although I grew up in the Apartheid era, I never saw myself as a racist, my mom also had a job so we had a black lady working in the house like most people did and many still do, I was basically raised by one, she had a secure room outside on our property with its own toilet facilities and she had free access to the house, she fed my brother and I coming home from school every day, she mostly prepared dinner as well.

As far as I'm concerned, Apartheid should have been scrapped 40-50 years ago, then this country would have had better educated black people by now and this country would not have been in the s#!t the way it is presently, so if I sounded like a racist in my previous post, I'm not, and believe me, many white South Africans are not, the Apartheid thing started a long, long time ago before most of us were born.

  In 1652, a century and a half after the discovery of the Cape sea route, Jan van Riebeeck established a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope, at what would become Cape Town, on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch transported slaves from Indonesia, Madagascar, and India as labour for the colonists in Cape Town

The Boer Republics successfully resisted British encroachments during the First Boer War (1880–1881) using guerrilla warfare tactics, which were well suited to local conditions. The British returned with greater numbers, more experience, and new strategy in the Second Boer War (1899–1902) but suffered heavy casualties through attrition; nonetheless, they were ultimately successful.
Within the country, anti-British policies among white South Africans focused on independence. During the Dutch and British colonial years, racial segregation was mostly informal, though some legislation was enacted to control the settlement and movement of native people, including the Native Location Act of 1879 and the system of pass laws. Power was held by the ethnic European colonists

[Art Blade]

interesting read, thanks nexor :-X

[PZ]

Indeed  :-X

Fascinating to read how others live in their country.  This is the kind of information you simply cannot gain from the lying media (which is nothing more than entertainment)