Thanks everyone,
I think it was a smart move now too..lol
Jim, things were rough a few years back when the government (in a knee-jerk reaction to a mass murder in Tasmania where 35 were killed and 21 injured in a half hour period) banned all military style, high capacity & semi auto long arms and high calibre, high capacity handguns. I still dont understand the reasoning. You can kill as many people with 10 round mags as you can with 30 round mags...you just need more of them. The military style ban was also strange....now you cant own an M1 Carbine or some "pray and spray" but you can have a .338 Lapua with a 32 x 60 scope and thermos that can kill from 2 kms????
Prior to this anyone over 17 could walk up to the counter in a gunshop, pick out a rifle, hand over the cash and walk out the door with it. We had never had a need to limit access to long guns before. Pistols had always been licensed but now if you want anything large than a .38 you had to have sign off from your club.
After the Port Arthur Massacre ( the reason for the ban) the government introduced a new licensing law and a gun buy-back scheme for anyone who couldn't be bothered getting a license to own a daisy air rifle or single shot .22, AK47, etc .
The pistol laws are not much tighter now than when I first started in the Brisbane Area Army Pistol Club back in the 80s. Just the calibre restrictions. We always had to be in a pistol club, we always needed to do a specified number of club competition shoots per year. The only other thing that changes was the progressive access to handguns. You can only have one in your first year of being licensed...after the first year you can have as many as you can justify having. ...oh yeah I can't legally collect post 1947 handguns here without a special permit....every S & W I own has to be for comp use. That doesn't apply to my old Victorys and 1917s, etc..they are collectable and on a seperate license
The biggest problem with the buy-back scheme was that there were $$ values put on everything icluding old auto slides, barrels an revolver barrels, hence it is IMPOSSIBLE in Australia to find spare parts for early handguns...boxes and boxes of barrels were sold to the government by gunsmiths for perhaps $100 each barrel....why wouldn't you sell them! To make matters worse it is virtually impossible to buy a barrel from the USA...no one wants to export second hand barrels and have to go through the State Dept stuff
Anyway...sorry for the long rant.....its frustrating when a law abiding citizen trying to pursue a lawful hobby, collecting these beautifully made precision instruments is hindered by laws made in response to one-off tragedies by flacid governments, bending to the will of a few self righteous xenophobes who are scared of their own shadows.
Cheers
Mike
