Gun Control In Australia...FAIL!

so why stay there, why not come here, wait WTF, New Zealand is nice. They have hobbits

 

So, anyone who has even the remotest need to have a gun can get a licence relatively easy whereas we go through a federal background check. Like I said, you have relatively few differences yet are mortified by our laws so I do find that an interesting disconnect.

Most of our gun violence is in drug infested areas of large cities so not much different than any large city in the world. Most gun crime is with illegally possessed guns, again much like everywhere else. Aussies have always had fewer gun related crimes than the US so that is more cultural than anything else.

Do you trust law abiding citizens or are you like the gun control crowd that thinks everyone is a ticking time bomb and the only way to fix the problem is to oppress every law abiding citizen?

 

Yes we have background checks, you need to apply, there is a cooling off period, a test of gun handling knowledge etc.

Look, I'm just against those people who just want guns because they can, many are rednecks, people like who post on stormfront. I know even our laws don't stop them from getting guns here, both legally and illegally, but it does save lives, especially children's. Most of whom are accidently killed by careless or stupid gun owners, check out the figures yourself. Are these kids worth it, would you agree if they were yours. And attitude, civilized, progressive, future, change, grow. Don't you really like those words

 

The US is made up of 50 individual States and most gun laws that are not Federal are State laws. Some States are more restrictive than others, for instance, in Vermont you don't even need a license to carry yet I doubt Vermont is a hotbed of gun crime whereas Chicago has the strictest gun laws in the nation and is now considered the most dangerous city in the world.

Comparing rednecks to skinheads is an insult to rednecks. Besides your miss-characterization is typical of those that don't know the people they are talking about. I have lived among rednecks and can tell you that you could not be among some of the most decent people that will have your back before any city slicker would. People seem to relate education to intelligence when they are not the same or even close. Plenty of stupid college graduates out there.

What do you call Aussies that do not live in the city? Rednecks?

 

The Landed Gentry

We have our Rednecks to be sure, but I believe the new term is Bogans. Having said this, Australia is one of the highest urbanised countries in the world, with 80-85% of the population living in urban areas.

One wonders how Australia sustains such a valuable agricultural industry.

 

Yes I do, I live right in the heart of Sydney, what is sometimes called the "underbelly" of Sydney, and it is where Underbelly Razor was shot. But I will be 60 in 12 months, and I have lived lived in many places in this country. I grew up in a small country town, on a combination vegetable and dairy farm. In those days I was ultra conservative, so far right without being fascists. Then I suppose I got restless, my mind started to wander beyond the green hills, maybe I was forewarned of the impending changes that was about to come to my home town. We always knew there was coal under our valley, we never knew how profitable it was to become.

I went to Sydney and got a job as a doorman at a big nightclub, well I became engrossed in the lifestyle. Booze, women and drugs. Money too, plenty of easy money. But on one rainy morning, walking home at daybreak, the country boy in me looked at the human litter, the homeless, the sick, the drunks. I went home a week later, but was a lot more liberal now.

I joined the army, armoured core, sargent crew commander, 6 years service, honorable discharge. I had met this young lass, she was eighteen and as sweet as the apples from her fathers store. I met here passing through, had a weeks leave up my sleeve and arranged to billet there so I could woo her, she was my bride to be. 12 months later we married.

Well during the marriage I nearly killed myself, did cripple myself, but also educated myself. Spent 6 years at uni studying medical science. I also fathered two children, and became a Christian. 19 years after our vows, 14 years after the birth of my son, 9 years after the birth of my daughter, 4 years after she was diagnosed with non Hodgkin's Lymphoma, my bride left me here alone.

I spent a few years I suppose, crash learning the duel role of mum and dad, I also re-evaluated life, and the meaning of it.

9 years later Dominor Vobis came into the world, I was no longer needed. My son was a television producer, my daughter a mother. It was my turn again, but with sagacity. The country boy is not gone, but he has been educated, we share a black hat.

 

Compelling family story and I am sorry for your loss.

Can't say I approve or disapprove of your hedonistic pursuits mister "Male Dominant". To each his own. BTW, we are the same age.

 

Actually nothing hedonistic at all, we all serve, even your president is a servant, maybe he doesn't act like it to you.
Pleasure is a strange word, I'm finding out how strange. My father's 96, yesterday I weeded his rose garden for him, he usually does it himself. It was a pleasure, my back should be better in a few days.

Don't focus on the lose, for each lose can be a gain. She is at peace now with her God, we are all stronger.
It was a whole story, I know hillbillies, have some in my immediate family, and yes beautiful people, and smart..uncle Ben could judge the weight of a beast to within five kilos with a quick glance, made a fortune buying and selling cattle. It wasn't what he knew or didn't know that made him a redneck, nor the fact that his cousin was his wife's uncle, it was the slant on which he viewed the world, and I suppose you can't blame him, it was how it looked from where he was standing.

 

Oh and good fishing, or good Latin, or good use of Google, it's only a slight variant from Priest or teacher. Actually will be closer to a teacher, starting a Juris doctor degree next year.

 

Bogans are the urban variety, you won't see many mullets at the Isa Rodeo, a bloody lot of rednecks though.

You must be around our age liz, or in your 40's, well unless your close to 60 learn ...
when I was at school and I needed to calculate some thing, we use a devise called a pencil, if it was real complicated we used a pencil and worked it out. If we needed to do complicated stuff we had devices for that called slide rules. When we wanted to make a phone call we used always used one that was attached to a wire. If we wanted to take a picture we used a thing called a camera, no it wasn't an app on the phone. Then we waited a few days to have it developed. If we wanted to meet girls we went out of the house, as we did if we wanted to play football, tennis, golf, race cars and bikes.

Back then making 2567 friends would have been a lifetime achievement, not 2567 clicks of the mouse button as it is today.

Things change, now I write android apps and run a web site for the government, or did until 2 years ago. Crime rates go up because people get pissed, or poor, or left behind, or fall through the cracks, it may have gone down a little, but in real terms a lot. I believe that if guns were freely available, things here would be ten fold worse.
I would hate to see what would happen if half these kids today had an easy access to Dad's revolver, or worse.

 

It`s beyond the mental capacity of some sheeple that a firearm in the posession of a responsible and qualified person is completely safe. This can`t be said for firearms in the hands of criminals, but that`s obviously too much info for the anti gun herd to digest.

 

Well, being as smart as you are, I'm sure you know what I meant.

I could go for some good coffee right now.

 

I don't dabble in Aussie politics like you Aussies concern yourself with the U.S.

FYI, I have been all over the world. I'm up to about 45 countries so far.

 

What is the USA stance on gun laws?

 

Too many culturally different folks. Class warfare.

 

Youre boring the sh1t out of me....

 

I've just turned 57.

I've always been technology savy. I suppose this stems back to earlier days as I've always owned seriously good HiFi equipment and the love of music (listening not playing although I used to play a pretty mean blues harmonica).

Coming from a photojournalism and journalism background I needed to keep up wth technology for work. For many years I worked for a daily newspaper. Although I prefer the "photo" part of photojournalism more.

I used to teach photography for a couple of years in the evenings on a part time basis. I loved teaching so in early 2005 went back to my studies and gained my Diploma of TESOL through the TAFE system. The syllabus was written by the University of New England. I finished the course in mid 2007. I just had this sneaking suspicion I may be able to use it somewhere, somehow in a developing country.

At that time (2003-2007) my wife was project managing an education project for AusAid in Laos and I would spend a couple of months a year in Laos. I, living back in Australia and my wife living in Laos was very difficult. I had to be both father and mother to our two daughters who were in their early to mid 20s.

At that time I fell in love with Laos, the people and the culture. I'm really saddened to a point of being angry to what America did to Laos during the Second Indochina War. That's another story.

Anyway, I resigned from the newspaper in mid 2007 and went to China with my wife. She was offered a job managing an education project for an American NGO in far western Sichuan province, in the Tibetan Autonomous Region within a Tibetan community high up on the Tibetan plateau. Lovely part of China,, stunning. This fell through after three months and we made our way back to Laos for some R&R.

We were both offered jobs, my wife project managing another education project for AusAid (from what I've heard, she's the education specialist in Laos, she's also one of the best bid writers in the country), me teaching ESL at an Australian owned and run private college. I also do a bit of work for an NGO, in the UXO clearance field. I've just finished a project for an NGO who rehabilitates trafficked women. Heart wrenching stuff.

I'm in the process of writing two books. One is semi fictitious, about the life of the husband of an International Aid worker, the other is my photography in Laos, documenting everyday life. I'm also documenting the ethnic groups in northern Laos, which I find fascinating. I'm also planning to traverse the Ho Chi Minh trails through southern Laos and document this, another book maybe. This one will be more difficult as I would require special governmental permission to get into some of these areas, people are still being killed by UXOs today.This will be a long term project.

I suspect we'll be here fo another five or so years, then head back to Australia for retirement. We now have grandchildren. I would still like to continue teaching for a few more years when we return, probably at a community level. Last year, my wife at 55 began her Master's Degree in Internationl Aid & Development through Monash University, so she'll want to continue working as a consutant in International Aid on a part time basis.

We will always have ties with Laos because of the friends we've made here. These people are family to us.

 

Oh, brag fest I bet I am more technically savvy than both of you.

 

Of course you are.....you're an American....

 

how typically American of you..... I bet you are better at everything than anybody else.

and you lot wonder why the rest of the world roll their eyes at you !

 

LOL, typical. You have no idea what you are talking about yet spout off your bigotry as if it were fact. Keep trying.

I can guarantee I have more technical experience than most of you. In fact, probably more years of it than many of you have been alive or at least in the workplace.

 

Oh, you've been working that long?

Yeah, the rest of the world doesn't use valves anymore.

 

Oh, you've been working that long?

Yeah, the rest of the world doesn't use valves anymore.

 

They were not bragging about valves though I do have technical experience in valve but it is more recent.

 

The problem with yanks is that although they may have more talent or more of something/everything...they simply love telling everyone how good they are...sorry how better they are than everyone else.....as if anyone gives a stuff about some yank
who thinks he's at the top of the tree...I better be careful here, some yank might shoot me with their anti-tank weapon, or
sidewinder missle they have under the bed....yawn, yawn......