Blind groper wrote:To Collector
I am not aware of any occasion in my country where a massive confiscation of hand guns took place, and I think no such action ever happened. However, if it had, I would be all in favour. Getting rid of hand guns does everyone a favour.
I doubt it has happened much at all, anywhere. Possibly in Australia, where a big crack down on weapons took place after their Port Arthur shooting. If that happened, I applaud the action. Possibly Jim might enlighten us on that one?
I seriously doubt that mass confiscations, even of hand guns has happened in too many places, even though it is something that should have happened everywhere, especially the USA.
After the Port Arthur shooting, there was certainly a tightening in gun controls, brought in by a conservative PM of the time, John Howard, against opposition from within his own ranks. Here is an excerpt from a Wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politi ... nsequences (the same one Faku linked to earlier. Naturally, I don't think the laws are ridiculous at all, but very sensible...)
The Port Arthur massacre in 1996 transformed gun control legislation in Australia. Thirty five people were killed and 21 wounded when a man with a history of violent and erratic behaviour beginning in early childhood[14] opened fire on shop owners and tourists with two military style semi-automatic rifles. Six weeks after the Dunblane massacre in Scotland,[9] this mass killing at the notorious former convict prison at Port Arthur horrified the Australian public and had powerful political consequences.
The Port Arthur perpetrator said he bought his firearms from a gun dealer without holding the required firearms licence.[15]
Prime Minister John Howard, then newly elected, immediately took the gun law proposals developed from the report of the 1988 National Committee on Violence[16] and forced the states to adopt them under a National Firearms Agreement. This was necessary because the Australian Constitution does not give the Commonwealth power to enact gun laws. The proposals included a ban on all semi-automatic rifles and all semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns, and a tightly restrictive system of licensing and ownership controls.
Some discussion of measures to allow owners to undertake modifications to reduce the capacity of magazine-fed shotguns ("crimping") occurred, but the government refused to permit this.
Surveys showed up to 85% of Australians supported gun control, but some farmers and sporting shooters strongly opposed the new laws.
The government planned a series of public meetings to explain the proposed changes. In the first meeting, on the advice of his security team, Howard wore a bullet-resistant vest, which was visible under his jacket. Many shooters were critical of this.[17][18][19]
Some shooters applied to join the Liberal Party of Australia in an attempt to influence the government, but the Liberal Party barred them from membership.[20][21] A court action by 500 shooters seeking admission to membership eventually failed in the Supreme Court of South Australia.[22]
The Australian Constitution prevents the taking of property without just compensation, so the federal government introduced the Medicare Levy Amendment Act 1996 to raise the predicted cost of A$500 million through a one-off increase in the Medicare levy. The gun buy-back scheme started on 1 October 1996 and concluded on 30 September 1997.[23] The buyback purchased and destroyed more than 631,000 firearms, mostly semi-auto .22 rimfires, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns. Only Victoria provided a breakdown of types destroyed, and in that state less than 3% were military style semi-automatic rifles.
