As an non-conservative Australian, I'd imagine the implementation would take a lot longer in the US than in Australia, due to the sheer number of guns that already exist. Last I looked, there were more guns than people in the US!

AFAIK, it was never legal here to own fully automatic assault rifles and machine guns, so most of the (now-)illegal guns that had to be turned or modified in were semi-auto shotguns and rifles. There's a much broader range of weapons currently available in the US, so if copying our laws exactly, a much larger percentage of existing guns would become illegal.

I imagine that with this larger initial volume, and larger percentage of that volume being illegal, combined with the NRA/patriot-type people who would likely create illegal weapons caches, the process would take a lot longer.

That said, a decade and a half later, we do still have to carry out occasional gun amnesty drives ourselves, where for a short time period the police will allow people to hand over illegal weapons with no questions asked and no charges for the illegal possession.

e.g. a gun amnesty this year in a single state resulted in 7000 more illegal guns coming out of the woodwork, so even for us it's been a long process.

I'm not a conservative American, but I would have to say that Australia's rules (as interpreted by wikipedia) would be really hard to implement here because of the fundamental attitudes of a significant part of the population. Not having "self defense" as a legal reason to own a gun would be totally unacceptable to them, for example, plus would go against recent Supreme Court interpretations of the 2nd Amendment. So you'd have to either change the constitution or get the Supreme court to re-interpret it in widely unpopular way.

There's the 2nd Amendment in the US as Prinz mentioned. Also, the argument of not only self-defense, but citizens' defense from a tyrannical government. But also with so many variations of semi-automatics and automatics out there, banning all of those and future variations would be a seemingly miraculous feat. Plus there's the issue of background checks (lack of thereof, nature thereof, potential abuses thereof). Also, how do you not only take the guns of citizens but also the guns of criminals and shady individuals?

Not only is it a societal hurdle but a legal one as well.

That does jive with what I've read/heard but, I'm more concerned with the effects of the legislation. How has it lowered incidences of gun-mediated homicide or other firearms violence? Is it actually true that you haven't had a mass killing by gun since the legislation passed?

Yes, there's been zero massacres since the gun restrictions (compared to averaging one a year in the decade before). There's been one attempted massacre (2 deaths) since, which resulted in further background check laws and further weapon restrictions.

Both total homicides and homicides using guns have dropped (gun homicides went down by about 60%, with no corresponding increase in other types of homicide).

The number of police who died from shootings was also halved compared to the previous decade, and they've remained at this low.

Robberies in general were already on an upwards tend in 96, which continued to increase afterwards, but a decade later in 06 they'd gone back down to the same level.

Regarding the 2nd amendment, allowing citizens to bear arms in order to defend against tyrants... surely the only way to ensure this is to either disarm the military to the same level as the citizenry, or arm the citizenry to the same level as the military? Surely this was feasible when the document was authored, in the age of muskets and cannons, but how does this work in the age of drones and smart bombs and tanks and javelin missiles?

Regarding the 2nd amendment, allowing citizens to bear arms in order to defend against tyrants... surely the only way to ensure this is to either disarm the military to the same level as the citizenry, or arm the citizenry to the same level as the military? Surely this was feasible when the document was authored, in the age of muskets and cannons, but how does this work in the age of drones and smart bombs and tanks and javelin missiles?

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Well the police, SWAT, and National Guard work for the cities and states and therefore the people. And if Iranians, IIRC, can hack a drone, surely we can as well. Plus the gov't does have missiles and such. But if you bomb the citizenry all to hell, then you'd have no one to govern or rule over anyway. So even in a war, I doubt missiles would be used all that freely. But as you pointed out, the gov't does have the advantage when it comes to onhand weaponry and tech. But the citizens would just resort to guerilla warfare and macgyvering as much as possible.
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Though the gov't does have the firepower, that doesn't mean that the people can't put up a fight. The gov't would surely not have an easy time getting the citizenry to just roll over.

Regarding the 2nd amendment, allowing citizens to bear arms in order to defend against tyrants... surely the only way to ensure this is to either disarm the military to the same level as the citizenry, or arm the citizenry to the same level as the military? Surely this was feasible when the document was authored, in the age of muskets and cannons, but how does this work in the age of drones and smart bombs and tanks and javelin missiles?

I don't agree with underlying premise, but I think the counterargument would be that you don't need hi-tech weapons to fight back effectively, as illustrated in Iraq and Afghanistan, but you need some weapons.

As a conservative, I do believe that Australia's gun control program would probably work, at least to lower gun-related violence and homicide rates, and homicide rates over-all. However, I don't believe in trading freedom for safety. I also don't believe that gun control laws should be applied at the federal level, painting every single person and every single area with the same brush. What is best for, say, Chicago isn't best for northern Wyoming. In the town where I live, we have probably somewhere in the ball park of 85% to 90% gun ownership, but a homicide and violence rate that is nearly non-existent. Accidents do occur, but very seldom due to strong emphasis on hunter safety courses for youth and adults alike. Guns are a part of our culture, nobody is particularly threatened by their mere existence, and folks are stable enough here that it just isn't really a problem. Whereas, enacting laws on the level of Australia just might impose a problem. I've seen calves lost to packs of coyotes (and, recently, wolf kills are becoming quite the nuisance as well, causing real problems among a number of local ranchers). When they run in packs, often a single shot isn't enough to deter them, so being limited to only a single-shell bolt-action hunting rifle would probably correspond with an increase in calf kills. In that regard, gun control legislation directly impacts a rancher's ability to deal with predators. (Especially bitter to swallow is the pill that so many of those predators were re-introduced in recent years, against the wishes and well-founded objections of those same ranchers, out of some kind of "save the wolves, won't you think of the poor wolves" idiocy.)

Still, if it meant saving lives, I personally would be willing to accept some additional restraints. However, another concern is that while Australia has a relatively benevolent government (in the top 10 for least corrupt nations in the world, last I checked) the US is growing ever more abusive and corrupt (not in the top 10). At least, that is the perception among many of my peers. In Australia, so I understand, the gun control movement was largely spearheaded by a guy, who according to one article I read, put his whole political career on the line and alienated a large part of his conservative base in order to enact such control. Those are the actions of a man who probably has real concern and compassion, and real human conviction about what he was doing. You could trust a guy like that, I think (although I don't really know any particulars.) There is no such perception of humanity and compassion in the US by us conservatives toward those who seek gun control here. Every attack we face comes not from a compassionate, concerned right-leaning leader but from an ever-increasingly left-leaning liberal gestalt whose values so completely oppose our own that it's a wonder we can even manage to reside in the same nation. Every proposal is viewed in that light, as what amounts to a hostile attack on our rights meant to further a leftist political agenda, rather than the actions of compassionate and concerned people who actually are "thinking of the children".

When we see Mr. Obama on TV surrounded by children, passionately exhorting us to "please, think of the children; save the children" we don't see a compassionate leader willing to put his political career on the line for something he truly believes in. We see instead a hostile government entity who is willing to use drones against American citizens telling us to "put your guns down, citizens, and submit." We see a guy coldly using those hurting families in Newtown to further his political capital with an increasingly left-leaning urban populace who just don't give two shits for our beliefs in any way, shape or form. There is no trust in us for a guy like that; not one iota. In this matter we see a corrupt political left that fervently supports abortion (and we're in the middle of a pretty nasty case, Kermit Gosnell, to keep us well-reminded of that fact) hypocritically telling us to "please, think of the children." It doesn't instill within us any kind of trust, any kind of feeling that these people are looking out for our well-being in general. It does quite the opposite, in fact.

So, while in general I and probably many of my peers would be supportive of some tighter gun laws, I just can't in good conscience support such efforts coming, as they do, from what I perceive to be such a corrupt and thoroughly self-promoting administration. (Note that I don't solely blame the current administration, either; neither side in this country is particularly clean, nor have they been for a long time.) Perhaps a day will come when we can trust our government again. Perhaps then a few of us might be willing to accept some tighter restrictions. But that day simply is not today, and in the meantime trading away our safety and ability to protect our families just does not seem like a good idea.

Though the gov't does have the firepower, that doesn't mean that the people can't put up a fight. The gov't would surely not have an easy time getting the citizenry to just roll over.

I think we're forgetting that the government is made up of thousands of people, i always get a good laugh when i hear people talk about how the "government is coming after us", as if the U.S. government is some type of single-person tyrant.