Australia: 640000 Confiscated Semi Auto Firearms, Pump Action Rifles, Shotguns:

[Guest Shep Stoner308]

The thought here is that if they did, it would be during some type of disaster or event that occurs within our country. Say a nuke goes off in a major city for example, (set by whomever, Iran, etc.) It appears to me that the infrastructure for the government is already in place to shut down all major types of communications, internet, phone, cell phones, and TV channels other than those that they wish the population to see. So everyone is in the dark or only given information through local news outlets(maybe like a radio station in your town), but even they would only know so much. Not enough to give you an idea of what is truly going on.

This is the time when they would go after the weapons and attempt disarmament of the population. Each one of us, or the ones that believe in the 2nd Amendment to the point that we would fight for it to harm or death would be in a sense isolated from most of the world with no knowledge of whats even occurring possibly in even the next county. It would be quite easy for them to isolate and take out those that resisted. This is the only way it would work in my opinion for them to succeed. You will not being seeing stories in the news about so and so fighting and it covered on live tv. It will be a complete blackout. Of course martial law would have started once the "event" happens. Its about as easy as that.

Yes maybe my comment belong in the end of the world whatever category, but they do need or should be expressed here as they relate to a possible way the federals would attempt to disarm the population.

[Oh Shoot]

....This is the time when they would go after the weapons ...

Remember, in this country, "they" is "us". Active army is a very small proportion of population so they'll need National Guard in each state, which still adds up to only around 1% of total population. And particularly with the Guard, "they" is the guy and gal next door, around the corner, across town.

"They" are not necessarily going to storm troop "us".

Most will turn them in on their own volition, but they ain't gonna come get 'em. They didn't in Australia. Didn't have to. Over time, they weed out the holdouts. Hell, after a generation or so of the "re-education", youngsters jump to turn in grandad's guns they found in the attic.

Everybody throws up the Katrina example, but that was a very localized deal in one part of one city, and with actually very few rouge LEO's involved. Would be nothing like that with a wider regional or national upheaval of whatever kind you'd like to posit.

- OS

Edited August 7, 2012 by OhShoot

[Guest Shep Stoner308]

Points well taken Ohshoot.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I don't see how the gov would be

spending all the time and energy

collecting guns when they would

fighting the wars they are currently

in and possibly be fighting off an

invasion, like has been mentioned

in the past.

That's why I think the timing is off.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JAB]

The thought here is that if they did, it would be during some type of disaster or event that occurs within our country. Say a nuke goes off in a major city for example, (set by whomever, Iran, etc.) It appears to me that the infrastructure for the government is already in place to shut down all major types of communications, internet, phone, cell phones, and TV channels other than those that they wish the population to see. So everyone is in the dark or only given information through local news outlets(maybe like a radio station in your town), but even they would only know so much. Not enough to give you an idea of what is truly going on.

This is the time when they would go after the weapons and attempt disarmament of the population. Each one of us, or the ones that believe in the 2nd Amendment to the point that we would fight for it to harm or death would be in a sense isolated from most of the world with no knowledge of whats even occurring possibly in even the next county. It would be quite easy for them to isolate and take out those that resisted. This is the only way it would work in my opinion for them to succeed. You will not being seeing stories in the news about so and so fighting and it covered on live tv. It will be a complete blackout. Of course martial law would have started once the "event" happens. Its about as easy as that.

Yes maybe my comment belong in the end of the world whatever category, but they do need or should be expressed here as they relate to a possible way the federals would attempt to disarm the population.

Keep in mind, though, that during such an event as you postulate would also be a time when those of us who are armed would realize that we probably needed to be even more armed and even more vigilant to guard against a possible threat (thinking more toward whichever terrorists set off the nuke in the first place) and would also be a time when we would realize that we could count even less on authorities to keep us safe. Therefore, I'd think that many would be 'armed and ready'. Depending on how tense things were and the local 'climate', people might just be walking around with their shotguns and rifles in hand, carry laws be damned. It would be a powder keg waiting to blow and any threat - from the terrorists who originally caused the event to government personnel attempting to take the means for protecting themselves away from the people - would touch a match to the fuse on that keg. My thinking would be that even people who might not normally be all that stolid in their support of the 2nd Amendment would be willing to fight for their right to protect themselves and their families during such an event. I don't think the FedGov would want to poke at the hornet's nest during a time when people were already stirred up and expecting to have to fight something or someone in order to protect themselves.

Personally, I'd think anyone who might want to take our firearms would be better off waiting until a time of peace, tranquility and prosperity. As 6.8 said, the government would need to wait until they were back in the 'good graces' of the general populace - and a time when the economy is in the crapper, gasoline prices are high and greater price increases are predicted due to the poor corn crops this year would not be that time. Nah, they'd need to wait until a time when even gun owners who aren't 'hard core' 2nd Amendment advocates might be thinking, "Things are going well in this country. Everything's pretty peaceful. I guess we really don't need those guns, after all. Maybe the government knows best and we'd all be better off if we just turned them in."

Edited August 7, 2012 by JAB

[Guest 6.8 AR]

The good thing about what we agree on, JAB, is that if we did end up having to defend ourselves, after the bad

time is over, there probably wouldn't be the push to rid us of our guns to the magnitude it was before because a

certain show of independence would influence most politicians they would be staring righ back into the hornet's nest.

It's about the only good that would that might come out of that kind of situation, though, well, except people who

survive would be less likely to become independent on the government, again.

[Guest Baron]

I won't lie. As of today, I consider the scenario highly unlikely. However, there are a few odd thoughts I have that don't seem to ever be brought up.

1. There would have to be a buy-back program. They couldn't claim that it was not theft if they did not pay for what they took. Even though our Government has no problems spending money it doesn't have, thats a rubber check that would bounce to Mars.

2. The pure logistics and the man-hour cost of collection and disposal would be enormous. Even if they took the most likely route and put them on a boat to China.

3. Im sure there would be some sort of "drastic environmental impact". Heck, thats how they took our guns from us in school, "Possible lead contamination". What will the Hippies do?

4. There is a good chunk of tax money that is no longer at the disposal of the politicians.

[GlockSpock]

This is personally how I fear it may be done. Much like the assault on automatic weapons, first there would be a federal tax of some sort on guns. "Handguns are $50 per year and long guns are $100 per year", or something like that. At this point you would have to pay for each of your guns, based on serial numbers, for them to be "legal". At first many people would be possibly be open to this. It could start out cheap, like $100 per year for as many guns as you want. People would say "$100 is a cheap price to pay for you security", just like people say "$115 for a permit plus a class is a cheap price to pay for your security". After the government got people in the mindset of paying that tax, they could easily raise it, or restrict it. This is what they did with automatic weapons essentially. Any weapon in public that had not been taxed would be considered contraband.

Obviously this would not work very well in many places, such as the south, but after conditioning the current school kids nationwide, it could work. Instead of "collecting", they would simply be gradually wait for people to turn them in since they couldn't pay the tax. When facing either a very expensive tax to keep Grandfather's AR-15, or risk jail time by keeping it without the tax, I think that most of the conditioned public would just turn it in to avoid the worries. The confiscation and elimination of the armed public is based upon one thing: Public perception of firearms.

[Guest Shep Stoner308]

I could see this happening.

[gjohnsoniv]

Only problem is I think public opinion is turning slightly in favor of guns.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

It would be interesting how big a stink a tax or confiscation would be. One would think that the usa would need a majority of citizens in favor of gun bans for such law to stick. If somebody like harry reid and nancy pelosi did a cram down of gun ban legislation, ala "health care reform", just barely passing the law-- Next election if the majority of citizens were against the gun ban then congress membership would turn over and the law would be repealed. But the turn-over would have to be decisive enough to make veto-proof repeal. Maybe the law could "stick" even if a substantial majority of citizens happened to be against a gun ban? For instance, betcha the majority of citizens have been against federal income tax since the tax was created in 1913, but we still have an income tax 99 years later! How did that happen? Maybe the majority are in favor of the war on drugs, but I have my doubts. That is another one that seems impossible to get rid of. Perhaps it is a miracle that prohibition was ever repealed.

A corollary might be that the majority of brits and aussies were generally in favor of their bans on broad classes of guns, or the bans wouldn't have survived subsequent elections? Or maybe its kinda like income tax, unpopular law that seems impossible to repeal?

On the topic of fighting lost causes-- Some freedoms folks give up more willingly than others. It would be rather difficult to ban sugar, chocolate, coffee, tobacco.

On the other hand-- Back about the time people started making crude computers at home, before Apple or about the same time as the dawn of Apple or Northstar-- Many years before consumer subscription satellite TV with the small dishes-- The major networks and some cable programming was on satellites requiring 6 or 8 foot dishes. It became a popular thing to do and a rural small-biz growth industry setting up big dishes in back yards to pick off the programming, which was un-encrypted in that day. I never had a dish, only read about the movement in electronic magazines. After some years the content providers got mad about people getting something "for free". But the attitude of the amateur satellite dish guys, which makes some sense, "If xyz megacorp doesn't want me to watch their TV programs then they shouldn't send the signals into my back yard. Any signal that lands on my back yard, I have a right to receive if I so desire. Once the signal lands in my back yard it is my property to do with as I please for personal use."

So anyway there were some attempts to control that "outlaw" cottage industry, but finally the providers started scrambling some of the favorite feeds. The satellite guys promptly hacked the scrambling and were selling descramblers in small magazine classified ads and writing articles how to hack the scrambling techniques. Same theory, if a signal lands in my back yard and I can hack it, then it ain't nobody's business if I do. If they don't want me to hack it then they can dam well quit transmitting into my back yard. I can also tell people how to hack it because we have a first amendment in this country. Freedom of speech.

It looked for awhile there would be mass revolt against the big-dogs "intellectual property rights" to transmit into yer back yard but forbid you from receiving the signal. The big dogs were selling licenses to receive, but the price was considered too high because it was the same stuff broadcasters were putting on the air for free if you happened to be in-range of a land station. I got the impression it would be a hacking war that would last for years and be difficult to squash. But it was real easy. The FBI just threatened some of the prominent authors with long-term jail sentences if the authors didn't shut up. And the authors shut-up. And that was that, pretty much. People either let their dishes rust or they lined up to buy licenses.

So some things look pretty easy to squash, just a few well placed threats and maybe a couple of example punitive sentences.

[BryanP]

Only problem is I think public opinion is turning slightly in favor of guns.

'Slightly' doesn't even begin to cover it. The manufacturers can't keep up. Hell, Ruger just cranked out their one millionth* gun for the year. In August. Last year it took them until the end of the year to get to that number. And prior to that they had never reached that number in a single year. The ammo shortages aren't because of .gov purchases, it's us plus all the other new gun owners out there.

*http://www.thefirear...well-this-year/

Edited August 21, 2012 by BryanP

[gjohnsoniv]

That and gun sales in Colorado going up 40% right after the shooting.

[Oh Shoot]

The first thing we'll see is federal ban on private gun sales. And at least half the gun owners in US won't bat an eyelid.

- OS

Edited August 22, 2012 by OhShoot

[Guest vca2004]

I figured the video looked a little old, so I did some digging:

http://www.factcheck...l-in-australia/

http://www.gunsandcr...g/auresult.html

While I CERTAINLY wouldn't want to give up my gun since criminals wouldn't just line up and give theirs either, what the OP posted is not really correct. I also believe (and the data that I've linked to supports that to an extend) that if attackers don't have guns, they will find some other kind of weapon (e.g. knives, hard/sharp objects). It's not like criminality will cease to suddenly exist, especially considering just how violent criminals in this country are!

Edited August 22, 2012 by vca2004

[gjohnsoniv]

In England the deaths/attacks went up with screwdrivers.

[Guest Shep Stoner308]

Well, I suppose if our guns were made illegal, someone would develop the semiautomatic crossbow anyway.

[tnhawk]

The voters obviously allowed their gov't to do this. I don't think Americans will roll over and allow that to happen.

Most didn't think it could happen in Australia.

[Guest ThePunisher]

Most didn't think it could happen in Australia.

There was also a whole lot of people who thought that the biggest liberal in the Senate who nobody really knew anything about him, and was the least experienced candidate to ever run for President could ever be elected to the WH. But he was elected, and if he gets re- elected he will impose his agenda of assualting the 2nd A. If Australia could be fooled into turning in their guns, then the mind blinded American people can be fooled into turning in their guns.

[Oh Shoot]

Bigiron, on 05 August 2012 - 09:32 AM, said:

The voters obviously allowed their gov't to do this. I don't think Americans will roll over and allow that to happen.

Most didn't think it could happen in Australia.

It's not like we get to vote on issues and neither did the Aussies. Only get to vote for politicians.

If gun control were a matter of national referendum we would probably have lost most all gun rights already. We certainly wouldn't be legally carrying them.

Another 20 years more or less of progressive "reeducation to the masses", and we could easily go much the same route.

- OS