The third e-mail I received in response to the gun issue! This one is about more accurate information about the whole topic...

I don't know who in the world this person is who wrote a silly article about Australians, Brits, and Canadians being in a crisis, but he/she is an idiot. However, I hope you will at least accept that America is NOT Britain, Canada, or Australia.

The insistance that gun ownership didn't become common until after the Civil War is a half-truth which wholly depends on your definition of "common". At the very least gun ownership in Colonial America was common enough to allow them to defeat the British Army in what would now almost certainly be considered guerilla warfare. Perhaps this statement considers American possessions which didn't legally allow firearms until after America took possession.

At the same time, consider the top three news stories of the year:

1. Amadou Diallo is shot 41 times by three plain-clothed police officers who never identified themselves.

2. Two police armed with submachine guns slaughter an innocent man in his bed and shoot at his 4 year old child They had an accusation of drug use, but got the address wrong.

3. Los Angeles police department is caught planting drugs on people to get innocent people put in jail, and admits to shooting more than one innocent person. Seeing a pattern here?

Besides worrying about the police killing you for imagined offenses, we have our war on drugs, which has in and of itself created a group of violent, cutthroat criminals not seen since the era of Prohibition. These people have guns, and probably won't just turn them in when they are made illegal. Couple that with the fact that there are some bad neighborhoods where the police just wont go, and you leave alot of perfectly innocent people (who probably aren't stupid) wondering what to do. Are they supposed to passively accept that criminals can break into their houses? Call police who laugh and inform them that they aren't going to go to a dangerous neighborhood like that (the ongoing joke in our town is that the only reason Saginaw even has a police department is as a way of subsidizing the local restaurants and 7-11's).

These people need to defend themselves, and here in America you can't count on the police (even in a relatively nice part of the city a call to the police is usually answered in only about 2-3 hours). One last reason is the ability to rebel effectively. I know this isn't an issue in Canada, Britain or Australia, but America was founded by a rebellion, and as our leaders become progressively more corrupt and violate more and more civil rights, another may come up sooner or later. Whens the last time Britain, Canada, or Australia was ripped by the United Nations for violating its citizens civil rights? America faces this pretty regularly, and until these problems are corrected, people need a way to defend themselves against those who would do them harm (whether police or drug users).

Besides which, if people in Austalia "don't want guns" why do you even need regulation? If no one wants them theres no problem, is there? Maybe you could visit this site though, they're pretty eloquent.

http://www.co-freedom.com/2000/03/openletter.html

One more thing I just have to ask though: what kind of animals do farmers keep in Australia that they need to be protected from RABBITS???? My God, if we see a rabbit around here we comment on how cute it is, we don't shoot it. Does rabbit mean something in Australia like mountain lion means here? Or are (as the stereotypes suggest) animals in Australia always bigger and meaner, and therefore the rabbits are a deadly threat? Maybe living in a violent society has made Americans alot tougher, and what you see as a deadly threat we see as a potential pet, my God, a relatively big pet cat could probably wipe out an entire city there! :)

(Kun-chan says: The reason why people in Australia don't want guns (apart from the manics and farmers) are because of what happened a number of years ago, in a little place called Port Arthur in Tasmania. http://www.southcom.com.au/~geniac/pa/ will tell you what happened. There was an outcry from the normal people of Australia, and the government responded to this, banning automatic weapons.

As for rabbits - Australian farmers shoot rabbits because they are considered 'pests' which destroy crops. I guess one or two of the things wouldn't make much of a problem, but if you've got hundreds around (and let me tell you, you see many, many of the things between the city of Melbourne and Geelong!), your crops probably don't stand much of a chance against them. Hence farmers want to shoot the rabbits. Most non-country Australian people see them as cute and potential pets, too!)

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