For the same reason you don't trust motor dealers to look after motor vehicle records. Businesses have differing standards, can do the wrong thing due to economic pressures, go bust, burn down etc.
As I indicated, the record keeping is a condition of their operating licence here in Canada, that also alleviates the go bust scenario as the regulating body would know when a store closes shop. The book has a standardized layout that means the same details go in wherever you are. Every store I know keeps that book locked up in a fireproof safe or vault at night because it would make a great shopping list for criminals. Anyway, the point is that a national registry duplicates this effort at a huge cost. It's wasteful and your money is better spent on more effective controls than a list of who owns what.
All handguns should be banned outright for private use barring use at gun clubs when the gun should also be kept there and not allowed off the premises except under very special circumstances e.g. go to approve competition under lock and key. Multi shot shotguns should be hugely restricted and only allowed to those who have an approved and certified need e.g. farmers who can demonstrate a genuine need. A total ban on automatic weapons would also be a great idea.;
We have this, without the added risk of centralizing handgun storage in a few large caches. It's much more secure to keep their whereabouts relatively unknown. We have a lot of restrictions in this regard, as far as storage, transport etc are concerned. Aside from the storage requirements, it probably wouldn't work in the US but, for the most part, their concealed carry systems mirror our licensing criteria and though there are instances where the standards don't weed out those who shouldn't be carrying, overall they seem to do a good job. It's the people who flout the laws that are the problem.
Most of our illegal guns come from robberies of legal guns. mainly from security firms, gun cubs and to a lesser degree private weapons plus imports from various places but with guns bought legally in the country of origin and stolen weapons being only a minor factor due to the difficulty getting them to and in to Australia.
Yeah, that's what I was alluding to. It's different depending on where you are. I can imagine it's pretty hard to smuggle guns into Australia. Not the case in Canada. There's just too much cross border traffic.
Gun law changes always costs money as gun owners are notorious for flouting laws. We had the same here when we slightly toughened gun laws after Port Arthur. We had to buy back nearly a billion dollars worth of weapons and even that wasn't nearly enough.
Let's be fair here, nobody likes becoming a criminal over night because certain permissions were removed by an act of parliament. Equally, if a government is going to declare previously legally acquired and owned property as unlawful, they're going to have pay for it to be handed in. Anything else is draconian.
Just because under very unusual circumstances a gun can be used to protect yourself doesn't mean they serve that function overall. Gun ownership hugely increases your and your family's chances of serious injury or death. For society the outcomes are universally terrible and the rate of death increases with gun owbership and death/injury therefore increases exponentially with increased gun ownership. As Jim Jefferies pointed out the only argument for guns is "I like guns".
For some, guns are tools. I know you agree because you've mentioned certain demographics whose ownership and use of guns is acceptable for you. We agree that their presence increases the risk of injury or death. With any risk, various controls need to be established to reduce the hazards. Some places use the technique of avoidance (England, Australia, etc.) while others have implemented less stringent measures and accept the risks that firearms present. Every country, except perhaps the US and a few other outlets with no controls, seeks to minimize harm and, quite naturally, risk tolerances are different from place to place. This makes it difficult to say what systems are the best as the risk tolerance is the driver behind the system.
As I was saying to Marx and Godwin at the motor registry the other day ..........
Guns should be dealt with as a health issue and legislated like we legislate smoking so that we reduce deaths by ramping the costs up in various ways and making gun ownership ever increasingly hard work - changing hearts and minds over generations. Attitudes can change but you need patience. People often need encouragement to do things for their own good and that is a legitimate role of government. When I was a kid you could smoke everywhere and now you are a social pariah.
well met.
In the US, around 480k people die from smoking related causes each year. 300k from obesity. These are health crises. Of the , admittedly, ridiculously high number of gun deaths in the US, we know the majority of these are suicides.
From the experience in Canada, one of our reasonable control measures requiring safe storage has reduced suicides involving firearms substantially but it is noted that these poor souls have, for the most part, chosen other means to facilitate their demise and, as such, we've seen only a small drop in suicide numbers. Still, I think this is a good thing as the storage requirements also reduce accidental shootings and crimes of passion. It's a very simple measure that I think would have a massive impact on the numbers coming out of the US and opponents of gun control can't argue that it infringes on second amendment rights. I think it's common sense to keep your guns locked up and unloaded.
As for making it difficult, our system pretty much starts with enhanced background checks. You'd be surprised at how many people this discourages from even entertaining the idea of owning a gun.
