Lithgow LA101 - new .22 on the market

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What are the laws regarding air guns in Australia? Do you need a license?
I had a 6lb Weihrach W45 and a 18lbs Wilby rifle, both .22 and these were legal to own without a license or anything back in the UK. I wasn't allowed to bring them over with me so I'm looking to buy a new one but not sure how it works here
Cheers
 
Here an airgun is classified the same as a .22.

You will need a "genuine reason", which could be vermin control if you know a farmer, or join a gun club, or the SSAA (Sporting Shooters Association), and attend a number of range times.

If you chose vermin control, you can't target shoot. If you target shoot, you can't shoot on properties...get both, it's no extra cost.

SSAA have $7M public liability for paying members if something happens while you are using your firearm legally ($80/year, and $96 worth of magazines delivered to your door).

Air rifles, unless you have a competition that uses them are pretty useless, as there's no backyard plinking ever allowed with them.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Here an airgun is classified the same as a .22.........You will need a "genuine reason".......If you chose vermin control, you can't target shoot. If you target shoot, you can't shoot on properties........ there's no backyard plinking ever allowed ........


Wow, harsh.
 
If you've answered this before, never mind me. But how in heavens' name did you guys let this come about?
 
Originally Posted By: 2cool
If you've answered this before, never mind me. But how in heavens' name did you guys let this come about?


Would make a great movie/thriller.

Premier of my state tried to wipe out guns completely in the state, and got annihilated at the next poll. (I was at a dinner and he spoke some years later, when he pointed out that "forces of evil" had killed him at the polls.

In his exit speech, he claimed that Australia would not get decent gun laws until there was a "massacre in Tasmania", strange enough as statement...strange.

In 1996, a mental incompetent bought (legally in Tasmania) an AR15, which coincidentally had been handed to Police in another state during an illegal firearms amnesty in that particular state, and (allegedly) went on a rampage, which became the biggest mass shooting in history at the time (Port Arthur). Bloke with an IQ of 60 head shot 19 people in a minute, in a cafe.

Coincidentally:
* the police had been called far away to investigate a suspicious white powder;
* the Tasmanian Govt had purchased for unknown reasons a refrigerated morgue "bus", which was used for this event, then lay unused until it was sold.

Govt wheeled out hundreds of pages of legislation in the space of a half week, which can only have been sitting waiting for an event to foment public opinion.

Throw the media into the fray, and the public clamoured for tough gun laws...and we got it.

As is continually pointed out, we've not had another Port Arthur since the laws were introduced (never had one before either).

The patsy perp went to trial, but they refused to call witnesses to the event, as it would be "too painful" to call them (Strangely, in other media forums, witnesses described the shooter that they saw as a crop haired pock faced hard man versus the long blond haired baby faced simpleton on the evening news)


Stranger than fiction, and if it were set as a movie would be too unbelievable to make it.
 
Ah, the old sacrifice a few for the benefit of millions card.

You're right, it would make a great thriller.

Nice rifle by the way. I like .22s, now if I could just find some ammo.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow

The patsy perp went to trial, but they refused to call witnesses to the event


You mean they convicted the suspect without calling witnesses at trial? Was he convicted on his admission of guilt, or did they use physical evidence to tie him to it? I'm surprised the defendant's attorney didn't call witnesses if there was credible doubt about a second shooter.

Originally Posted By: Shannow

Govt wheeled out hundreds of pages of legislation in the space of a half week


I'm familiar with this concept of legislating. We have a new health care law here that was introduced in similar fashion. The law's principal sponsor famously said we would have to pass the law to find out what is in it.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Govt wheeled out hundreds of pages of legislation in the space of a half week, which can only have been sitting waiting for an event to foment public opinion.

I also am familiar with this sort of legislation... like the NY SAFE Act, which passed after
Though, to be fair, the SAFE Act sounds like nothing compared with what you've got down under.
 
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Yep it's pretty shocking what governments resort to just to get the mass population on their side.
All these mass shootings are staged, they scare the public into wanting a complete firearms ban, that way the power is taken from the public so that the authorities have the upper hand and we become puppets unable to fight back.
Switzerland has it right, absolutely everyone carries a gun on them yet violent crimes are unheard of. The way it works is like this; say you have a robber going into a bank to hold it up, he has a gun but so does everyone else in there, therefore he is powerless and would be taken out in seconds.
Hop the border to France and he would be the only one with a gun in there, therefore able to carry out the robbery and capable of killing someone. Because at the end of the day, a criminal will find out a way to get his hands on a gun whether they are banned or not!
Personally I think every sane person should have the right to own one for defense purposes but should obviously have to take tests and background checks beforehand.
But the big guys don't want the public to have this kind of power do they!
 
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Switzerland has it right, absolutely everyone carries a gun on them yet violent crimes are unheard of.

That's too hard of a concept for people to grasp. The antis will invoke images of the "wild west" and scare everyone to death. Of course the "wild west" didn't have very many murders but why let facts stand in the way.
 
Yes, in a discussion last week, I got the comment back "so their state is saying to sort out their arguments with guns !"....


errm, no...they are saying if there's a bad guy going to do bad things against you, you can have a chance.
 
Culture of personal responsibility vs. culture of state responsibility.

Some people think that they are responsible for their own welfare, financial position, well being and, yes, safety and security.

Some people think that they should not be responsible for those things, and that the state should provide them...
 
Originally Posted By: Astro14
Culture of personal responsibility vs. culture of state responsibility.

Some people think that they are responsible for their own welfare, financial position, well being and, yes, safety and security.

Some people think that they should not be responsible for those things, and that the state should provide them...

Um, generalize much? I would guess that there might be a inverse relationship between household income and gun ownership?
Anyways, I think there's more that one route to personal safety and security. Some countries try create the conditions where having to use lethal force isn't a common enough occurance that the public want almost anyone that can fog a mirror, can get a handgun...
 
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