Damien Power
courtesy brisbanepowerhouse.com

“In Australia, it took one mass shooting in Port Arthur in 1996, where 35 people were killed, for the country to do something concrete about gun reform. The government adopted tighter gun control, banned semiautomatic weapons and started a mandatory gun buyback program.

“The United States, meanwhile, has an average of nine mass shootings every 10 days, and 13,000 gun homicides a year. Gun violence is so rampant that China has warned its citizens about travelling here.

“So if you’re interested in not getting shot to death and adorable koalas, Australia might be the place for you.” – Damian Power in Don’t get shot in America! Come to Australia [via sbs.com.au]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

104 COMMENTS

  1. Two words – box jellyfish.

    Sorry if you can’t get to sleep tonight…

      • ‘Stings from these and a few other species in the class are extremely painful and can be fatal to humans…

        In Australia, fatalities are most often caused by the largest species of this class of jellyfish, Chironex fleckeri. Researchers at the University of Hawaii’s Department of Tropical Medicine found the venom causes cells to become porous enough to allow potassium leakage, causing hyperkalemia, which can lead to cardiovascular collapse and death as quickly as within 2 to 5 minutes.’ – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_jellyfish

        • I have seen shows about them and how painful death or near death by them is. Profiled was one researcher that got stung and even the max dose of morphine didn’t stop her from writhing horribly in pain. It went on for days I think:-o

    • The Irukandji are worse….fricking size of a pencil eraser. good luck spotting a swarm of those things in the water before jumping in. The funnel-web spiders alone keep me out of that place. ill tempered, like to hang out in your slippers, and fangs are so strong and large they bite through your toenail-and I didnt even get to the neurotoxins. blue ring octopus, belligerent snakes, 20ft crocs. Try looking at a climate map of that place sometime too. yeah not for me. This guy can keep it.

    • Good one here are some more: giant and very deadly snakes and spiders(world record deadliest)

      not something u can crush with your foot either sorry to thos with phobias

      • Yep. Of the world’s top ten venomous snakes, we have NINE. Remember to look carefully when in our woods and forests.

        And if those don’t kill you, Vegemite will! The secret is a little goes a long way. Slap in on like peanut butter and the taste is overwhelming.

      • Nah, it can take as much as 3 days for a funnel web spider bite to kill you. And I couldn’t find any references to ‘excruciating pain’.

    • The Stinging Bush: “Contact with the leaves or twigs causes the hollow, silica-tipped hairs to penetrate the skin. The hairs cause an extremely painful stinging sensation that can last anywhere from days to years, and the injured area becomes covered with small, red spots joining together to form a red, swollen welt. The sting is famously agonizing. Ernie Rider, who was slapped in the face and torso with the foliage in 1963, said: [9]

      For two or three days the pain was almost unbearable; I couldn’t work or sleep, then it was pretty bad pain for another fortnight or so. The stinging persisted for two years and recurred every time I had a cold shower. … There’s nothing to rival it; it’s ten times worse than anything else.”

      In other words, everything in Australia is already trying to kill you.

    • We have a version of Chicago in Sydney’s western suburbs (actually more south western). It is the Cabramatta-Fairfield-Guilford blot which combines poverty, drug use, criminal activity, etc. Perhaps Damian can feel more at home here.

  4. They’ve done the similar things in South Africa (where property rights have also been taken away), France (where mass shootings still occur), England (mass stabbings), Chicago (Murder Capital USA), and North Korea (where you’re likely to die slowly from starvation). Lest we also forget the heavily regulated firearms of Mexico (Cartel Land).

    • Let me explain it to you in simple terms. Know matter what you have heard, there is NO effective gun control laws in Chicago.

      The ONLY gun control law is the FOID. And the nice part is that gangs can use it to pre-screen their members before they go to the gun shop. If you can pass a federal firearms background check, you can get a FOID. The cost $10 for 10 years and you can apply online.

      As for long gun restrictions(there are no handgun), well you can buy anything you want just outside of Chicago (even in Cook County) that is not NFA. You are just not “allowed” to bring it back. Real big deterrent to gang bangers (or just about anyone else, as the local AWBs are not really enforced).

  6. “9 mass shootings every 10 days”, you say? I must have missed a few. What a maroon.

    • Likely data from shootingtracker-dot-com, which past TTAG articles have pointed out to have no regard for facts. Supposedly any shooting (firearm, airgun, whatever) in which 4 or more people were injured (including gang shootings), and even there they appear to rely on crowd-sourced reports without any effort at verification.

    • Start labeling everything a mass shooting and the number of mass shootings increases.

      Funny how that works.

  7. What an idiot. Seriously, he clearly did ZERO unbiased research for that pathetic “article”.

    • I would too they have some decent gun laws even getting NFA type weapons with similar hoops to jump but its still possible.

      • Decent gun laws, and it’s legal to distill your own alcohol!

    • Been to both, and I would agree. I think I like the Aussies themselves better, they’re tough sons of bitches, but New Zealand is just paradise. It’s a bigger better Hawaii, with penguins.

  9. I guess he’s freaking out because now that the plastic gun genii is out of the bottle, anyone in Australia with a 3D printer can make their own. Until they ban printers.

  10. The difference is Australia is very picky about who they allow into the country, especially if planning on staying. No open borders there.

    • Yes that has been true but its starting to change like in London where as they become more “diverse” like the US has been they get the same “diversity” problems.

    • Every country you’d want to live in is like that. It’s nearly impossible to get into Australia, New Zealand, Japan, or anywhere else. America’s immigration laws are laughably lenient compared to any other first-world country (unless you’re an Islamic refugee, you can’t get into Europe either).

      The exception is if you’re young and have a firm job offer. If you’re retired, forget it.

  11. The entire country of Australia has less people than just Southern California. Plus, we’re more free here. I’ll take freedom first and risk instead of nanny-state safety any day of the week.

  12. The MSM might as well be shoving their sh_t up your ass, for as much as it’s doing for ya.

    Wake the F up.

  13. Australia, a country where everything has the ability to kill from a wildlife perspective. At least they are picky about who they let in the country, maybe we could learn something from them……

    • I find it funny that they are picky since they are mostly descendants from banished criminals.

      • Not defending this dude. But when Oz was being stocked with english prisoners it took a lot less to be convicted of a crime. Just owing money was a way to go to prison.

        During our own founding a lot of ‘Americans” were the sweepings of the english prisons. Folks that the top class wanted gone from their shores.

        • Often, if you were convicted of a noncapital crime, you were given a choice, prison (where you would [probably die of disease, starvation etc) or emigrate to the colonies, including those in America. It was a convenient way for the Crown to populate the colonies at a low cost.

  14. The content of this post and the remark about China reminded me of a Benny Hill sketch where Benny is playing a Chinese Interpreter and says, “What a bunch of clap!”.

    At the major shooting range in my local area, which I frequent twice or more per week, Chinese folks are there shooting in noticeable numbers. Many are residents here in the U.S. and they frequently bring their guests from China. It looks like a visit to the U.S. is as likely to include an outing to shoot guns as it is to include an outing to Disneyland or Hollywood. Usually, they rent guns and guess what? AR-15’s and 9mm semi auto pistols are their favorites.

    Can’t do that in Australia, mate. So, go kiss a Tiger Shark…

    • We just ran a bunch of Chinese tourists through a range day at our local club too. 20 smiling tourists all posing with their terrible, terrible targets. They had fun.

      • Yeah, they do seem to have great fun and are good about observing range rules, but terrible shots…it is good to see people from a tyrannical country enjoying the experience of shooting firearms. Freedom, even for a few minutes, has a way of lighting up oppressed people’s faces in a wonderful way.

        • 30+ years ago I worked at a gas station, bait shop, sporting goods store. A bus load of Chinese tourists from the PRC stopped for a road break. Within just minutes, the heaviest sales rush I’ve ever experienced, every Swiss Army knife we had in the shop was sold. A lot of knives and all cash.

          A few beverages and snacks but all our SAKs and a few other brands of knives were gone. Most of those folks bought more than one.

          • Thanks! Great story. Must have been mind-boggling to those folks 30 years ago to see all the great stuff you could buy freely in America.

  15. Screw that. I wouldn’t go to Australia UNLESS I was armed. Poisonous critters, crocodiles the length of a F-350, those good damn Velociraptor birds, no thanks.

  18. What I like about Australia is that they didn’t fight for or even demand their independence. They just politely waited until it got too inconvenient for their master to rule them. Now, THAT is a national origin legend to be proud of and you can see it in his eyes;-)

    • just canada way out in the ocean…hours from anywhere…have yet to hear anything bad from anyone who has visited, though…

    • Had many interesting conversations when in Oz last year visiting my wife’s extended family. Sitting down after Sunday supper the Australian 60 minutes was running a feature on American gun violence, haha, boy was that funny, they make us look crazy!

  19. And what’s with the(1st place!) Cubs jacket?!? The leftard loons were protesting Wrigley Field yesterday to fight “gun violence”. Had a march up Lake Shore Drive…yeah I’m sure all the commuters supported THAT. Australia is a huge continental US sized country that has bupkiss to do with America. Have fun with your expanding Moose-lim population…

    • some chicagoans have actually come out in support of trump…saying anything would be preferable to their current situation….

      • Right, and just as soon as the Fed taxpayer spends a zillion to start cleaning the place up, the money will disappear as quickly as they can elect another group of Democrats. No, thanks. Vote republican for a decade and then we can talk.

  20. Australian gun crime is increasing…..if you go to Major Crimes in Australia at Wikipedia, you will find about a dozen public shootings. I say public shootings, and not mass public shootings only because the guy with the gun who walked into a public space and shot people, did not reach the 3 killed that would make it a mass public shooting by definition. Only luck, and the decision by the shooter, kept these from being mass public shootings. So no, the gun control laws they passed did not stop their mass public shootings, they have been lucky. Also, gun crime is increasing in Australia…as this article points out, giving Melbourne the nickname “The City of the Gun.”https://www.theage.com.au/interactive/2016/gun-city/day1.html

  21. And yet Australia’s murder rate has remained unchanged. But I guess those murdered people died happy knowing they were less likely to have been killed with a gun, right?

    Meanwhile, in the US, our violent crime rate and murder rate have been dropping since the mid-80s. Hmmm…

    • General Zod,

      Nice comment.

      Please note that the United States violent crime rate peaked in 1992-1993, rather than the 1980s.

      Except for that tiny detail, you are correct that the United States violent crime rate has been plummeting ever since. In fact the violent crime rate in the United States has not been this low since 1970. At that time, did any foreign country issue a violent crime travel advisory for prospective tourists wishing to visit the United States? Nope.

      • Good point but one reason I’ve recently realized why the violent crime rate keeps dropping is because the definition of “violent crime” gets changed.

        California is a notorious example of this, as a lot of crimes have in the past 5 years been redefined to no longer be violent crimes. A very famous example was when that Brock Turner fellow got only 6 months for sexually assaulting a drunk passed out woman, his sentence was so light because sexual assault isn’t a violent crime. Only rape is. Total lala-land here.

        • Hmm. That would be interesting if the definitions and reporting rates have changed over the years. Of course that would mean that the data is not useful for determining trends unless someone somehow accounted for the different definitions and reporting rates.

        • Yeah well, the definition of murder hasn’t changed, and the murder rate has plummeted from its peak in 1991 to levels not seen since the late 1950s. I think the CDC put out a chart on that.

      • Correct! US violent crime rate peaked and began declining just 18 years after Roe v Wade. Two states which legalized abortion on demand two years before Roe had their violent crime peak in 1990. Coincidence, I’m sure.

  22. Another point? These people in these countries where they claim their gun control laws have defeated criminal nature….are living on borrowed time. Their gun crime rates are going up…. their social welfare states can no longer raise young males into young men….and violent immigrant gangs are running their drug trades…and they are not afraid to hurt people. They are living on borrowed time, and they disarmed their people…so when it does crater…..they won’t be able to defend themselves.

  25. Australia: Soon to have even more freedom and power under the glorious rule of the People’s Republic of China, when liberated by the heroic PLA, after our gloriuos march through the South Pacific achieving rightful and inevitable Chinese dominance over land and ocean, that is now and forever Chinese by right of conquest.

  26. I’d be very happy if our less-than-honorable lefty lib-prog population would emigrate to socially enlightened countries such as Australia or Canada or the UK (or anywhere else in Europe), and leave the brutish old U.S. to us knuckle-draggers with our guns.

    • This is what I’ve never understood. My great grandfather moved his entire family from the Netherlands to the US because he believed it would be a better place for them. All these liberals who talk about how great these European countries are really should move to those places instead of trying to force their socialist crap down our throats.

  27. Read the crime statistics.
    The mass murderers just transitioned from shooting to arson.

    Will the Aussies ban matches next?

    What do you expect from the county whose police killed Crocodile DunDee.

    • Even worse, those awful fully automatic Zippo lighters or the completely undetectable plastic Bic lighters that can slip right through an x-ray machine. Don’t forget the arsonist weapon of choice: gasoline! We aren’t even doing background checks on people who buy that stuff.

      Alyssa Milano is primed to start her new endeavor “NoGas” to fight against the spread of the easy availability of gasoline.

  28. More venomous snakes than anywhere else on the planet
    Black widows out the wazoo
    Blue ring octopus
    Irukandji jellyfish
    Crocs
    Dingos
    Kangaroo mobs
    Drop bears

    And you’re not allowed to legally arm yourself to protect against any of the above threats, or against people either.
    Sounds delightful.

  29. How about arson mass-murders? Those seem pretty common in Australia…

    Quaker Hill Nursing home arson. 11 murdered with fire.
    Whiskey Au Go Go fire. 15 deaths, many more injured, again with fire.
    Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel fire. 15 murdered, arson once again.
    Churchill Fire. 10 burned to death, murdered with flames.
    Rozelle fire murders. Three killed.

    Get the picture?

  31. A new member of our VFD came from Australia. She said the year following the gun ban, crime went up 85%. She lived in a fairly nice area and their home was burglarized at least once per month until they installed a burglary alarm. She is once again a happy gun owner.

  32. Sorry, but when the government can’t trust the people to own guns, the people shouldn’t trust the government with their liberty. Ofcourse, if you don’t mind being a subject, go for it.

  34. Much of this is how you count. The claim “Australia has had no mass shootings” depends more on the method and standard rather then the number. The recent history of the country shows 16 instances where 4 or more people were killed or injured. Seven of these were mass shootings.

    Why “4 pro more shot or killed?” This is the standard by which most gun control groups use to measure shootings in America. As Gun Violence Archive States: “GVA uses a purely statistical threshold to define mass shooting based ONLY on the numeric value of 4 or more shot or killed” House Minority Leader Pelosi uses a broader standard:
    “Pelosi’s tally of 273 mass shootings relies on the broad definition of at least four or more people killed or injured. Some of these events, however, include gang shootings or home invasion robberies, stretching the definition even further.”

    What about Australia? A research paper that argued that Australia has had no mass shootings used the ad it’s measurement “The extent of influence of mass shootings has been investigated by repeating firearm‐related homicides excluding mass (⩾5 victims died) shootings”

    In the United States it’s 4 shot or killed. In Australia, it’s 5 killed.

    Arguing with some Australians, I got an insight into how mass shootings are considered. The 2014 Hunt Family Murders had 5 killed. They argued that this was a domestic event and not a mass shooting. Plus, as with other standards the perpetrator wasn’t counted. Offered up next was the 2011 Hectorville Seige. This had 3 killed and 3 wounded. In the US there’s no doubt that it would be counted as a mass shooting. The reply was that only 3 were killed. The wounded included two police officers and they weren’t to be counted. Last was the Sydney Hostage Crisis of 2014. This ended with 3 dead and one wounded. The argument here was the perpetrator shouldn’t be counted and one of the deaths shouldn’t be as it was due to a police officer shooting a hostage. Clearly, at least from this discussion, Australia is committed to a “no mass shootings” position.

    Compare this to the claim of thousands of mass shootings in the US. The New York Times proclaimed that since Sandy Hook “More than 1,600 mass shootings have taken place in America since then.” At the same time Mother Jones Only counted 35 mass shootings. Then “The Gun Violence Archive’s public data from September 2016 to February 2018 shows that no one died in 223 of the 500 incidents it counts as mass shootings.” Again it depends on the method and standard.

    Last, keep in mind the New Zealand, with the same cultural heritage and social economic history as Australia has had no mass shootings since Australia passed its draconian laws. Were this a science experiment, with independent and dependent variables, the results would be that there was no correlation to Austalia’s gun laws and mass shootings.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia
    http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/methodology
    https://www.politifact.com/california/article/2017/oct/04/mass-shooting-what-does-it-mean/
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704353/
    https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/02/20/fact-check-have-over-1600-mass-shootings-occurred-since-sandy-hook/
    https://www.facebook.com/notes/australian-shooting-hunting-and-outdoors-tm/gun-related-deaths-what-has-really-happened-in-australia/10151498928251382/
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256029491_Mass_Shootings_in_Australia_and_New_Zealand_A_Descriptive_Study_of_Incidence

  35. While I would love to see the anti-gun people move to Australia, the country has basically made it impossible for any immigration. They have an immigrant point system and unless you are a rich doctor you’re most likely not getting it.

    • Truth. People who complain about the US system have NO IDEA what it’s like to deal with an actually difficult immigration system!

  36. Actually the Australian gun control laws did not accomplish what the gun control advocates like to claim. Only some 20-30% of the banned guns were turned in. And you can bet that almost none of those were turned in by the people who represented a danger.

    Similarly murder rates were already dropping in Australia as they also have in countries that did not adopt draconian gun control. http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html

    At the same time mass murders have continued in Australia including a number by arson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia
    Finally Australia had a mass murder by gun a couple of months ago. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/05/11/its-just-horrifying-seven-killed-in-australias-deadliest-mass-shooting-in-22-years/?utm_term=.1ec8cfe91439

  37. Gotta love it when they make up statistics. Nine mass shootings every ten days. What a crock!

  38. I have been to Australia several times. I did not get shot.

    ‘course, I have been to Detroit and didn’t get shot there either. Didn’t get shot in NY, or Los Angeles, heck I didn’t even get shot in New Jersey. Didn’t get shot in gun-crazy Texas or Arizona or Utah or New Mexico either. Been through Appalachia and none of the rednecks there or in Alabama or Mississippi shot me. I even survived several trips to the Gunshine State of Florida and didn’t get shot. Just went to Seattle and Portland, two massive gun-free zones, and somehow I got out of there without being shot.

    I think perhaps the threat of getting shot here might be a tad bit exaggerated?

    • I just did a road trip from CA thru Nevada to Utah. I didn’t get shot or even hear any gunfire on that trip.

      What I did notice, and I notice this every time I leave CA, is the lack of cops out of CA. At home I leave my computer to use the toilet and I’ll trip across 3 CA cops. Hardly saw any in Nevada and Utah. CA has much tougher gun laws than either state.

      And CA has a much higher rate of crime than either state. Maybe the lying left hasn’t been telling us the truth about how great gun control is?

  39. Since we know for a fact that stricter gun control laws equal lower crime rates, I’m going to go to Mexico where I’ll be much safer than I would in Australia.

  40. When it finally comes to it, Americans will give up their Rights the same way the Australians did. With barely a whimper of protest.

  41. The rape rate is much lower in Australia because they have stringent penis control laws.

    They started out by banning large caliber, long barrelled assault penises that can fire dozens of rounds without reloading.

    As a result, Australian men are armed with only small caliber, short barelled, single shot Saturday Night Specials that are prone to misfire or discharge prematurely.

    Australia also banned Teflon coated condoms which can penetrate the Kevlar chastity belts worn by their police.

  42. As I’m told, Australian nightly news is wall to wall crime coverage, sans guns.
    Good job, Mister Koala!

  43. Must be nice to just make up statistics. Since the gun confiscation in Australia there wasn’t any appreciable drop in homicides, they just do it with knives now like they do in London.

  44. I think he forgot to mention the shooting they had a few months ago and the HIGH crime rate of burglaries and assaults since they had the gun ban and buy back.

  45. One thing to keep in mind, the USA is a country of countries, many people from many walks of life, unlike Australia, Korea, Japan, Australia,UK etc etc etc.

    Whe are a young country unlike the above that have history going back centuries.

    Oh and the US has our Constitution, something that no other country has.
    Our rights are acknowledge by the Constitution not granted, we are born with our rights.

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