From Will Dabbs (via national treasure Joe Huffman):
After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, the Australian government outlawed most guns, confiscating some 650,000 firearms. Gun control enthusiasts often look lustfully at our friends Down Under as role models.
That’s the background. Here’s the QOTD:
Even in a slow year, we gun-crazy Yanks buy that many new firearms every two weeks.
And those are just the guns reported as sold. There may be still more…
That may be true, but there are many more guns in Australia now than there were immediately post-Port Arthur.
Mind you, the government(s) (Western Australia in particular) are bringing in draconic new legislation with the eventual aim of banning private ownership of firearms nationwide.
I never understood the Western Oz thing about guns. I mean, WA is essentially a rural area — kinda like Texas, even, and their politics should be conservative, but aren’t.
Is that the effect of Perth on the entire state, or am I missing something?
Inner city voters in Western Australia outnumber rural voters by about 20 to 1.
People who have never walked on anything but concrete and carpet and have never seen a tree outside a carefully manicured park make the rules.
Gutless politicians on all sides only look as far as the next election.
The minuscule number of country folk don’t count.
” the eventual aim of banning private ownership of firearms nationwide.”
And we’ve see how well that has worked for Great Britain.
RCOB. (H/T Kim.)
I will never forgive that shivering jelly looking for a spine than Prime Minister John Howard for his theft of my firearms in 1996.
He used the tired old mantra of “public safety” to lend legitimacy to his outrageous gun grab.
I take comfort from the fact that all my guns were lost in a terrible accident while boating in the Murray River, and am no longer a threat to “public safety”.
Just to point out a fact: every year in Michigan, deer hunters become the largest “army” in the world. I read that somewhere.
If you add Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (to name but two states), it’s twice as large as the next army outside the U.S.
I see the number of guns in private hands in the U.S. pegged at 400,000,000 plus. As I understand it, this is based on an original estimate of 300,000,000 plus, made sometime before the Obama administration became the most effective gun sales incentive in a long time.
Now, I recall reading somewhere – and I wish I remembered where, so if anyone knows I would appreciate being pointed to it – that the 300,000,000 number was based on an assumption that a gun wears out in 20 years. Frankly, this smells to me like a bureaucrat trying to come up with a reason to avoid having to sift through a bunch of inconvenient paper records. 20 years back from the original estimate would mean the majority of gun sales records were probably digital data, fairly easy to access. The idea that guns wear out, on average, in two decades, seems ridiculous when there are functional firearms that predate the development of smokeless gunpowder.
And I note that such guns are not tracked as firearms by the government, which sounds responsible until you realize the government loves to keep track of anything when doing so doesn’t involve a lot of actual work.
I think it’s likely that the 400,000,000 figure is low. Possibly VERY low.
Does anyone have any thoughts?
Some have said that it is very possible that the number of firearms held in civilian hands exceeds One-Billion.
I think to reach one billion one would have to include firearms from the black powder era. But I would be unsurprised to learn that the true number of post black powder firearms was half again the 400,000,000 figure.
I found this at Ammoland but haven’t read it yet
https://www.ammoland.com/2025/05/update-533-million-privately-owned-firearms-in-the-united-states/
Firearms were out in 20 years? Maybe military arms that get lots of usage on automatic fire. The big game hunter probably shoots less than a box of ammunition through their rifle each year.
Which firearms would get the most usage and thus wear out faster? Sporting clays guns and maybe bird hunting guns would get used a lot yet double barreled shotguns don’t wear out very fast. Even a pump can last quite a long time.
Competition pistols and rifles might get worn out but still, at about 100 cartridges a week, say 50 weeks a year to keep the math simple would be 5000/year. Maybe an AR type rifle would get worn out but that would be the barrel, some springs and such. The other factor is how many of the 500 billion guns fall into that category and are used that much.
I have an 80 year old Garand that works just fine as long as I grease it properly. I have a bolt action Lee Enfield from before 1910 that works just fine although I have never fired it.
It really isn’t a question about the hardware. Right now it’s a software issue. The left has chosen political violence and the right simply has not reciprocated.