Bob, at 08:00 on May 11 1996, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

BG> Is it any wonder that the pollies are having massive knee-jerks
BG> and demanding almost total disarmament in this country. If that
BG> happens, only the crims will have guns, same as in the UK.
BG> Fucking brilliant! 

BL> No they're not... they only want to remove SLRs. No one has a
BL> problem with sporting rifles and non-automatic shotguns.

OK, it seem that at THIS stage, they only want to completely ban
self-loading and fully-automatic weapons, but surely they can't mean to
include lowly self-loading .22s as well ?  That's completely mad, and a
typical knee-jerk if ever I saw one.  And where does that leave ANYBODY who
currently legally owns pistols, ALL of which are self-loading by their very
nature ?  Oh well, looks like there'll be no more Olympic gold medals from
our ex-pistol shooters, I suppose.  Fucking wankers, I feel like shooting
the lot of them.  :)

BL> And I'm not happy with paying shooters compensation, either. I had
BL> a modem when Austel came along and no one paid me for it when it was
BL> made illegal. All they did was slap a $20,000 fine and tell me to get
BL> fucked if I got caught.

But you didn't represent around 11% of the voting population, did you ?

BL> Have you worked out what it's going to cost us? If we use the usual
BL> figure of 1-2 million guns at $300-600 each, we're looking at $300M to
BL> $1200M!  With 5 million taxpayers that's a levy of $60-$240 each! Why
BL> do I want to pay some gun-crazy for a gun? I didn't pay the ones with
BL> a collection of child pornography and no one bought my CB radio or
BL> modem. Why are guns different?

Strange as it seems, I happen to agree with you here 100%.  Of course, the
fact that I don't _legally_ own any self-loading weapons might have
something to do with my doing so too.

BL> All we need is a $100,000 fine with 5 years gaol if they can't pay,
BL> and then go around the registered owners and search for guns. You'd
BL> only have to catch a dozen and the rest would stampede. Fuck 'em!

Frankly, I think that everybody should wait six months, or at least until
the emotive aspect of this issue has abated.  Fucking knee-jerk
politicians...

Regards, Bill

--- Msgedsq/2 3.20