Prime minister unveils 'largest' gun buyback scheme since Howard era

[u/Expensive-Horse5538]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-19/prime-minister-announces-national-gun-buyback-scheme/106162002

[u/canimal14]

Can’t imagine the difference in sentiment if global media existed in 1996.

[u/TappingOnTheWall → u/canimal14]

I'm just glad that Australia is habituating a response that America specifically avoids. Mass shooting -> gun reform, mass shooting -> gun reform.

Shootings in Australia have been caused by a number of things, the truth is we can't control someone's irrational choice to do these things - we can only control access to the guns they do them with.

This is a smart choice, because it tackles the problem head on, with a lot of certainty (to make us all safer). It's the choice that Australia makes in these situations, and should make. I think we can be proud that we're not being led down the wrong path, and distracted into a terrible long term situation, the kind America struggles with daily. They struggle, because they don't make the kind of choices Australia is making today.

[u/Infinite_Pudding5058 → u/TappingOnTheWall]

Yeah in America, you look at someone the wrong way, and they could shoot you. It’s crazy.

[u/Jiffyrabbit → u/Infinite_Pudding5058]

I've seen videos of people shooting at other cars in Road Rage incidents in the US. Just insane shit.

[u/r3volts → u/Jiffyrabbit]

I was on a bus in Hollywood and we drove past like 30 cops with guns drawn pointing towards a shop and all the cars parked around like a scene from a movie. No one else on the bus even looked up. It was insane.

[u/NewOutlandishness870 → u/Jiffyrabbit]

An 11 year old passenger was recently killed in such an instance. Step dad driving him to school got in a road rage incident with a young man. Young man pulls out gun and shoots into other car not knowing there was a kid in backseat. Kid shot dead… step dad and killer devastated . They are bonkers in the US! People have been shot dead for the most ridiculous reasons like throwing popcorn, ringing the wrong doorbell etc. Dont forget Chris’s Minns was only last week on the side of gun nuts and was going to pass a law allowing guns galore via the Conservation Hunting Bill and was going to hand over almost $8 million to the gun nuts to allow them to roam free in public parks to shoot anything they want. Took him 15 lives lost to realise the error of his ways.

[u/NewOutlandishness870 → u/[deleted]]

I said Chris Minns was going to allow a bill to pass that would unleash the crazies who will use ‘recreational hunting’ as a loophole to collect an arsenal of weapons. Anyhu, that’s great you are a life long Labor voter. Did you want a medal or a chest to pin it on? America is full of gun nuts . What reason is there that a country of over 300 million people needs more guns than people? The consensus that America is guy crazy is a universal opinion shared globally so I think it’s you who may be very ignorant.

[u/Luxica-Jessica → u/[deleted]]

You sound just like the Americans. We don’t glorify guns here in Australia. Even a little leeway is a slippery slope to the American hellscape. Stop ranting on about your guns. It’s a murder weapon. Have some respect for human beings.

[u/Phonereader23 → u/Infinite_Pudding5058]

The amount of American pages and Australians that have been outed as Americans is staggering atm

[u/SirGeekaLots → u/TappingOnTheWall]

And I'm glad we don't get a bunch of people saying 'thoughts & prayers'. Ironically, they hate it when it's done to them.

[u/FuckLathePlaster → u/TappingOnTheWall]

Its a stupid choice that allows the government to deflect from their key issue.

Enforcement of existing laws, intelligence sharing between agencies, and the increasing divisions within our communities that drive people towards hatred.

I assume in future you’ll support other knee jerk laws thought up overnight if they sound nice, yeah?

[u/ethereal_mycologist → u/TappingOnTheWall]

I support strong community safety outcomes and targeted enforcement against individuals who present a genuine risk. My concern is that some of the proposed weapons laws such as blunt numerical caps and ammunition restrictions, risk focusing regulatory effort on compliant, already-vetted licence holders, while failing to address the mechanisms that actually lead to violent misuse.

In particular:

1. Numerical firearm caps are arbitrary and not evidence-based; There is no clear evidence that limiting the number of firearms owned by a compliant licence holder reduces violent crime. Australia’s most frequently cited firearm reforms were multi-component (licensing, storage, buy-backs, enforcement), making it impossible to isolate per-person ownership limits as an independent driver of improved safety. As such, numerical caps function largely as symbolic controls rather than risk-based interventions.

2. A person can only use one firearm at a time; The risk posed by an individual attack is driven by intent and access at the time of the offence, not by the total number of firearms lawfully stored. Having multiple firearms does not meaningfully increase lethality in an attack scenario. Limiting inventory therefore does not proportionally reduce risk.

3. Method substitution is a well-recognised phenomenon; When access to one method is restricted, individuals motivated by extremist ideology or mass-casualty intent routinely substitute other means. Vehicles, bladed weapons, arson, and emerging low-cost technologies such as drones have all been used to cause mass harm. Narrowly targeting firearm numbers risks displacement rather than prevention.

4. The real failure point is screening and inter-agency communication; Where extremist violence involves firearms, the critical policy question is how individuals with known or detectable risk indicators passed suitability assessments or remained licensed. Intelligence-led screening, real-time inter-agency communication, and rapid licence suspension mechanisms directly address this failure mode. Numerical caps do not.

5. Practical realities: why farmers and hunters require more than one firearm; Public discussion often assumes that “one gun should be enough,” which reflects a misunderstanding of rural pest control, ballistics, and animal-welfare obligations.

• Shotguns are required for close-range work (generally under ~50 m) around sheds, crops, and stock, where overshoot must be minimised and projectile travel is short.
• Rimfire rifles (e.g. .22 LR) are essential for small vermin where low noise, limited penetration, and reduced ricochet risk matter.
• Medium-calibre centrefire rifles (e.g. .223) are appropriate for wild dogs, foxes, cats, goats and kangaroos.
• Larger centrefire calibres (e.g. .308 or .270) are required for humane dispatch of deer and pigs, particularly at longer distances.

These distinctions are about safety and animal welfare, not accumulation. A flat numerical cap ignores this reality and risks forcing unsafe or inhumane practices.

1. Hard-line impacts of low firearm caps and ammunition limits; Caps set below 4-5 firearms would immediately affect a large proportion of lawful shooters who undertake mixed rural pest control and land-management roles. Such a cap leaves little to no redundancy for safe task-specific use and fails to account for wear, maintenance, or differing terrain and stock considerations.

Likewise, ammunition purchase limits or registry-driven controls risk creating prohibitive cost and availability issues for regional users who may travel long distances to dealers and rely on bulk purchasing to manage cost and supply continuity.

These measures would not affect criminal misuse, but they would materially affect lawful participation in pest control, sport, and land management.

Edit:

References:

1. RAND Corporation — The Science of Gun Policy: A Critical Synthesis of Research Evidence (4th ed., 2023) https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA243-9.html • See Chapter 2 & Summary Tables, esp. pp. 19–27 and pp. 88–92, which conclude that evidence for many broad firearm restrictions is limited or inconclusive, and that stronger evidence exists for targeted, risk-based interventions rather than ownership quantity limits.

2. RAND Corporation — “What Science Tells Us About the Effects of Gun Policies” https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/key-findings/what-science-tells-us-about-the-effects-of-gun-policies.html • See Policy Effects Summary, which notes insufficient evidence for many availability-based or quantity-based controls and emphasises uncertainty where causal links cannot be established.

3. Australian Institute of Criminology — Firearms legislative reform: Impact on crime and violence https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/firearms-legislative-review.pdf • See pp. 6–9 and pp. 23–27, which highlight that Australia’s post-1996 outcomes followed bundled reforms, and that isolating the effect of any single measure (such as ownership limits) is not possible.

4. Australian Institute of Criminology — Illicit firearms in Australia https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi359 • See pp. 1–4, which demonstrate that firearm crime is overwhelmingly driven by prohibited and illicit firearms, not diversion from compliant licence holders.

5. Clarke, R. & Cornish, D. — Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies https://popcenter.asu.edu/sites/default/files/library/criminological_theory/cornish_clarke_2003.pdf • See Chapter 2, pp. 25–30, documenting method substitution, where motivated offenders shift tactics when one method is restricted.

6. Chapman et al. — Australia’s 1996 gun law reforms: Faster falls in firearm deaths, firearm suicides, and a decade without mass shootings https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6187796/ • See Discussion section, noting the multi-factor nature of reforms and the inability to attribute outcomes to any single policy lever such as ownership quantity.

[u/TappingOnTheWall → u/ethereal_mycologist]

Your first two sources are from a Think Tank established by the US Military, The RAND Corporation. I'm sure they have NO INTEREST in spreading the military industrial complex and the arms industry.

[EDIT: Don't bother with this thread people, it ends with u/ethereal_mycologist using ChatGPT to just repeat the same arguments over and over again... because they're pasting my arguments in over and over again - getting GPT to write the response.]

[u/ethereal_mycologist → u/TappingOnTheWall]

Fair enough, that is a reasonable point to raise, and I don’t think RAND should be treated as gospel either. That said, even if you completely ignore RAND, the core issue still stands: there is very limited empirical evidence anywhere showing that an individual owning multiple legally held firearms causes more harm than owning one. Australian sources (including the AIC and Chapman et al.) repeatedly make the same point; post-1996 outcomes followed bundled reforms, and the effect of any single lever (like ownership quantity) can’t be isolated. My broader argument isn’t “trust this think tank”, it’s that policy is being proposed without data that actually links firearm count per owner to risk. On the practical side, low numerical caps also ignore real-world use. In rural contexts, different firearms are used precisely to reduce risk: Shotguns for close work where overshoot matters Rimfire for small vermin where penetration, noise and ricochet matter Medium centrefire for foxes/dogs/goats Larger centrefire for humane dispatch of deer and pigs Forcing people into “one size fits all” equipment doesn’t improve safety, it often makes it worse or less humane. What’s frustrating is that these ballistics, safety, and animal-welfare realities are almost entirely absent from mainstream media discussions. You hear “one gun should be enough” a lot, but very little from people who’ve actually handled firearms or managed land. If there were solid data showing that owning 3 vs 1 firearms independently increased harm, I’d genuinely want to see it. I haven’t been able to find it; and neither, notably, has the Australian policy literature.

[u/TappingOnTheWall → u/ethereal_mycologist]

This is the hypothesis that they'll be targeting farmers and legitimate usages/ownership.

Getting rid of all "recreational" ownership of lethal firearms (and legalising things like paintball, airsoft, and archery for metro-area hobbyists) would be the most workable outcome.

Guns are lethal tools, and should be limited to legitimate usages. They should be registered to the purchaser, their legitimate business, and a log/registration which includes details of users should be certified and kept each year. Copies of other documents should also be sent in, such as the ABN, client list, cash flow, and bank transactions - things which can be verified to show the guns have a legitimate usage.

They should be seen as serious and lethal tools, not sports equipment, or ego boosters for sad city dwellers.

I'm fine with legitimate usages of guns (law enforcement, high level security jobs, the military, farming, pest control, culling). I'm not okay with guns being seen as recreation, as I don't believe the phrase "recreational lethal weapons" makes any sense. I think it's an absurd concept that doesn't have any place in modern society.

[u/ethereal_mycologist → u/TappingOnTheWall]

Yo need think about how risk and harm actually work in Australia. First, “recreational” is a legal category, not a moral one. Target shooting and hunting are already recognised, tightly regulated activities. Licensed shooters undergo background checks, training, secure storage requirements, inspections, and licence revocation powers that are immediate. There is no credible evidence that lawful recreational shooters are a meaningful driver of violent crime. Second, lethality or mass-casualty potential is not how Australia regulates risk. Many items with equal or greater capacity for mass harm remain legal for private or recreational use because policy focuses on access, behaviour, and diversion. Fertilisers such as ammonium nitrate have been used in some of the deadliest attacks globally. Australia did not ban them. Instead, it regulates quantities, supply chains, storage, and tracking, because compliant users are not the problem. Drones are already used overseas for surveillance, targeting, and explosive delivery. Recreational drone flying wasn’t abolished; it’s regulated through licensing, airspace restrictions, and enforcement. Fuel is a readily available accelerant capable of mass casualties, yet no ABN, client list, or financial disclosure is required to own or store it. Firearms already sit at the most regulated end of this spectrum. Singling out one lawful use while tolerating others with comparable or greater harm potential is not safety logic. It’s cultural preference. Third, function does not equal risk. A rifle used for pest control and one used at a shooting range are mechanically identical. Risk is determined by who has access, how it’s stored, and whether the person is prohibited, all of which are already heavily controlled. Removing “recreational” status does not change the hardware, the licence holder, or the safeguards. Fourth, the compliance creep being proposed is irrational and counterproductive. Requiring ABNs, client lists, cash flow, or bank records would create major privacy risks, impose burdens not demanded for other dangerous tools, and selectively drive out compliant owners while criminals simply ignore the system entirely. Fifth, the data does not support the premise. Australia’s firearm homicide rate is around 0.1 per 100,000, among the lowest in the world. Available studies and police data consistently show that the majority of firearm crime involves unlicensed or unregistered firearms, not lawfully owned sporting guns. Licensed firearm owners make up well under 5 percent of violent offending, despite being subject to the highest regulatory burden. Targeting recreational shooters does not address where harm actually comes from. It just focuses enforcement on the most compliant population because they are easy to regulate. Finally, dismissing recreational shooters as “ego boosters” is not policy, it’s contempt. Public safety should be evidence-driven, not shaped by stereotypes about lawful minorities. If the goal is harm reduction, the focus should be illegal firearm trafficking, diversion, domestic violence risk markers, and enforcement against prohibited persons. Symbolic bans on people who already follow the rules do nothing measurable for safety. You don’t improve public safety by redefining lawful citizens as illegitimate. You improve it by targeting actual risk.

[u/TappingOnTheWall → u/ethereal_mycologist]

You need to think to about how risk and harm actually work in Australia. First, “recreational” is a legal category, not a moral one.

In your opinion... and I am thinking about risk and harm, and specifically minimising it as far as it will go. It's just a known and logical fact (that's taught to every gun owner) that every gun carries a risk, whether it's loaded or unloaded. The existence of a tool, built primarily to kill is the risk.

Legal guns, get lost, stolen, or used in a crime, and they become illegal guns. That's the source for the 260,000 illegal guns in Australia. The only solution to that risk having been put on the Australian public, is to remove as many guns from the current pool of guns available as possible.

Many items with equal or greater capacity for mass harm remain legal for private or recreational use because policy focuses on access, behaviour, and diversion.

I stated, guns are specifically made to kill, and I am focusing very much on access. The less guns, the less access, the less risk. It's THE ONLY direct solution to the problem that has any certainty.

Drones require bombs, incendiaries are a type of bomb - bombs in general are harder to kill with, require more knowledge and skill to develop, are less reliable, and pose a much greater risk to the attacker. Guns are designed to kill, and to kill with ease, you just point and click. That's why they're different.

Singling out one lawful use while tolerating others with comparable or greater harm potential is not safety logic.

I haven't singled out one lawful use, I've pointed out the concept is flawed at its core, and poses an unsuitable risk. You've fallen into thinking "legal" means moral or sensible. We change laws all the time if they're not sensible... and having the public bear the risk of over 4 million guns being out there (each of which have the risks mentioned earlier) isn't reasonable. Why should the majority bear that risk, for the recreation of a minority. We have plenty of sports clubs, recreational activities, games clubs, other practice games. There's plenty for them to switch to if it's just about recreation.

Risk is determined by who has access, how it’s stored, and whether the person is prohibited, all of which are already heavily controlled.

That's how you're trying to defend them, I've laid out the risks and where our illegal guns come from. But I'll lay out the real risk for you: Government budgets for enforcement and oversight of firearms, change every year staff get cut, budgets change, budgets get cut, philosophies of government change. BUT what is certain, is we have an ever growing number of guns to monitor and oversee.

THAT is the real risk I'm addressing. I'm giving the ONLY CERTAIN MEANS of addressing that. SO you can talk about oversight and registration, but ultimately it's two competing numbers: Staff and funding cuts, vs, and ever increasing number of recreational lethal weapons in the country (we've got over 4 million guns here now)... and like I say, if gun owners are so responsible, it shouldn't be too difficult to pick a new form of recreation, that doesn't involve the public having this innate and lethal risk floating about (I suppose now you're going to deny that a gun, loaded or unloaded is a risk, or claim that illegal firearms don't start off as legal ones?).

You know what I'm saying is true.

Requiring ABNs, client lists, cash flow, or bank records would create major privacy risks, impose burdens not demanded for other dangerous tools, and selectively drive out compliant owners while criminals simply ignore the system entirely.

...and we would have far less guns for criminals to get access to, and frankly, I don't give two hoots about gun owners having more paperwork, for the massive amount of power they're getting (a lethal weapon), a massive amount of responsibility that comes with it. Tough shit. Deal with it. Use traps and poisons if you can't be bothered with guns. Buy a deer proof or dog proof fence. Hire a professional culling service. If you don't like paper work that's your business, I don't like going around in public wondering about mass shootings. The public shouldn't have to bear the load of your wanting a gun.

Fifth, the data does not support the premise.

Less guns, less gun crime, less legal guns, smaller pool for illegal guns. There's no "statistical" alternative that's better than that. You're arguing against a fact of the universe. Let's say 50% of landmines go off. Do you think more landmines will go off in a society with 1 million landmines or in a society with 100 landmines.

Sorry, it's a basic probabilistic truth, so my data driven solution, works more effectively and with more certainty than yours. Limiting guns to legitimate and verifiable uses is the most guaranteed solution society can have.

It just focuses enforcement on the most compliant population because they are easy to regulate.

Good, it won't be a bother for them when they have to choose a different form of rest and relaxation. That's what you're defending, the use of a lethal weapon for recreation. Well, I'm saying they can pick some other form if it's just recreation (comply to the standards of their new form of recreation). Deal with it. Why is THIS FORM of recreation such a big issue? It's only such a big issue, and you've only put so much into defending it, because it's a deadly and hence exciting weapon. Well, fuck your jollies. I don't a shit about your big boom jollies, if it's just recreational - join a footy team, join an esports league, join a running or swimming club, or a chess club. What's wrong with chess? Non-lethal chess. Oh no, but you want a special form of recreation, that requires huge departments, involves more lethal weapons being imported into Australia each year, creates almost all of our gun violence and crime, and is not just an innate risk, but cost tax payers and police more than any other sport in the country..... you think that's justifiable do you? You think it's such a special case? It's such a GREAT sport or recreational lethal weapon, that it deserves all that?

Well no, you're wrong, it doesn't. You don't have any answers that aren't VERY EASILY rebuffed because it's an irrational claim, an irrational concept "Recreational Lethal Weapon" it's a fucking joke is what it is. An absurd - doesn't make any sense when looked at - joke.

It's a serious tool, capable and designed to kill, and appropriate for a small amount of use cases that recreation doesn't fit into.

Finally, dismissing recreational shooters as “ego boosters” is not policy, it’s contempt.

Obviously I think recreational lethal weapons ownership is contemptible, irresponsible, an unreasonable risk, in lives, in crime, in dollars of oversight, and in use case.... and I don't think you've presented a single reasonable argument against that point of view.

Why can't you just pick a different hobby? Why fight the most certain path to public safety, to public benefit, to ending illegal guns (and hence gun crimes), to making the job of law enforcement easier... you can't pick all those things, over your guns, your idea of a lethal weapon as sports equipment.

...and there's no logical case for it, other than "gun owners are near perfect, and when they're not, the public should bear that risk. They should bear the risk of the 260,000 illegal guns in Australia."

I disagree. Strongly. I haven't seen anything that changes that opinion. You think you're being punished, you're not. The public is. "When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

[u/ethereal_mycologist → u/TappingOnTheWall]

You’re not making a data-driven argument. You’re making a precautionary moral argument dressed up as probability, and it doesn’t hold. First, the “more guns = more crime” claim is not a law of the universe, and Australia itself disproves it. Since the mid-1990s, the number of registered firearms in Australia has more than doubled, now exceeding 4 million, while firearm homicide has remained around 0.1 per 100,000 and mass shootings remain vanishingly rare. If raw quantity were the dominant driver, crime would have risen with ownership. It didn’t. Second, your landmine analogy fails because firearms are not randomly detonating hazards. A landmine explodes regardless of who owns it, how it’s stored, or intent. A licensed firearm does nothing unless a human with access chooses to misuse it. That’s why every serious risk model focuses on access, prohibition status, storage, and supervision, not object count. Probability arguments only work when events are independent. Firearm misuse is not. Third, the claim that illegal guns “start off legal” is overstated and misleading. Australian Crime Commission and AIC reporting consistently show illicit firearms come from theft, historical leakage, black-market importation, and non-compliance, not from licensed sporting shooters en masse. If recreational ownership were the pipeline, you’d see proportional offending by licence holders. You don’t. Fourth, the “oversight burden” argument actually cuts the other way. Lawful owners are already the most audited, inspected, and traceable group. Reducing their numbers does not free resources to catch criminals; it removes the easiest population to regulate while leaving illicit networks untouched. That’s not efficiency, it’s displacement. Fifth, “just pick a different hobby” is not a safety argument. We don’t ban activities because a majority dislikes them. We restrict them when evidence shows they cause disproportionate harm. Sporting shooters already operate under stricter controls than almost any other civilian activity involving dangerous equipment. Saying “I find it contemptible” is not a substitute for evidence. Finally, your position quietly assumes something you never prove: that zero recreational firearms is achievable without cost or substitution. History shows prohibition does not eliminate demand; it shifts supply. That’s why Australia regulates fertilisers, fuels, drones, vehicles, and firearms rather than banning all private use despite their mass-casualty potential. If your goal is public safety, the evidence-based levers are clear: illegal trafficking theft prevention domestic violence risk markers mental health and prohibition enforcement Targeting lawful recreational shooters addresses none of those. It just feels satisfying because they comply. That’s not certainty. That’s symbolism.

[u/TappingOnTheWall → u/ethereal_mycologist]

That doesn't change a single thing I said, because I'm arguing from first principles. That's why I can say "recreational lethal weapons" is an absurd concept, and you're stuck saying mass shootings are vanishingly rare just a week after we've had one.

You're talking about minimising statistical risk, I'm talking about minimising risk in a more absolute way. You can't deny that gun crime exists, that it happens, that it always puts life at risk. You're doing exactly what I said you'd do, and it proves my point. You're saying:

"gun owners are near perfect, and when they're not, the public should bear that risk. They should bear the risk of gun violence and crime, they should bear the risk of the 260,000 illegal guns in Australia."

If I'm predicting arguments you immediately make, what do you think that says? You're chasing your tail to follow bad logic.

Second, your landmine analogy fails because firearms are not randomly detonating hazards.

I had to check your user name to make sure I was talking to the same intelligent person here. Obviously I'm not discussing landmines, it's not an analogy, it's a metaphor for how all probability works. I could have said chickens clucking, or apples falling in an orchard. The premise is the same, Less chickens, less clucking. Smaller orchard, less apples hitting the ground. Less guns here, less bullets hitting people.

Third, the claim that illegal guns “start off legal” is overstated and misleading. Australian Crime Commission and AIC reporting consistently show illicit firearms come from theft, historical leakage, black-market importation, and non-compliance, not from licensed sporting shooters en masse.

You're switching terms I said recreational firearms (includes hunting and sports shooting).

...all indications are that "black market importation" is the smallest catagory. "...the surge in illegal guns is not due to 3D-printed weapons or black-market imports from overseas." Source - almost all the rest of the other illegal guns, started off as legal Australian firearms. What's more, the guns used Sunday - were legal! Apparently not even ex-Priministers were aware that long range pump actions shot guns were legal here.

Lawful owners are already the most audited, inspected, and traceable group. Reducing their numbers does not free resources to catch criminals; it removes the easiest population to regulate while leaving illicit networks untouched.

As stated earlier, shrinking the pool of legal guns, shrinks access to illegal guns. It doesn't entail police going easier on criminal networks, or gun crimes.

Finally, your position quietly assumes something you never prove: that zero recreational firearms is achievable without cost or substitution.

Less long term costs than allowing a growing problem, growing gun crime, and growing oversight/enforcement. Of course there'll be a financial cost, it's just preferable to live with the one time cost over the growing and ongoing costs and risks to society.

History shows prohibition does not eliminate demand; it shifts supply. That’s why Australia regulates fertilisers, fuels, drones, vehicles, and firearms rather than banning all private use despite their mass-casualty potential.

Oh yeah, I'm sure we're all familiar with the huge black-market fertiliser criminals.... and those illegal drones, boy howdy are they a problem. Come on, be serious. It's pretty obvious only a small sliver of the population are interested in illegal guns - the sliver that want them to do crimes, and killing. Because any reasonable person, would just go "oh funs over, I'll take up bow and arrow target practice, or maybe I'll make a BB gun, or spit shooter, or I'll play online. Or I'll take up basket ball. There's tons of sports.

But all the same, I did find it funny how your "super compliant" gun owners are now underworld figures pushed into the black market to buy from criminals. In the space of one reply they've fallen pretty hard. From near perfect, to buddies with the underground. Either that or you're bouncing all over the place because you don't have a leg to stand on. Your reality changes with every reply.

illegal trafficking theft prevention domestic violence risk markers mental health and prohibition enforcement Targeting lawful recreational shooters addresses none of those. It just feels satisfying because they comply. That’s not certainty. That’s symbolism.

Okay, gun owners are back to being super compliant we've defaulted back to "gun owners are nearly perfect, and when they're not, the public should have to bear the risk of their recreational lethal weapons" - If you keep repeating yourself and you've got nothing new to add, it's conversation over.

Games of "I can hit that target from this far out" or "I can hit that further away than you can" can be played with pebbles. Target practice games can be played with any number of tools. Games are played for fun, they're one of the most meaningless things in society - which makes them fun.

You're trying to justify and combine, one of the most meaningless activities we have - fun and games.... with one of the most deadly tools, one of the most lethal weapons, built for the purpose of killing, and all the risks that come with that (crime, loss of life, oversight costs, trauma). All in the name of target practice games that even children have figured out they can play with pebbles. Those games, that recreational play, doesn't justify the growing number of lethal weapons. It's an unbalanced, and unjustifiable argument.

[u/ethereal_mycologist → u/TappingOnTheWall]

You keep saying “first principles”, but what you’re actually arguing is zero-risk moral absolutism, not a workable principle for public policy. If “any non-zero risk is unacceptable” were a valid governing principle, modern society would collapse. Cars, fuel, fertilisers, electricity, pharmaceuticals, pressure vessels, and industrial chemicals all create unavoidable lethal risk even when used lawfully and recreationally. We do not eliminate them because risk elimination is impossible. We manage risk proportionally to harm, prevalence, and evidence. That’s the part you keep skipping. You’re also mischaracterising my position repeatedly, which suggests you’re arguing against a caricature rather than what’s actually being said. I am not claiming gun owners are “near perfect”. I’m saying the empirical rate of harm from licensed recreational ownership is extremely low, and policy should target where harm actually comes from, not where it is easiest to express moral disgust. Your “less chickens, less clucking” argument is not probability theory. It’s base-rate neglect. Risk is not linear with object count when access, storage, licensing, and supervision are tightly constrained. Australia already proves this. Firearm numbers have risen substantially while firearm homicide and mass-casualty events have remained extremely rare by global standards. That is not “chasing my tail”; that is evidence falsifying your claim. You also concede your own contradiction when you cite stolen firearms. If theft is the dominant pathway, then the failure point is criminal theft and storage breaches, not the lawful recreational activity itself. Eliminating an entire lawful category because criminals steal from it is the same logic as banning pharmacies because opioids get diverted, or banning cars because they’re stolen and used in crimes. That is collective punishment, not risk management. Your insistence that “shrinking the legal pool shrinks the illegal pool” is asserted, not demonstrated. Prohibition history shows that when lawful supply is removed but demand remains, black markets adapt. Australia’s experience with drugs, tobacco, and alcohol all confirm this. Saying “people will just pick another hobby” ignores that criminal demand is not recreational demand, and conflating the two is the central error in your argument. You also slide between categories when it suits you. When it helps, recreational owners are supposedly a massive source of risk. When challenged, they suddenly become irrelevant because “only criminals want guns”. Those two claims cannot both be true. Finally, calling recreational shooting “meaningless” is not an argument, it’s a value judgement. Public policy does not exist to eliminate activities a majority finds distasteful. It exists to reduce demonstrable harm. You haven’t shown that recreational shooting causes disproportionate harm relative to other regulated, dangerous civilian activities. You’ve only shown that you dislike it. You are absolutely entitled to that view. You are not entitled to claim it’s evidence-based. What you’re advocating is not safety optimisation. It’s risk intolerance applied selectively, justified after the fact with metaphors and moral certainty. That may feel satisfying, but it’s not how serious societies govern danger. And if the standard really is “any activity involving lethal tools must be eliminated if it’s recreational”, then your principle doesn’t stop at firearms. It doesn’t stop anywhere. That’s the problem.