As for how a gun ban would work in practice, I encourage you to research more about the Australian gun ban if you're genuinely interested in seeing how it works. Here's an official link with details, including:

QUOTE: In Australia, access to firearms is limited to persons with a genuine need. This includes government and police, sporting shooters with valid membership of an approved club, recreational shooters or hunters that produce proof of permission from a landowner, primary producers, pest controllers and bona fide collectors. All governments have agreed that self-protection is not a genuine need. The key elements of Australia’s regulatory controls on firearms are: - prohibitions on fully and semi automatic long arms, with their use restricted primarily to military, police or government purposes; - prohibitions on sporting shooters possessing, owning, using, purchasing or importing high powered, concealable handguns; - mandatory registration of all firearms on State and Territory firearms registry systems; - mandatory licensing of all firearm owners; and - strict licensing requirements, including age limitations, undertaking firearms safety training, and compliance with firearm storage standards.

In short, given the way Al is storing his weapons, and since they are primarily for hunting, it is likely he would be permitted to own his weapons in Australia.

But, guns were invented for one purpose and one purpose only, to kill more efficiently. No one can deny this. When you kill something or someone with a gun, you are using that gun exactly as it was meant to be used.

Exactly.  That is the other side to this point.  They exist to kill.  They serve a purpose.  They exist to serve their purpose.  They aren't paper weights.  Why the surprise?

I wish I could put this into words, but I can't.  But guns shouldn't be illegal simply because they do what they were designed to do.

If they were truly the bane of society, then OWNING guns shouldn't be illegal.  Making them, selling them, or buying them should be.

Stop THAT, then you can go after the private citizens who (still) have them.

So Al's Canadian rules and your Australian ones are basically the same as they are for me in New Jersey except I can buy a handgun and keep it in my house?

Again, what's the difference?  Oh, you don't want people carrying illegal handguns illegally?  Me neither, but as long as they make them or they are out there, some one will break the law and carry them.  Get the government to stop the manufacturers from making them, and get the police to work to confiscate them, in any country.  Then we can talk about something.

Or, Koroush, do you think we are free from gun laws here?  Another reason I don't own a gun, besides not feeling comfortable having one (or two) in my house with my kids, is that I do not want to bother with all the paperwork necessary to first get a permit to buy one, and then bother with having to deal with the hassle associated with buying one.

And if I did go through the process to buy one, and then did everything I had to do to keep it safely, I probably wouldn't be able to use it for home defense if I needed to.

But that choice should be mine, and

(wait for it)

it is.

In Australia, access to firearms is limited to persons with a genuine need. This includes ... sporting shooters with valid membership of an approved club, recreational shooters or hunters that produce proof of permission from a landowner.

Genuine need indeed, LOL.

Recreational shooters, bwa-ha-ha! Don't they know what they were designed to do?!?

This means that the average person in suburbia doesn't have any guns stashed away in their house, and this:

- prevents those guns from being stolen and falling into criminal hands;
- prevents those guns from being used against the owner;
- helps prevent guns from being pulled out at the discretion of someone who might be under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or mental issues;
- prevents accidental shootings of family members, neighbors and anyone else;

If you don't see or don't care about these drawbacks to having any citizen own guns and want to cling to your "right" to own a gun as being some sort of self-evident argument, then so be it. You and about 250 million other Americans can all build small moats around your houses and buy artillery and tanks and combat aircraft as well to make sure your family doesn't get hurt by roving gangs of violent home invaders and British redcoats or tyrannical foreign powers hell bent on destroying your way of life.

Or you can realize that without any foreign interference at all, America is destroying its own way of life quite independently through narrow-minded self-serving interpretations of age-old documents.

 individuals cannot own guns of any type unless they have genuine need, and that explicitly excludes self defense.

So if you own a gun because you genuinely need it to shoot targets and you use it in self defense, what happens?  You go to jail?

Dumbest law ever...

 the average person in suburbia doesn't have any guns stashed away in their house

Same here.

America is destroying its own way of life quite independently through narrow-minded self-serving interpretations of age-old documents.

No, I think we are doing that for the money.

The difference is that in Australia, individuals cannot own guns of any type unless they have genuine need, and that explicitly excludes self defense.

This means that the average person in suburbia doesn't have any guns stashed away in their house, and this:

- prevents those guns from being stolen and falling into criminal hands;
- prevents those guns from being used against the owner;
- helps prevent guns from being pulled out at the discretion of someone who might be under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or mental issues;
- prevents accidental shootings of family members, neighbors and anyone else;

Unless you are one of these people, right?

In Australia, access to firearms is limited to persons with a genuine need. This includes government and police, sporting shooters with valid membership of an approved club, recreational shooters or hunters that produce proof of permission from a landowner, primary producers, pest controllers and bona fide collectors. All governments have agreed that self-protection is not a genuine need.

Then it's ok?

Randy Lahey wrote: Matt gave an example of a murder/suicide using a gun, I gave an example of a murder/suicide with a straight razor and I even said guns made it simpler to do these horrible things, however eliminating guns (something which is impossible) won't stop horrible things from happening.

Apples and oranges if you ask me.  In one instance, it was an adult woman killing her own children and then herself.  She did it without a gun.  As an adult.  The story I posted was of two children, 12 and 10, either a murder-suicide or a suicide pact.  At 12 and 10 years of age.  With their father's gun.  Although I suspect that they could have both swallowed poison and the result would have been the same, the fact that the gun was in the home at all, let alone apparently readily available for one of them to use, is unforgivable.  It's also totally different than an adult in this situation.  Without the gun in the house, this tragedy more than likely wouldn't have happened.  I'll take those odds any day of the week if and when I have children of my own, thank you very much.

QUOTE: - prohibitions on fully and semi automatic long arms, with their use restricted primarily to military, police or government purposes; - prohibitions on sporting shooters possessing, owning, using, purchasing or importing high powered, concealable handguns;

So a recreational shooter not only needs to be licensed and a member of a registered shooting club, they can't own a concealable handgun or an automatic or semi automatic. The gun also needs to be stored in a manner similar to Al has outlined - that is the gun must not be loaded, it must be stored in a lockable container, and the ammunition stored separately in another lockable container.

This balances the right of individuals to pursue legitimate target shooting, which is relatively harmless if done in a club environment with adequate safeguards, with the rights of society to being safe from harm. How likely is such a weapon to be pulled out during a conflict, or used to accidentally shoot someone?

These "dumb laws" have, as I've covered before, reduced homicide rates and the rate of gun usage in crime in Australia. Clearly you're not interested in a logical discussion Ted, so I'll leave you be to waffle on about things you clearly either can't comprehend or don't want to think through.