[Gustomaximus]

Also worth pointing out is Australians still have access to firearms, to many peoples misconception.

Hunting type weapons (bolt actions and shotguns) only require a simple firearm safety test plus the requirement firearms must be kept in a safe. Handguns are available but you must be a regular shooter (6 times a year I believe), plus member of a club and you cant take a handgun home for the first year of your licence/club membership. Semi-autos are available if you have a professional need for them such as a farmer who has problems with feral animals, or a farmer hire you as someone that supports their pest eradication.

None of this difficult if you want a gun, but it seems to do the trick in keeping firearms out of the hands of crazies thus far.

[alberte]

> but it seems to do the trick in keeping firearms out of the hands of crazies thus far.

Yes you wouldn't think this change would be enough - because if you want to get a gun you can but for some reason it has.

[CamperBob2]

It's almost as if you can't infer valid statistical models from the occurrence or absence of extremely rare events.

[alberte]

yes, unfortunately that is one interpretation of events, even so I feel more comfortable knowing that people like Martin Bryant can't get guns. I guess we'll just have to wait for more data points

[Gustomaximus]

It's never going to work absolutely, though the 4 main factors I see are fairly significant;

1 & 2: Licencing and checks stops people with a violent history purchasing/owning guns legally. If that personality decides they need a firearm to hurt people there is a month+ between their desire to do harm and actually owning a firearm.

3: Compulsory safes (and the police check each owner has an appropriate one) reduce the likelihood of a person accessing anothers firearm.

4: More dangerous firearms like handguns and semi-auto are harder to get yet again thus less prevalent stopping what might be a small shooting from becoming significantly larger. A significant shooting becomes much harder with a double barrel shotgun than an AR-15.

Another benefit I imagine is restrictions would stop police feeling there is a potential firearm around every corner and may help calm down ongoing US cop shootings/mentality too.