why handguns with smaller barrels are now sort of banned?

Just after a clarification about when they brought in these laws, did the government pay compensation or were you just required to hand in your firearms?

Here in Australia after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre the government banned semi auto .22 rifles, pump and semi auto shotguns and semi auto center fire rifles for most shooters (farmers can get a semi .22 or pump/semi shotgun, center fire semi auto rifle is virtually impossible for everyone) but they paid compensation for every firearm.

Pistols have always been more heavily restricted but in 2002 a licensed shooter (mental problems, should never have got a license in the first place) killed two people and the government enacted further laws. Now the minimum barrel length for semi autos is 120mm and for revolvers 100mm (I have a 4" S&W 66). They also brought in 10rnd magazine limits, calibre restrictions and more onerous licensing legislation. We are limited to 9mm/.38 unless we shoot metallic silhouette or western action where we can have no bigger than .45. The government paid compensation which was actually quite high compared to market rates and all it did was result in people handing in their .40s and .45s and buying 9mm, .38Super and more revolvers.

You can get pretty much any pistol on a collectors license (most states don't allow you to shoot them except once or twice a year at a recognised collectors shoot) which are fairly easy to get although they differentiate between pre and post 1946 manufactured pistols and post 46 require a few more hoops to jump through.

The media here are rabidly anti gun and at the moment there is a lot of hand wringing that gun ownership is back at levels it was in 1996. They ignore the fact the population has grown, the firearms used in 1996 are not available and that even the head of the Federal Police as well as several state Police Commissioners have all said they are not concerned about licensed gun owners. Last year they busted a Sydney post office that had illegally imported hundreds of Glocks simply by falsely declaring the contents of the packages but the antis continually go on about guns stolen from licensed owners.
 
No good reason at all. Pure bull####. I hope Harper heeds our calls to repeal C68 and do away with this 12.x garbage.
 
AussieNorinco said:
Just after a clarification about when they brought in these laws, did the government pay compensation or were you just required to hand in your firearms?
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For the most part, neither. Instead, they went with the concept of "grandfathering" of both owners and firearms. What 'grandfathering' of owners means is that, if you legally owned a specific category of firearms at the time it became prohibited, you are allowed to continue to own that category of firearms for as long as you hold a firearms license. In fact, the government generously allows you not only to continue to own the particular firearms you owned when the legislation came into effect, but to buy or sell them to other 'grandfathered' owners. In effect, for a "grandfathered" owner, that particular category of firearms are not 'prohibited' but 'restricted'.

However, any existing firearms owners who did not happen to own any of that category of firearms at the time the prohibition came in are not 'grandfathered' and can never own them. And obviously, newer shooters will never have the opportunity. Also, any "grandfathered" owner who either sells off all his firearms of that class or else lets his license lapse so there's a break in his legal ownership of his firearms then loses his 'grandfathered' status and cannot get it back.

"Grandfathering" of firearms is similar: if a firearm was legally owned when the legislation prohibiting its class came into effect - and it was correctly "re-registered" in that category by a specific date, then that firearm is a "grandfathered prohibited" and can continue to be owned and traded among the "grandfathered owners". However, no new firearms can ever be added to that existing pool of 'restricted' prohibited firearms.

For both firearms and owners, the idea is the gradual removal of that class of ownership by attrition. For example, if an owner of grandfathered prohibits dies, his or her immediate family can inherit those firearms and continue to own them, but cannot buy more of the class themselves, and cannot pass the firearms down further. Basically, an inheritance of prohibited firearms can be held by the direct heirs (if they are spouses or children - blood family only) but the expectation is that the heirs themselves will have to dispose of the firearms during their own lifetime by sale to one of the fewer and fewer surviving members of the grandfathered class or to a museum, or else by dewatting or destroying the guns.

The grandfathering rules, with all the different classes, lead to some very peculiar situations. For example, both my younger brother and I are grandfathered for 12(6) handguns - short barrels and .25 and .32 calibre. We are also both grandfathered for 'converted autos' - selective fire weapons (mainly former military of course) that have been officially converted by a gunsmith to fire semi-auto only. However, another category of prohibited weapons is a list of specifically named self-loading rifles - especially the FN FAL, which was once about the only rifle specifically restricted in Canada (after our military switched to an AR platform and thousands of FNs had been sold on the civilian market as non-restricted rifles). When the legislation came in, both my brother and I owned converted autos, but mine was a Russian PPSh SMG and his was an FN FAL. As a result, while we are both grandfathered for converted autos, he can also own FN FALs - either converted autos or commercial versions that were never selective fire in the first place; I cannot own FNs at all. (But I can still own converted SMGs, Bren guns, etc.)

Makes no sense.

But then, the whole 'grandfathering' concept is really the ultimate hypocrisy. The reason the government used this approach was that they had an old case supporting the view that 'grandfathering' is not 'confiscation of property', because they are not forcing the current owners to turn in their firearms. The government therefore does not have to pay any compensation when a firearm is prohibited but the current owner is allowed to retain it. The fact that the prohibition instantly destroys about 2/3 of the firearms value by drastically limiting the available pool of potential buyers when it is sold is, apparently, irrelevant. And the fact that eventually, years down the line, the final owner will likely be forced to give the gun away either to a museum or to the government for nothing is also irrelevant: the government isn't actually physically taking the gun away "right now", so the impact of its actions upon the value of the owner's investment in the gun doesn't count.

Thus, the government has used 'grandfathering' first with selective fire weapons, then with converted autos, then with named models of rifles (like the FN and Steyr AUG), and then with the 12(6) pistols. The total number of guns involved now is somewhere between 500K and 1M. But it hasn't had to pay a penny in compensation for any of them.

The thing is, the rationale for prohibition is that those particular firearms are "too dangerous" to be in civilian hands. So the manufacture or the importation of any more is prohibited. But in the meantime, where are the existing ones left for the next 50 to 60 years? In civilian hands; just not as many possible civilian hands as previously.

Which leads to the obvious question: if these particular guns are so dangerous that public safety demands they not be allowed into civilian hands, then why is it still safe for my brother to own an FN FAL for the next 50 years but not me? And why is it safe for both of us to own converted Bren guns and Lugers or PPKs for the next 50 years but not our friend who shoots his ARs and Colt 1911s at the range with us?
 
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One interesting thing is that they didn't consider that the .32 cal was the frequently used chambering in Internationl Pistol Competition. Then they had to issue a long list of expensive pistols used in these competitions that were exempt from the .32 cal prohibition. I know of a lady with small hands who uses a .32 single action in U.S. cowboy action shoots, but isn't grandfathered and can't use it here. The .38 is built on a larger frame and is not comfortable for her. I wonder if we could get cowboy action shooting and IPSIC/IDPA covered under IPSU and sneak some .32's in through the back door?
 
The whole idea is stupid. Old lugers too small. NAA minimaster big enough. Which is easier to conceal? The who idea is stupid beyond words, Im in Florida CCW'ing a Colt combat commander with no trouble, same with the G21, G23, and any number of firearms.
 
My best attempt at coming up with a logical explanation for this is as follows: the lawmaker was balls-deep in his boyfriend and it occurred to him that he was bottoming out about 10cm deep, so this must be the largest gun you could hide up your ass.
 
TheJuggernaut said:
My best attempt at coming up with a logical explanation for this is as follows: the lawmaker was balls-deep in his boyfriend and it occurred to him that he was bottoming out about 10cm deep, so this must be the largest gun you could hide up your ass.
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Lawmaker was Alan Rock, so more likely he was deep in a certain member of the CfGC with whom he travelled the gun control promotional circuit and was rumoured to share a bedroom: you did see that recent news article about the police officers in the US who found that "lady" hiding a NAA .22 revolver, didn't you?
 
dumb, just like the rest of the gun laws.
I can shoot a keltec su16F in the field but not an ar15.
I can shoot a glock 17 at the range but not a glock 19.
I can buy a vz 58 but not a semi auto ar.
Dumb....
 
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