Since before his initial election in 2008, there is one area of America’s economy that Mr. Obama has been spectacularly successful in stimulating. His never-ending efforts have resulted in an unprecedented boom in manufacturing and sales in this small but important slice of our national GDP. In retail outlets across America, Mr. Obama’s portrait hangs, often with labels such as “greatest salesman of all time.”
This is, arguably, his sole domestic economic success story.
So of course, true to form, he is now doing everything he can to sabotage it.
You know about what I’m referring, don’t you gentle readers? That’s right: the American firearm industry. A home-grown industry as old as the republic and always vital to its success and freedom.
About five months ago, I posted an article about this issue at Gun Values Board. That article noted that prior to the election, Democrats were determined to stay away from gun control, as was, for the most part, Mr. Obama. However, then came the Newtown, Connecticut murders and all bets were off. I have, for some time, predicted that with a second term, Mr. Obama would be unafraid to impose draconian gun control measures by hook or crook (mostly crook), and it now appears that’s going to be the case.
As we wait for the next shoe to drop, there is a rich vein of irony to be mined, and I began that process recently with a pilgrimage to the main Cheaper Than Dirt retail outlet. I thought it might be amusing to see the economic effect of Mr. Obama’s work for the firearm industry in practice, and I was right. On the occasion of my 12-21-12 trip, I found the display walls, usually festooned with black rifles of all shapes and sizes to be nearly empty. Only three lonely copies of AK pattern rifles and three high-end S&W AR-15 pattern rifles remained. Magazines of all shapes and sizes were flying out the door, and handgun ammo in the most popular calibers and ammunition for the aforementioned rifles was in short supply. Customers were delivering loud and fulsome praise of Mr. Obama’s business acumen—including many boisterous and anatomically impossible nicknames–and planning merry social activities for beltline politicians—particularly wobbly Republicans–that included rail rides, and the liberal application of petroleum products and the colorful plumage of various denizens of the air.
I encountered the same lack of stock and the same rousing seasonal merriment at the local Academy and several other non-chain store retail firearm establishments. Mr. Obama’s hope for the change of banning the most popular rifles in America was the topic of much gaiety wherever I went.
So. By trying to ban “assault weapons” and “assault magazines,” and by trying to enact the common wish list of anti-freedom politicians, Mr. Obama has once again succeeded in causing the sales of those very items to rise to stratospheric levels.
This time, Mr. Obama may well go too far. Irony is amusing only so long. In trying to ban weapons virtually never used in crimes, weapons that are the most popular rifles in America, President Obama is, once again, ignoring the Constitution and trying to diminish liberty. Whether Americans are just like Europeans in their willingness to accept any governmental outrage is not unquestionably decided. We may have the opportunity to find out sooner than many imagined.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
Obama said he wanted to end the sale of assault weapons and normal capacity magazines. He succeeded, he just did it by emptying the distribution chain.
Have you wondered what it is that means the USA has to provide armed guards for six year olds whilst other western democracies don’t?
We have video games, we have mentally ill people, we have criminals, thugs and ‘monsters’, and we have gangs…
We don’t have assault weapons (semi-autos with mags that hold 20 rounds), We don’t have an ownership rate that is the highest in the western world, and we don’t have a gun lobby that anywhere else in the world are regarded as crackpots with self-image issues……
Pretty simple stuff.
Dear 1735099a:
The other western democracies don’t? Hmm. Perhaps a visit to this article might be informative:
nation.html”>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/9495025/Norway-massacre-A-timeline-of-the-attacks-that-horrified-a-nation.html
And I am, in fact aware of the crime issues with which Australians daily deal, but I have chosen not to engage in statistic flinging because that’s simply not the point, nor do I have anything against Australia or Australians.
But we do have one thing your countrymen lack: greater individual liberty, the Second Amendment being a significant part of that freedom. Our nations are indeed different in many ways, but reducing those historical and cultural differences to caricatures does no one honor.
You are doing exactly what you accuse the media of – using a massacre (in this case in Norway) in an attempt to prove a point.
Other comparable countries have massacres – they also have murders – with firearms or otherwise. The individual massacres are significant only in that they highlight the broader issue of gun homicides. The NRA and those supporting them would much rather the whole issue wasn’t brought into the light of day, because when that happens, it reveals some very ugly facts.
The ugliest fact of all is a persistent and consistent rate of gun homicides in the USA which is much higher than that of comparable countries – ten times higher than it is in my country. This fact is indisputable, and it is this fact that you continue to ignore.
“But we do have one thing your countrymen lack: greater individual liberty, the Second Amendment being a significant part of that freedom.”
I will take major issue with that statement. If “greater individual liberty” means that (in comparison to Australia) you have ten times the likelihood of being killed by a gun in the USA, you can keep that particular “liberty”. That is a “lack” I can live with. We are better off without it.
You have a warped idea of “freedom”. The most basic freedom for any individual is that of being able to go about his daily life without fear. It is called “freedom from fear”. It comes from the same cache of freedoms as freedom from want, and freedom of religion.
Fear (or more correctly paranoia) has taken hold in the USA. This explains the rush on gun shops you write about. It saddens me to see your once great country, which used to be the bastion of freedom, held in the grip of a tyranny of fear and paranoia, which, unless it changes, like a cancer will eat more of your freedoms away. This is a far bigger, more real and dangerous threat than government tyranny.
Unless this simple fact, the connection between a high rate of gun homicides and the ready availability of dangerous weapons, is part of the discussion, then (as we say in this country) you should sit down, because the dog is pissing on your swag.
I have included some relevant figures below. Before you reply you need to peruse them, and explain to me (and any other readers) carefully why you believe that this situation is acceptable, and somehow makes your country more free.
All these studies are cited and available.
In 2003, there were 30,136 firearm-related deaths in the United States; 16,907 (56%) suicides, 11,920 (40%) homicides (including 347 deaths due to legal intervention/war), and 962 (3%) undetermined/unintentional firearm deaths.
CDC/National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, WISQARS Injury Mortality Reports 1999-2003 http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars
• The rate of death from firearms in the United States is eight times higher than that in its economic counterparts in other parts of the world.
Kellermann AL and Waeckerle JF. Preventing Firearm Injuries. Ann Emerg Med July 1998; 32:77-79.
• The overall firearm-related death rate among U.S. children younger than 15 years of age is nearly 12 times higher than among children in 25 other industrialized countries combined.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 1997;46:101-105.
• The United States has the highest rate of youth homicides and suicides among the 26 wealthiest nations.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Rates of homicide, suicide, and firearm-related death among children: 26 industrialized countries.
MMWR. 1997;46:101-105.
Krug EG, Dahlberg LL, Powell KE. Childhood homicide, suicide, and firearm deaths: an international comparison. World Health Stat Q. 1996;49:230-235.
17999 etc. you are wrong on so many levels that it is not funny.
The majority of the firearms incidents in the USA relate to people who are illegal gun owners. The majority of those deaths are gang deaths.
The real issue that you miss, which is probably why I am sticking up for gun owners, is mental illness.
Your Norwegian massacre was committed by someone who is mentally ill, despite the fact that he was cleared so that he could be tried, that man is mentally ill!!!!! All of the recent massacres in the USA have been committed by white males who are either on drugs or are mentally ill. I have no doubt that Adam Lanza was mentally ill, and that is on top of him having Asperger’s Syndrome.
However, most of the evil plots whether they are executed or not are those that come solely from one source alone: The MIddle East. Sometimes they use guns, but they also use other things such as homemade bombs. In fact the other big massacre in the USA, in Oklahoma was committed by the use of materials to make a bomb. The biggest massacre of all was committed by three aircraft that hurtled into buildings occupied by thousands of people.
Statistics are an amazing thing, but they are usually quite useless when the comparisons do not tell the full story. In the case of the USA those youth homicides are usually black on black and are gang related. This is an instance where most of the guns involved are illegally obtained. It is not a reflection upon legal gun ownership at all.
As for murders, let’s look at some of the other implements of murder: fists, kettles, knives, machetes, arrows, pillows, panty-hose etc. etc. Please note the fists and kettles because yes it is true that if a person gets struck in the right spot on the head, then the person will die. A nail gun is not that useful as a means to cause death, but gas and exhaust fumes seem to have a 100% success rate.
I speak here as a person who had a family member murdered via a gun. The point is that she was kidnapped raped and then murdered, then he committed suicide. The gun iteself is an inanimate object and is no worse than a pillow.
Here in Australia more people are killed on the roads by cars than as a result of gun violence. Yes, we have lots of shootings, but also stabbings. The police officer who was murdered recently was stabbed, not shot!!
This is really the fundamental difference. We reject your false “freedom from fear.” That’s the false freedom of a subject. This goes back to our very founding, and is touched on over and over by our founders. Sam Adams made it most plain:
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
You can run Australia how you want. No doubt you ended up with quite a few of our loyalists after our Revolution — men who did crave the tranquility of servitude, and who after the Treaty of Paris were allowed to go in peace. We really don’t talk about the people who didn’t cut it in America here, because they’ve been allowed to leave in peace, and forge their own chains some place else (like England and Australia.) Posterity has forgotten them. As for America:
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
Dear Phelps:
Quite so!
Yes, and as proof of what 173. . . -oh what the hell– says, take Norway for example. See, those 91 victims were NOT 6 year olds. They were older, not a whole lot as time flies, but enough. And they were on on ISLAND, which all they had to do was to jump into the (ice cold) water to escape from. They just did not swim fast enough or run fast enough or hide well enough. Besides, Norway is NOT a western democracy–right? And it is so easy to get assault weapons in Norway–just walk down to Mexico to get some, which has strict gun laws (at least when they are not circumvented by the Holder DOJ). I begin to understand the long term consequences of populating Australia with the criminal class.
Australia is the one that does not have all that much of a problem due to guns. We tend to not be gun owners.
The problem here in Sydney relates to gangs, Middle Eastern gangs in particular such as the Comancheros. They do not hold gun permits!!
It is quite rare to hear of a murder being carried out by someone with a gun in normal circumstances… but oh boy, when it comes to the Mafia, and the bikie gangs, now that is another matter!!
Most of the Australian murders are carried out in another fashion: the use of a kettle, fists, knives, pillows, panty-hose, bombs and a variety of other implements. Guns are way down on the list.
What I have noted here in Australia is that most of the violence is coming from immigrants into Australia. The shoot ups that are a regular occurrence in Sydney are done mostly by Lebanese and others of Middle Eastern origin. The next highest method of murder is with the fists, usually a sucker punch to the head.
When I was living in London, a schoolboy was murdered at a local ice-rink. the police were requesting witnesses to call a confidential phone line. There were other murders, usually stabbings at the local school. Some parents were purchasing kevlar vests, for their children to wear to school. When travelling home, by train, I had an interesting converation about parents suing the manufacturers of the vests, if their children were injured, since it would not be worth suing their assailant.
Dear John McLachlan:
Thanks for your comment and welcome to SMM. I’ve long been amazed at the anti-self defense posture your criminal justice system seems to have adopted, but have seen at least a few encouraging signs of late.
You obviously understand, as some people refuse to understand, that the issue is not the weapon, but human nature. Only by understanding that and constructing law and policy that achieves what is possible with human beings within the law can we hope to deal with these issues. Human nature doesn’t change from nation to nation, but culture and law surely do.
Thanks again!
I lived in a house shared with a west indian couple, whose son had been murdered; shot by a criminal using a gun, despite guns already being illegal.
Criminals ignore laws, which are obeyed by the law-abiding.
I think that gun control legislation may, possibly, work, if accompanied by random searches and draconian penalties for mere possession of a gun.
However, the people who are most vocal supporters for gun control legislation, often are vehemently opposed to such measures, which they insist are oppressive and would not lead to any reduction in the crime-rate.
You are wrong. Australia has a gun lobby. In the NSW Parliament there are members of the NSW Shooters Party.
We have gun violence. The difference is that the violence is mostly related to gangs, just like in the USA.
Most Australians do not own guns. The difference is that we have never gone through a revolution such as the American Revolution for Independence, or for that matter the French Revolution.
The French Revolution leads me to a slightly different point – they used guns plus other implements to carry out their dirty work. Knives were a common weapon, and they also used Madame Guillotine.
So what does this have to do the issue? Perhaps the most relevant point to make about Australia is that we have approximately one tenth of the firearm fatality rate that the USA has.
Could it be connected with your statement – “Most Australian do not own guns”.?
Again, the correlation between the number of guns in the community and the rate of deaths is the elephant in the room constantly ignored by the gun lobby.
By the way, we did have an uprising – if not a revolution. Remember the Eureka stokade?
See – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Rebellion
You have no idea about Australia.
There is lots of violence. Where people are not using guns they are using knives. When they are not using knives they are using some other means.
Guns do not kill people. It is people who kill people. They choose different means.
There is no correlation to the number of guns in the community and murders. You are way off base due to your own ignorance!!
A lot of the gun owners happen to respect their weapons, keep them locked up and they are never involved in violence.
The same cannot be said for the criminals who obtain guns illegally. I refer again to the violence in Sydney because there has been a lot of recent publicity. The Police Inspector who was killed recently was killed by a person with a knife. There have been several murders where people were sucker-punched on the streets of Sydney. Almost weekly we hear of houses being shot up, and a few deaths in Sydney. The guns that have been used were obtained illegally by the Comancheros and the other gangs involved in their gang wars. The drug dealers also have their guns. This is the criminal class and not law abiding citizens.
I have already pointed out that my cousin was shot in the head after she was kidnapped and raped. I can also point to another case where a boy who had been my neighbour was kidnapped raped and murdered, but he was not shot!! At the same time I can point to a case where a kettle was used, another case where a car bomb was the method used, then there was the gas cylinders in the back of a truck that caused a loud explosion and a fire.
Guns in the hands of the mentally ill is a genuine problem. Gun control should be about ensuring that the mentally ill cannot get hold of the guns in the first place.
My understanding is that Conneticut has strict gun laws, and in fact those laws worked because the gun shop would not sell Lanza any weapons because he attempted to use fake ID. Yet, he got hold of some guns. Since he was intent upon murder/suicide, my guess is that he would have looked for another way to carry out his intention if he could not have gotten hold of those guns. In other words, the real answer to this situation is to do something about the mentally ill – and if they need to be locked up then they should be locked up as soon as possible in a hospital environment!!
Guns do not kill people. It is people who kill people. That is why even a kettle can be an implement of death (and yes there is an Australian case where a kettle was the implement that caused death). Home made bombs are an easy alternative too. In fact one of the potential massacres that was thwarted involved the use of bombs, not guns.
“You have no idea about Australia”
Really? I’ve lived here for 65 years.
“Guns do not kill people. It is people who kill people.”
People with guns kill more people more quickly than people without guns.
“Gun control should be about ensuring that the mentally ill cannot get hold of the guns in the first place.”
This is much easier if there are no guns in the community for people with mental illness to get hold of.
“There is no correlation to the number of guns in the community and murders.”
There is a very high correlation. The current ownership rate in the USA is 88.8 guns per 100 people. See – http://en.wikipedia.or /wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
In Australia it is 15 per 100 people.
The current gun fatality rate in the USA is 67% of all homicides. In Australia it is .1%
http://ivn.us/2012/07/25/gun-control-an-international-comparison/
I need to point out something relating to the flag that is being used by 79whatever. It is the Southern Cross, a symbol of the rebellion at the Eureka stockade.
The first thing to point out is that the miners had guns. The miners that were at the stockade were all armed with guns. In fact they were the ones who opened fire upon the soldiers who were sent to the goldfields to restore order. The first to be killed at Eureka were the soldiers.
This symbol of a rebellion that was related to the collection of taxes, or rather mining licenses has been taken by an extreme left wing group here in Australia. They are a group who would love to ensure that all Australians remain disarmed.
I am simply pointing out that the people behind that flag were the ones who actually committed a crime. In my view they were never heroes, yet in Australia there are people who are peverse in their hero worship of such people. Of course I speak as a descendant of a soldier who was in the same unit that was sent to Ballarat to quell the mob (my ancestor was not present at Eureka). I was unimpressed prior to learning that I was descended from such a soldier.
To add some more information here, that same regiment also rode gold escort duty from Bendigo (Sandhurst) to Melbourne or wherever the gold was being taken. It was necessary because of the outlaws such as Ned Kelly who possessed guns. These outlaws shot and killed lawmen as a hobby. Again I am not into the hero worship of Ned Kelly who was in fact nothing more than a thief.
Modern Australians have not felt the need to possess a gun for protection. On top of that, because we have not been through a Revolution, we do not have the same understanding as Americans when it comes to the ownership of guns. We went along with the decree on the surrender of certain type of guns after the Port Arthur massacre. There were not all that many guns that were owned anyway. Almost all guns that are owned for sporting reasons are locked away, usually at a gun club facility.
Guns are still used in the outback, and yes they are needed to protect against wayward Kangaroos and the like.
I do not believe that Australians should poke their noses into the issue of the 2nd Amendment rights because it is not our business and since we have not been through a situation where we were facing having our guns confiscated we have no real concept of all of the issues involved.
In more recent days I have noted that there are schools that have armed guards. I certainly do think that having armed guards at a school is a better solution than even allowing teachers to have concealed carry.
Even so, I think it is more important to deal with issues relating to mental health, and keeping the mentally ill away from guns in the first place.
There is gun violence in Australia, and it exists mostly within communities where there is drug dealing and other illegal activity. It is widespread among the bikie gangs, and yes there are constant gang wars. These are illegal guns, not those that are possessed legally.
At the heart of this issue is that of legal possession of a firearm vs. illegal possession.
“In my view they were never heroes, yet in Australia there are people who are perverse in their hero worship of such people.”
You need to read some Australian history. The miners at Eureka had similar grievances as those involved in the Boston tea party. They refused to pay the mining tax whilst they did not have a vote. Back then, the only people who had representation were the squatters.
That’s why the Eureka flag is on my blog. It represents independence and freedom.
I reject the cultural imperialism of American values steadily infiltrating our national life. One of these values is its dysfunctional gun worship. We don’t need that here.
Cultural imperialism? Thank you for Mad Max!
The Eureka flag does not represent independence and freedom. Today it represents something that is sinister.
I was brought up in Victoria. I know the history of Eureka and the miners. They did not have the same grievances as the Americans involved in the Boston Tea Party – not by a long shot buster.
I have been to and seen the location of the stockade, and unlike you I have read some of the original documents that held the account of the whole skirmish.
At Boston the people did not fire a shot. They tipped tea into the harbour. At Ballarat the miners who refused to pay for their licences (and that is also not the whole story where this skirmish is concerned… you are the one who needs to read up on the truth) they used guns to resolve the issue.
The soldiers were brought in from Melbourne. There was more than one unit involved and they were sent from the Spencer Street barracks – I bet you knew nothing about Spencer St being the location of army barracks!! When they arrived and appeared over the hill, it was the miners who fired the first shot and killed two of the soldiers.
This group of miners was a small contingent in Ballarat. I had always read that they were mistreated but it was not necessarily the truth. It is the truth that they had a grievance about the mining licences and the manner in which the police, not the soldiers were enforcing those licences.
On the other hand at the time of the Boston Tea Party the people had real grievances about taxes being applied to them by the order of the king of England. Those taxes were quite heavy. The throwing of the tea into the harbour was a protest about yet another decree and tax, this time on tea.
The miners at Ballarat and the people in Victoria were not overburdened at the time with taxes. The mining licences served a purposes including the pegging out of the claims. The skirmish could have been avoided. It was not necessary to have this skirmish at Eureka Stockade.
In each of these cases there were British soldiers involved. Many of the soldiers were Irish (I have a list of the names from one particular regiment). In the USA the soldiers then came to confiscate the guns, but the soldiers who travelled from Melbourne to Ballarat were not going to do the same thing. They came to restore peace, but those miners were not prepared to have peace restored, and they killed those soldiers.
The right to bear arms which is why the American Second Amendment exists is tied up in what took place, not at Boston, but at Lexington, where the soldiers were coming to take the guns of the people. The British king of that time was a tyrant. The demand for taxes on the colonists in America were very burdensome. They even had to pay a window tax to put windows in their home. Australians have never faced anything like that.
If there is anything that is similar to what happened in the USA and a fight for freedom, then that belongs to another skirmish at Vinegar Hill in NSW. That story was told in the mini-series “Against the Wind”. It is the story of those who were transported to New South Wales and it tells of their grievances and why they decided to make the break in such a fashion. All the same, even that skirmish and the grievances behind it are not on a scale of what was taking place in the USA at the time of the American Revolution.
It is laughable to equate the rebellion at Eureka Stockade to the circumstances surrounding the American War for Independence. There is no comparison as far as I am concerned.
BTW I studied Australian History in my last year at school, and in the final exam I wrote about why I thought that Eureka Stockade was overblown in Australian history and that was well before I discovered my own connection to the whole affair.
“The Eureka flag does not represent independence and freedom”.
The miners thought it did. They even wrote their own “Declaration of Independence”.
“I know the history of Eureka and the miners. They did not have the same grievances as the Americans involved in the Boston Tea Party”.
Both groups shared a disdain of being taxed without being able to vote – “no taxation without representation”. Both groups were proudly republican. Both groups regarded British rule as tyranny. Both groups were in newly-developed colonies. They had plenty in common.
“and unlike you”
It’s foolish to make assumptions. I have studied the primary sources extensively.
“(and that is also not the whole story where this skirmish is concerned… you are the one who needs to read up on the truth)”
Well, perhaps you should tell the “whole story”.
“I had always read that they were mistreated but it was not necessarily the truth”.
If being shackled to a post or being thrown in a stockade is being mistreated – you’re correct.
“On the other hand at the time of the Boston Tea Party the people had real grievances about taxes being applied to them by the order of the king of England”.
The miners at Ballarat resented being asked to pay a very heavy tax irrespective of whether or not they had found gold. The squatters, on the other hand paid a level of tax that was a fraction of what the miners were asked to pay. The squatters had a vote. The miners did not.
“They even had to pay a window tax to put windows in their home. Australians have never faced anything like that”.
I would have thought that paying an exorbitant amount to look for gold, whether you found it or not, and being arrested and thrown into chains if you couldn’t pay was “something like that”.
“BTW I studied Australian History in my last year at school.”
Bully for you. I studied Australian history at post graduate level on a Vietnam Veteran’s rehab scholarship. Eureka was one of the topics. Perhaps the most significant outcome of the rebellion was the acquittal on charges of treason, of all the ringleaders. About a year after the rebellion, Peter Lalor, one of the leaders, was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council. I would have thought that event was “significant”.
For a well researched and written account of the rebellion, read Peter Fitzsimons “Eureka – the Unfinished Revolution”. – William Heineman (Australia) 2012.
Dear Aussie:
Thanks!
you show a lot of ignorance with regard to Eureka. It was not a revolution… that is just extreme left-wing twaddle as far as I am concerned.
For most of the years after that skirmish, the Eureka flag was of no significance, and then in the 1960s it started to be used again by Communists, Marxists and fellow-travellers, as well as other extreme left groups including the former BLF which is a forerunner of the AWU. It was used in such marches as the anti-Vietnam Moratoriums as well as in May Day Marches (well known extreme left-wing marches held all over Australia). The Eureka flag remains a symbol of extreme left-wing politics in Australia.
The best authority on the gold fields era is Professor Geoffrey Blainey. Others that have come after him have their own extreme left wing agenda and as such I reject all writing by such individuals…. that is why I would not even lift one single page of someone idiot by the name of Fitzsimmons.
Like I have stated, I have somewhere in my possession copies of original eye-witness documents relating to this skirmish.
I will repeat the obvious parts where I can rely upon memory: the miners who rebelled were only a small portion of the citizens in Ballarat at the time. They were upset by the miner’s licences and policing efforts regarding those licences. In that respect they might have had a good case. However, when it came to the actual skirmish, all bets were off because it was the miners who fired first as the soldiers who were brought in from Melbourne arrived on the scene. Those soldiers were sent to keep the peace. They were not there to fire upon the miners or the people of Ballarat. Some of the soldiers were sent directly from the Spencer Stree Barracks (yes they really did exist and two of the children of my great-great grandmother were born in those barracks). The witness statements that I have read point to the fact that the miners were the cause of the skirmish, not the other way around.
Now look at the difference between that messy situation and the American Revolution where the soldiers were sent, not to restore peace, but to take the munitions of the people. There is a very big difference between these two incidents that to me it is totally absurd for any Australian to make such stupid comparisons because there is NO comparison between those two situations. On top of that the miners at Ballarat were not defending any freedoms, especially the right to bear arms, which was clearly the situation that sparked the beginning of the American Revolution.
Australia never had the tax revolt that led to the dumping of tea in Boston Harbour. Oh yes, we had something called the Rum Rebellion, but a look behind the actual rebellion will show that even in that situation there was a lot of corruption by the soldiers of the Rum Corps…. again…. no comparison.
Even the battle of Vinegar Hill, which occurred very close to where I used to live in NSW, does not compare since it was concerned with primarily the rights of convicts who had been transported to Australia and who were living in servitude to free people.
There is simply no comparison between those two situations at all. Australia has a totally different orientation. We never had a fight over the right to bear arms. In fact we did not truly have a fight over the convict system that finally ended in the 1850s (my great-great grandmother arrived on the Martin Luther, which was one of the last convict ships to arrive in Hobart Town Van Dieman’s Land which is now Tasmania). Nearly all of those convicts served their time and were then freed. Of course there is a different story about those who were sent to Port Arthur…. and life was very hard for the convicts.
Also, it should be noted that the English decided to use Australia as somewhere to send their convicts as a result of the American Revolution. This is another reason why our history is vastly different from that of the USA. Perhaps one reason we never had those tax revolts is simply because the English might have learned a little by their mistakes and the king was not given the power to impose such taxes on the new colonies. Either way, a tax revolt was never a part of Australian history…. until now…. and there are Australians who are now willing to go into revolt against a swag of unjust taxes.
Mike- From what I understand, Cheaper Than Dirt suspended their online firearms sales. I don’t know if that has changed since the middle of December or not. I do know that Dick’s Sporting goods stopped selling particular rifles since the Newtown massacre. They didn’t even honor the orders that were placed even before the incident. From what I’m reading many are boycotting Dick’s.
Those are two polar opposites. Dicks collapsed to perceived pressure. Cheaper than Dirt collapsed to not being able to fill the orders fast enough. CTD found their system not updating the stock indicators fast enough and them “selling” guns they didn’t have to sell anymore. Also, they were seeing 72 hour turnarounds on merchandise they promised to ship in 24 hours.
Dicks stopped selling because they cowered. CTD stopped selling because they ran out of guns.
Dear Phelps:
Thanks for your quite accurate update. It was not my intention in this article to disparage these companies, but merely to point out the effect of Mr. Obama’s policies–with media assistance–and the reasonable concern citizens have about losing their Second Amendment freedoms, on free commerce, something else in some danger in Mr. Obama’s America.
Take care!
Dear Pinecone:
As Phelps notes, Dick’s actions seem to have been a complete retreat from honorable service to their customers in the face of media and political scorn. Cheaper Than Dirt, on the other hand, merely temporarily suspended future sales until they had the inventory to fill them with the speed and accuracy for which they are well known. My conversations with CTD employees certainly bears this out.
And while I generally don’t take positions on boycotts, I also generally do not patronize establishments that not only won’t meet my needs, but that seem to fail to meet them for less than honorable reasons.
Thanks for your comments!
“until now…. and there are Australians who are now willing to go into revolt against a swag of unjust taxes”
If you are of that frame of mind, you should emigrate to the USA. Your kind are dangerous to the rest of us, and the greatest threat to a prosperous and secure future in this country.
That way you can reap what the rest of the Septics have sown with their resistance to taxation – a deficit that is beyond belief.
Until now we have not had such bad taxes. Let’s start with the tax on the air that we breathe, called the carbon tax. This is nothing more than a tax that makes odor sniffers and extreme green leftists feel good. It will do nothing to change the climate but it adds an enormous burden upon ordinary people.
From the iniquitous carbon tax we can turn to the mining tax. This is a tax that under the Constitution of Australia the Federal Government does not have the right to raise.
The impact of this tax is already being felt as the mining companies seek to do business elsewhere. The future impact upon Australia will be quite serious because it will be a loss of income and a loss with regards to the terms of trade.
Moving backwards we have other taxes such as the Capital Gains Tax which also hits ordinary people. Most of us have adjusted to that tax by now but taxing Capital Gains is still iniquitous.
Then there is the Medicare care levy but on top of that there is also the levy to pay for the damage done by the Queensland government and its own lack of funding for future flooding. Why should we pay for the damage done by the overflow of the Wivenhoe dam just because the Queensland government did not take out insurance?
There is the tax on businesses having more than a certain number of employees, called the Payroll tax. The effect of this particular tax is that people are not being employed on a full time basis and the heavy use of contract workers with all of the injustice that comes from that particular situation – including the following: the loss of holiday pay and bonus, the loss of paid sick leave, the loss of any pay for public holidays.
There is also a tax on employee benefits. Oh my we cannot allow employees to park in a company car park, now can we? The tax on parking in a company parking lot is one of many of the items that comes under fringe benefits. The Fringe Benefits tax is yet another of those iniquitous taxes that are an imposition upon ordinary workers, including upon executives.
Whilst I see the net benefit of the Goods and Services Tax because it did get rid of the Sales taxes which taxed goods at various levels, it continues to remain a cost to the ordinary person. I see other benefits in the GST because wealthy people cannot avoid such taxes.
Yet another tax is the tax on fuel that was supposed to disappear after the GST was introduced, but that tax did not disappear. As a result we are paying a much higher amount at the pump than is necessary because of those taxes.
To these taxes you can add Council rates, Land Rates, taxes on renewing the car registration every year, taxes on the sale or purchase of a home. There are many more of these hidden taxes.
And the most iniquitous of these taxes is the tax on the air that we breathe. It is unnecessary. There should not be any need to hand out money as “compensation” in the first place. It has no impact on climate and on top of that the money is being given away to overseas countries. Why should my taxes go to any African country where the tin pot dictators rule and where the people are starving whilst these same dictators spend money on arms or other unnecessary things?
High taxes on businesses have an impact on employment. The heavier the burden of those taxes, the more likely there will be higher unemployment because money that would otherwise allow an extra employee to be hired ends up going to the government instead.
In any given country where there are high taxes, there is also a basket case economy. I could start with the UK because the UK has been a basket case for several years, but at the moment the emphasis is on recovering from the British Labour party overspending. I will point to France, where the obvious has happened once there was an increased tax on wealthy French people – there has been a flight of capital from France to other countries. This is what happens when a heavy tax burden is imposed. An opposite example is that of Canada where taxes were reduced, which has led to an increase in capital investment.
Government needs to reduce spending, and yes in Australia there is plenty of scope to end the disgraceful level of expenditure on such things as the NBN. I could bring up the wastage of money that went into the BER program, where the money spent on school halls was something like double to triple what the cost of building should have been worth in the first place. I think we can totally do away with the Department of Climate Change… and clear the foul smelling air in Canberra at the same time when those odor sniffers are dispersed elsewhere. This is only at the Federal level, and there is plenty of wastage at the State and Local Council levels.
Since the wealthy are usually the providers of the net savings that become capital investment, then the increase in the burden of taxation has the net effect of reducing the amount of capital that is available for investment in new business, or in projects. This is because the increase in the burden of taxes leads to a reduction in savings which then leads to a reduction in net investment. The long term result is that unemployment increases.