| Submit your comments on this article | ||
| Down Under | ||
| When Guns Are Outlawed, Outlaws Will Make Guns | ||
| 2004-07-23 | ||
| EFL: The discovery of an underground weapons factory in Melbourne producing submachine-guns fitted with silencers is a dangerous development in the context of the city's gangland war, federal Justice Minister Chris Ellison warned yesterday. He revealed that three Owen submachine-guns and parts to make another six had been seized from a building in Melbourne's south-east. The Australian Crime Commission and the Victoria Police carried out the raid last month. Senator Ellison said the weapons were being made on the property but he would not say exactly where it was. "There is no doubt that if you manufacture an Owen submachine-gun with a 30 round clip to go with it that is a very serious weapon indeed," Senator Ellison told The Age. The Owen gun was a simple, lightweight and effective firearm invented in Australia and mass-produced during World War II.
| ||
| Posted by:Steve |
| #9 Just goes to show that criminalizing a hunk of metal is stupid. ANYTHING can be a weapon - even two lumps of concrete and six feet of rope. Guns just make it easier to do, with less practice. "Gun control" is less about reducing the number of guns available than it is about CONTROL. It's about power, and who has it. The people in the United States (and elsewhere, I'm sure, but I don't know for certain) who push "gun control" are really out to establish power over the rest of us, to force an agenda upon us without our ability to resist. As long as we have guns, that's impossible - too many of us will fight back. What they don't understand is that it's not the GUNS that allow us to fight back, but the fighting spirit. The French army was defeated by people weilding farm implements. Or, as the old saw goes, "it's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog". Unfortunately for the LLL, the majority of the warrior spirit is embodied on the Right, not the Left. And where there's a will there's a way, and the American entrepreneurial spirit will find it... |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-07-24 12:26:02 AM |
| #8 At least the manufacturers were cognizant about the ecological damage that noise polution can cause. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-07-23 10:32:25 PM |
| #7 The Owen was an indigenous Aussie design optimized for quick production in the facilities available in Australia. IIRC, it was preferred over the Sten for jungle combat because the feed was more reliable. |
| Posted by: Mike 2004-07-23 5:41:16 PM |
| #6 Owen gun? Surely they mean the Sten gun? Cheap indeed...easy to make. In the USA a stunt like this would buy you hard, hard time in the federal prison system. Probably not too bad in Australia. |
| Posted by: gromky 2004-07-23 5:29:59 PM |
| #5 Why silence a weapon that is almost as noisy out the receiver as from the barrel? A good silenced submachine gun doesn't make much noise, especially if you use a lighter load in the ammo. If the bullets are subsonic, all you hear is the slide shuffling back and forth and a low "burrrrrrrrrpppppp" out of the gun. One without a silencer, or more correctly, a "sound suppressor", will sound like the classic "BRAAAAAPPPPPPPP" burp gun sound. What I'm really trying to say is that without a suppressor, it sounds like a machine gun. With one installed, it's more of a "I wonder what that noise was?" sound. With a little backround noise, you'll never notice it. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-07-23 2:43:25 PM |
| #4 The same reason an operation counterfeited nickels that cost 6.2 cents to stamp in the '30s. Good sense is more rare than you think. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-07-23 1:39:19 PM |
| #3 I'm sort of so-so on the concept of a silenced *automatic* weapon. Semi-auto, sure, but an auto weapon uses gas to eject the old cartridge through a gap in the receiver. Why silence a weapon that is almost as noisy out the receiver as from the barrel? |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-07-23 12:20:25 PM |
| #2 Don't laugh it was actually talked about in gun control proposals in the US The idiot that made that proposal should have been pummeled on the spot. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-07-23 12:11:34 PM |
| #1 The obvious solution to this is to ban the private ownership of lathes, milling machines and any other metal working equipment. Don't laugh it was actually talked about in gun control proposals in the US |
| Posted by: cheaderhead 2004-07-23 11:25:25 AM |