Ijust wanted to share this link since the whole guns and Australia thing has come up so much lately!
http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp
It talks about how guns were never even owned by most or the average person there, they never had a right to own them and even though they are "banned" you can still own a gun you just have to petition the govt. for it first. and the ban was mainly on automatic and pump action guns not hand guns or hunting rifles. hunters can still own guns, collectors can still own guns and blah blah blah. Also the number of murders has really not dropped all that much after the ban in 1997, there never was much of a murder rate there to begin with.
http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp
It talks about how guns were never even owned by most or the average person there, they never had a right to own them and even though they are "banned" you can still own a gun you just have to petition the govt. for it first. and the ban was mainly on automatic and pump action guns not hand guns or hunting rifles. hunters can still own guns, collectors can still own guns and blah blah blah. Also the number of murders has really not dropped all that much after the ban in 1997, there never was much of a murder rate there to begin with.