Since time immemorial humans have had the right to self-preservation and self defence. If some wild animal or other human attacks me. I am allowed to defend myself. This right has translated to international law where travellers in inhospitable country have always been able to defend themselves from brigands.
This ancient right has been moderated In the modern western state. Citizens are required to rely on the state for their protection unless the State is unable to provide for that immediate protection. We are required to retreat, and report the crime, if that is reasonably practical, rather than “bring it on”
No state at any time in history, including the present, can protect its citizens in every place for every second. It is at those times and places that the right to self defence survives. In the Lindt cafe, every person there had the right to defend themselves proportionally to the threat.
When Senator Leyonhjelm asserts that a hostage who had a concealed firearm weapon would have been better off that seems obvious. To call Leyonhjelm’s statement outrageous is not an argument against his call for universal firearms suffrage.
Fact is since the 1996 tougher firearms laws Australian firearms ownership has risen while firearms crime has dropped. There is no statistical correlation between the number of firearms in the community and the number of firearms crimes. Dr. Samara McPhedrin has me convinced about this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0coGmhNLFHY See the video of Dr. Samara McPhedrin’s comments before the Senate Committee. This is despite what we are being fed by those who abuse and accuse hunters and firearms owners of all manner of moral turpitude.
Having been shot at by a criminal and restrained myself from shooting back as I had taken cover and saw no immediate need to shoot him even though he was “in my sights.” As a former policeman I claim the right to assert that I could carry a concealed firearm and never use it even under provocation, and even then with safety.
The American mother who was shot dead by her two year old with her own licensed handgun is the other side of the coin. People make mistakes.
I do think that Leyonhjelm has a valid argument for permitting ordinary law abiding Australian citizens to carry concealed firearms. I can’t imagine a legislative system that would keep those firearms only in safe hands.
I therefore give up my right to carry a lethal weapon in public.
I do this even though it would make me feel safe and I feel that I could handle it safely because what I can’t handle is the idea of who else would have one. I grant that some may say the same about me.
That is not the end of the matter self defence though. There is no need for lethal self defence. A Tazer, with a built in camera, GPS and Sim card that called the police emergency on discharge. Would cover all bases.
This right to self defence includes the right, specially for the frail and weak to bear defensive weapons.
I am now in my late fifties and last year I was broken into and burgled again. That makes it 6 times now, as well as having had two motor vehicles stolen. I don’t think I am particularly vulnerable, I have had several business premises and a few homes, and I don’t feel paranoid about being a future target.
On one occasion, when I was around fifty, I caught the breaker inside my premises. I was younger and fitter then. I tackled him and held on, dragged him into the street and restrained him until the Police arrived. Even at the time I was having a re-think. I was nearly too old and I nearly lost. If I am confronted again I will think more than twice about it.
So what can I do? I intend to grow older, and necessarily more frail. The “Law” says I am permitted to defend myself, specially from a home invader, and yet the “State” permits me no actual capacity for self-defence.
Now that Tazer’s are so readily and cheaply available there is no need for me to ask for a gun. Tazer’s have never been available to the SA public and yet they are constantly reported in the media as in the hands of criminals. The cats are already out of the bag. There is no strong argument left that by permitting me to have a Tazer, to be kept in my home, it will make them more readily available for criminals.
Criminals already seem to have ready access to Tazer’s. It is the defenceless and law abiding who are denied them. If an intruder breaks into my home. As I get older must I simply suffer it?
The balance of power is awry. The line in the sand is drawn in the wrong place.
Why can’t I have a Tazer or two in my home as a last resort?