Australia’s John Howard on banning assault rifles

I Went After Guns. Obama Can, Too.

Quotha,

The fundamental problem was the ready availability of high-powered weapons, which enabled people to convert their murderous impulses into mass killing.

Certainly, shortcomings in treating mental illness and the harmful influence of violent video games and movies may have played a role. 

But nothing trumps easy access to a gun.

It is easier to kill 10 people with a gun than with a knife.

Still, he had to resort to a threat to amend the constitution he could plausibly make and Obama can’t in the considerably less democratic United States.

Note that if our process were even as much more democratic as theirs is by comparison Obama probably could make a threat every bit as plausible as Howard’s was.

For a time, it seemed that certain states might refuse to enact the ban.

But I made clear that my government was willing to hold a nationwide referendum to alter the Australian Constitution and give the federal government constitutional power over guns.

Such a referendum would have been expensive and divisive, but it would have passed. 

And all state governments knew this.

Per Wikipedia, this is how it works in Australia.

Chapter VIII [of the Australian federal constitution] specifies the procedures for amending the Constitution.

Section 128 provides that constitutional amendments must be approved by a referendum.

Successful amendment requires:

• an absolute majority in both houses of the federal parliament; and
• the approval in a referendum of the proposed amendment by a majority of electors nationwide, and a majority in a majority of states.

The referendum bill must be put to the people by the Governor-General between two and six months after passing parliament.

After the constitutional amendment bill has passed both the parliamentary stage and the referendum, it then receives Royal Assent.

When proclaimed, it will be in effect, and the wording of the Constitution will be changed.

An exception to this process is if the amendment bill is rejected by one house of Federal Parliament.

If the bill passes the first house and is rejected by the second, then after three months the first house may pass it again.

If the bill is still rejected by the second house, then the Governor-General may choose to still put the bill to the people's vote.

Section 128 also provides that any amendment affecting equal representation of a State in the Senate, or minimum representation in the House of Representatives can only be presented for Royal Assent if it is approved in that State.

And this is how it works in the US.

Article V of the US Constitution, quoted by Wikipedia.

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress;

Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article;

and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Howard, by the way, makes a comment I am pleased to quote and endorse.

Our challenges were different from America’s.

Australia is an even more intensely urban society, with close to 60 percent of our people living in large cities.

Our gun lobby isn’t as powerful or well-financed as the National Rifle Association in the United States.

Australia, correctly in my view, does not have a Bill of Rights, so our legislatures have more say than America’s over many issues of individual rights, and our courts have less control.

Also, we have no constitutional right to bear arms.

Liberals think they owe much that they value to the Bill of Rights, suitably construed by liberal misinterpreters on the Supreme Court, along with an equally usefully misread 14th Amendment.

Every part of the sexual revolution, for example.

But the entire Occident also went through the sexual revolution, and all the rest of it did that without the need for such phony recourse to any such bill of rights, equal protection clause, or due process clause.

Mightn't we have done so, too?

Notice, by the way, that the agenda Howard pushed through took assault weapons away from Australians who already had them in addition to banning new sales.

Ideally, Obama would do the same.

None of that grandfathering baloney, thanks.

And likewise confiscate or buy back outsize magazines.

I have two 15 round magazines for a 9 mm CZ 75 B I will be only to glad to replace with 10's.

CZ 75 B