Chainsaw,<P>That is an interesting question. In many ways the answer to the question highlights one of the biggest mistakes we made and I can see many Americans are similar.<P>I know from the Political Forums that most Americans seem to have the same attitude as Australians did when the ban was proposed.<P>As a person who was very involved in our situation, I saw that many shooters had the view that this would be it, gov't would be brought down, blood in the streets etc. in fact many shooters were looking forward to the day when it was to happen.<P>Did not happen that way.<P>The gov't simply declares the category of firearm illegal. Compensation is at full listed retail price. In most cases in Australia that is about 1/3rd higher than what a shooter would have paid. <P>Condition of gun had no impact on price. That is, a mint condition rifle and one with a bent barrel and no stock got the same price.<P>There is no follow up done by the gov't. That is, there are no searchs etc. In fact the gov't makes absolutely no attempt to get them.<P>If I was to phone the police and tell them that the person up the road had a semi auto, they might phone him and make an appointment to see him next week!<P>So it would be like the Alamo but with the Mexicans simply going around it and never coming closer than 20 miles.<P>Far worse than any gun ban is the combination of a shooters license and reason to own. What was originally proposed for Australia would have effectively ended gun ownership. Fortunately that was turned around....at least for now.<P>I suspect that you won't see national gun bans again as they produce many negatives for the antis. My information is that our "genuine antis" did not want a ban to go ahead but to do the lot through the "reason to own" system. <P>Howver, the gov't got all carried away with the media and so the bans went ahead.<P>Mike<P><BR>
