web comment on the growing violence in Victoria:

I am really tired of this. The bleeding hearts lefties insist that these thugs, hoodlums and criminals be treated with kid gloves by the police, even when they are under attack with lethal weapons, facing serious injury or even death. What is wrong with them, and worse, those who support a softly-softly approach? We will eventually have no police, because who would want to be one? The thugs are getting bolder, because they think they can get away with it - because they do!

NSW leads Australia in freedom of rights

Gun ownership up by 10,000 a year as NSW Government waters down laws

The Sunday Telegraph

December 14, 2008 03:10am

Gun ownership growing rapidly in NSW
40,000 new guns registered in four years
Rise coincides with slacker gun laws

GUN ownership is booming again in NSW, with 40,000 new firearms registered in the past four years.

The rise coincides with a deal cut by the State Government and the Shooters Party to water down tough gun laws introduced in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre.

Figures from the NSW Firearm Registry obtained by the National Coalition of Gun Control show gun ownership has risen at the rate of 10,000 a year since 2004 to 687,138 in October this year.

Multiple gun ownership has also soared. The number of people receiving permits to obtain a second or subsequent firearm in 2006 was 32,616.

In the first 10 months of this year, 43,095 such permits were issued.

The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics has also revealed that guns are being stolen at a rate of more than two a day. The majority are taken from homes.

Despite the worrying figures, the Government and the Shooters Party have quietly agreed to a number of changes to gun laws introduced by former premier Bob Carr after the Port Arthur killings.

Shooting clubs will no longer have their licences automatically revoked for not disqualifying members who have been convicted of firearms offences.

Previously, the police commissioner could immediately revoke a club's licence for not taking action against a convicted member.

In another change, the mandatory 28-day waiting period before a second or third gun can be acquired has also been scrapped.

The Government has also made it easier for men who have previously been the subject of apprehended violence orders to regain a gun licence.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24794642-421,00.html

From the state of Victoria........

Help support the police and emergency services

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Thugs target cops, ambos

Article from: Heraldsun

Mark Buttler, December 15, 2008 12:00am

REVEALED: VICTORIA'S frontline police are being assaulted at a rate of almost 50 a week, with paramedics also suffering regular attacks.

Attacks have soared by more than 25 per cent in eight years but the true number may be even higher.

Ambulance officers are also battling a surge of assaults from thugs and drunks as they come to the public's aid.

Premier John Brumby yesterday rejected renewed calls for the police to be issued with Taser stun guns.

In the past year, police faced attackers wielding knives, bats, bars, bottles and glasses.

Victoria Police figures show 2531 officers were assaulted in the past year, 291 of them seriously.

Read full story

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