Gun Culture - Present Day Gun Culture Outside The United States

Present Day Gun Culture Outside The United States

Some aspects of gun culture are different in other countries. Gun politics in Australia consists of just the two sides of gun control versus the gun rights of sportsmen, with no inclusion on the gun rights side of self-defense rights as in America, as there is no Second Amendment equivalent. Nonetheless, Australia has historically had a well-established gun culture focused on sporting and farming requirements. In Australia, the minimum age for owning or purchasing a gun with a permit is 18. Those aged 12–17 may have a junior licence to shoot under supervision and is usually updated to a full license when turning 18.

Likewise, gun culture is significantly different in the UK. It is currently an offense for anyone to be in possession of any gun without a valid license. A license may be obtained by anyone aged 17 or over who has a valid reason such as hunting or target shooting.

In New Zealand, the minimum age for possessing a firearms or gun license is 16. At this age, one may legally own a gun. New Zealanders can also own fully automatic weapons with a license, though this is restricted to collectors and security personnel.

In Japan lawful ownership of firearms is rare and difficult, though there is some hunting and sport shooting.

In Switzerland compulsory militia conscription and mandatory stock of rifles and munitions in every household reflect a relatively positive view of firearms. Although Swiss firearm restriction laws are on par with many other European countries in terms of requiring a legally valid reason for owning firearms, and although open carry is generally disallowed, militiamen carrying their small arms to and from military bases is not an unfamiliar sight.

Read more about this topic:  Gun Culture

Famous quotes containing the words united states, present, day, gun, culture, united and/or states:

    What chiefly distinguishes the daily press of the United States from the press of all other countries is not its lack of truthfulness or even its lack of dignity and honor, for these deficiencies are common to the newspapers everywhere, but its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion. It is, in the true sense, never well-informed.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.
    Henri Bergson (1859–1941)

    A day is sometimes our mother, sometimes our stepmother.
    Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)

    Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
    Harvey Thew, screenwriter, John Bright, screenwriter, and Lowell Sherman. Lady Lou (Mae West)

    The white dominant culture seemed to think that once the Indians were off the reservations, they’d eventually become like everybody else. But they aren’t like everybody else. When the Indianness is drummed out of them, they are turned into hopeless drunks on skid row.
    Elizabeth Morris (b. c. 1933)

    I incline to think that the people will not now sustain the policy of upholding a State Government against a rival government, by the use of the forces of the United States. If this leads to the overthrow of the de jure government in a State, the de facto government must be recognized.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    The line that I am urging as today’s conventional wisdom is not a denial of consciousness. It is often called, with more reason, a repudiation of mind. It is indeed a repudiation of mind as a second substance, over and above body. It can be described less harshly as an identification of mind with some of the faculties, states, and activities of the body. Mental states and events are a special subclass of the states and events of the human or animal body.
    Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)