The gunman who shot and killed a mother and her teenage daughter in Perth's affluent western suburbs did so because he thought his ex-partner was at the property.
This is all kinds of horrible. How did he even have a gun?
While he certainly intended to commit violence against a woman, there's a little nuance in this example. I don't believe that he'd have walked away and not shot the people in the house had it been a father and son.
I don't know in truth. From friends I know who shoot, they need to keep their hand guns at the range. They can't take them home. Farmers can have rifles, but I'm having a hard time picturing a rifle being the weapon in this story.
Could of very easily been a rifle, this guy was a licensed owner, at best he kept everything locked up, ammo stored separately, keys hidden, at worst could of kept a loaded rifle next to his front door.
It was confirmed this afternoon that he had two handguns on the scene and was licensed as a collector for them.
I am personally surprised, I didn't know that was possible. Meanwhile, there's a petition going around by gun owners saying they don't want tighter gun laws in the wake of this. I wonder whether there is an opposing petition saying it should not be legal to have a handgun at home?
He was going out to kill, if he didn't have access to a gun he would of used something else.
I'm a gun ower in NSW and I've got my own opinions around gun laws, that being said, I think there should be something done to try and stop these terrible things from happening. Maybe yearly psychological assessments or something, but tightening gun restrictions only effect law abiding gun owners, because criminals are just gonna break the law anyway.
C'mon, mate. Let's not pretend this story would have played out the same if he didn't have guns. Police were on their way. They arrived on time to hear the last shot. If he had a knife or hammer or similar, the odds of both these women being dead by the time police arrived plummet to near zero.
This time last week, he was a law abiding gun owner. That's kind of the problem. People were raising red flags all around the dude, but on paper he's a 60 year old, affluent man living in a rich suburb with no criminal history. The law doesn't presently have a way to handle this - you can't punish someone who hasn't done anything.
I just don't agree on that. Surely you heard about the guy who stabbed 6 people to death in a Sydney about 2 months ago, if 1 person can kill 6 people in a huge shopping mall, then the same could easily happen to two people in a house. The reason, like I side before, this guy has gone out to kill, if he'd had a knife he wouldn't of just stabbed the first person in the arm and stopped, he would of aimed for the chest or throat, the out come would of been the same.
Yes, agree red flags were present, and from my understanding ever raised on the day, with multiple calls to police, which I believe should of be acted upon sooner with the information at hand, but they worked to there guide lines so idk that whole subject could be argued back and forth for months.
Agree you can't punish someone who hasn't done anything, yet you want to ban handguns form people who abide by the law?, by that logic we should ban cars should we not?