Not allowed to carry weapon to protect us

I DON’T believe Kev McKay (TC, 5/ 11) really understands the Port Arthur shooting.

Colt AR15 rifles are semi-automatic not automatic. That means semi- auto is one pull of the trigger equals one hot fired; automatic is one pull of the trigger fires as many rounds as the magazine holds.

An automatic rifle could not have been accurate enough to shoot 29 rounds and hit 29 people, let alone all of them headshots, especially fired from the hip.

Interestingly both rifles found at the scene had their chambers blown up so no ballistic tests could be conducted to prove that they were the rifles used in the shooting.

As for shootings in the US, 96% of them were in gun-free zones (very dangerous places as there is no one there that can stop it, like Port Arthur) Statically US mass shootings (by people with firearm experience) have a kill to wound ratio of one to six; the Port Arthur shooter had a ratio of 1.66 to one. Impossible for a mentally handicapped person to achieve.

The notion of banning guns is total ideology as only honest people hand in their guns, as was the case in the failed buy-back. Only 3.5% of confiscated guns were centre fire semi-automatics, the ones they were after, most were shotguns (48%)and .22s (47%). The fact that mass shootings haven’t happened is not because the semi-autos are gone.

You are right about no mass shootings, but we have had quite a few mass murders since then, mostly deliberately lit fires. Childers backpackers hostel, old people’s home in Melbourne and more.

There will always be things in society that can be used as weapons if someone wants to harm you; the sad part is the fact that no one is allowed to carry something to protect themselves or their family.

I believe that in some big city suburbs in Australia the people are arming themselves for protection against gangs. We cannot keep putting our heads in the sand and think it won’t happen to us.

ALLAN PROUD, Toowoomba

ALP AND UNIONS

THE federal Coalition Government has many infrastructure projects planned (totalling $75 billion), including an upgrade of the Warrego Highway, but it needs qualified tradesmen to do the work. It has therefore offered $250 million to the Queensland Labor Government to encourage young tradies by increasing apprenticeships and traineeships.

Our Labor Premier and her government rejected the offer.

Why? Palaszczuk and her cabinet are controlled by the CFMEU; without the unions’ money Labor could not win an election.

So, what would the CFMEU have against funding hard-working tradies? If my knowledge of industrious tradies is a representative sample, not one of them belongs to a union.

On the other hand, the left is more than happy to squander taxpayers’ money on free places at universities, now the hotbed of far-left activism and training grounds for the union movement, starting with students’ unions and academics’ unions.

Half of those so-called students drop out and leave a total unpaid “HEX” debt exceeding $50 billion, which we taxpayers will never recoup.

What about our shortage of qualified tradesmen? Presumably Labor would just get them in from overseas on “457” visas.

Is this really Queensland’s future? NEIL MUNRO, East Toowoomba

‘‘ I BELIEVE THAT IN SOME BIG CITY SUBURBS IN AUSTRALIA THE PEOPLE ARE ARMING THEMSELVES FOR PROTECTION AGAINST GANGS.