Armed and Dangerous

So in the state of New South Wales if one is a property owner and has had no previous convictions they are entitled to own and operate a firearm for the ‘control of feral animals’.  As we live on a property and The Husband has a ‘Y’ chromosome and no previous convictions, it is apparently his ‘right of passage’ to purchase a gun.

Being generally lazy and not wishing to make any phone calls, The Husband insisted that I, the ex-vegetarian, extremely clumsy, Nerf-fearing, animal lover from way back should also acquire a firearms license, therefore organising the ‘test’ and any relevant paperwork.

Now in order to purchase said weapon of fox destruction, one must first spend several hundred dollars on an overpriced ‘gun safe’ and partake in approximately $100 per persons’ worth of ‘gun licence’ testing.  

The ‘test’ involved going to a seedy part of town with an envelope of cash, and handing it over to a guy in the upstairs store room of the local gun shop.

The man then sits you down on *upside-down milk crates in the afore mentioned storeroom which is full of **hundreds of different guns, and proceeds to turn on a 30 year old video  that teaches you all about firearm safety.  Commonsense stuff like “Don’t point a gun at someone’s face” and things that may be more open to interpretation, such as “Don’t use the gun for any purpose other than for which it is intended”. hmmm...

So at the end of the video we had all learned which end of a gun not to hold in order to keep all our digits and that we should probably not lend our guns out to unlicensed friends with shaved heads and gotee’s named “Hammer”.

Then it was test time. Now thankfully for me, the test didn’t involve naming a variety of guns, ammo or the best place to shoot Bambi’s mother for maximum visual effect. It was in fact, a simple multiple choice quiz and if you have the IQ of a 4yr old you should be able to pass with flying colours.

Once you have passed the test you send away your verified paperwork and go home and twiddle your thumbs while your husband checks the mail religiously for approximately 9 weeks until a little piece of paper arrives saying that the State of New South Wales is blissfully unaware of your clumsiness and that they are giving you the right to bear arms, on condition that you part with a further $200 at your local RTA.

As I have no interest in firearms what so ever, and frankly feel it’s probably a darn sight cheaper to just replace your chickens as required. The highlight of this little experience for me at this point is the simple fact that my little piece of paper arrived in the mailbox over a week ago, and alas The Husband’s has still not.  

Do you have the right to bear arms?

Have you ever felt really weird carrying an envelope of cash into the store room of your local gun shop?

*Ok they had chairs, but there were milk crates propping up the TV.

** There probably weren’t hundreds, but there were definitely over 50.