[AusLach]

Originally Posted by Morgo

lol

Do you pistol shoot at all AusLach?

Nah mate just rifles for me.. I'd really like to get into it but I hardly get enough time to shoot my rifles now I'm at uni! I drove home this afternoon but so hopefully I'll be able to clean up some foxes over the weekend.. My trigger finger gets pretty itchy after a few weeks away from my small collection

[Morgo]

double post, see below

[Morgo]

Originally Posted by DrumJunkie

I had always heard it was pretty tough over there but had not read up on it first hand. What's someone got to do to buy and take home a pistol there?

WEEEEE!!! I love to learn things. Most my out of the U.S. talking with people sadly is not gun related. I used to admin a couple peer to peer servers and met a lot of people from all over. Seems that downloading free mp3z is OK but owning a gun is just not right a lot of times.

There's a fair bit involved with a handgun licence, its changed abit since I did mine but I'm fairly sure I have it right;

1. Join a pistol club - this is your only genuine reason for owning and using handguns, self defence is not permitted and you will not get a licence if you state self defence or even hunting. Only target shooting will do it. (I think WA has recently made a change to allow revolvers to farmers for self defence against wild animals and for putting down animls)

2. Apply for a firearms licence from the firearms registry - they will send out severla forms that need to be completed.

3. You need to do a firearms awarness and saftey course through your pistol club that you join. Basically they teach you the safety rules, how to operate a rimfire and centre fire semi auto and revolver as well as the basic range procedures and shooting skills.

4. Once 2 & 3 are done you send the paper work in to firearms registry and they hopefully send you a probationary licence for 12 months.

5. Probationary licence (first 6 months) - This allows you to use firearms under a licence shooters supervision for the first 6 months of the 12 months term. You can not own one yet.

6. Probationary licence (second 6 months) - You can now own two handguns for the remainding 6 months of your probationary licence. You can own two rimfires or two centrefires but can not own a rimfire and a centrfire (go figure this is quite stupid as most people would start with a .22 then get a centrefire but they allow you to own two centrfires straight up!)

7. Firearms licence - At the end of the 12 months you can get your full licence.

This allows the use of;
Semi autos with a barrel longer then 120mm
Revolvers barrel longer than 100mm
Up to .38 cal only
Mag cap of 10 rds

There are options to vary those above such as;
western action will allow you to use upto .45
metallic sil will allow upto .45
Collectors can own anything but not use them

To buy a handgun you need to send in a permit to acquire to the firearms registry this cost $30 in NSW and takes a few weeks untill it comes back. The PTA is a registration form for when you buy a firearm that the dealer will fill out and send back into the registry.
Once you have your PTA back in the mail it is good for 3 months and during that time you can walk into a gun store buy 1 handgun and be out again in a matter of minutes.

I normally have a PTA ready to go at all times since I buy more than 4 year so its not a real hassle for me.

Theres a fair bit to it but once you have gone through all that at the start its not as bad as it seems.

[Morgo]

Originally Posted by AusLach

My trigger finger gets pretty itchy after a few weeks away from my small collection

I know that feeling