From 500N: and it's not some do gooder from the Netherlands trying to take or restrict a US citizens freedom on how to live away without actually putting anything of his own on the line
On another mainly military forum many others from all around the world seem to give similar opinions to the ones expressed by keesj et al. These are serving or ex-serving members of long experience - a group you would think is fairly well qualified to speak on the matter including a few 'specials' (ex SAS). consensus is that a semi or full automatic weapon is brilliant on the battlefield, but for hunting at home, is like buying a semi trailer to take a couple of bags of rubbish to the tip - ie overkill.
I see you live in Australia - we did put something on the line after the Port Arthur Massacre - namely our own Semi-automatic weapons - the world didn't stop, the sun still came up the next day and there has not been a massacre since. My hunting weapons changed from a Ruger 10/22 to A Brno no2 bolt action for the bunnies and a Sako .223 and Ruger No1 replaced the Mini 14.
More training was the cry back in the 1980's yet the bloke who committed the Hoddle St Massacre in '87 was a very well trained former classmate at RMC Duntroon. Well trained enough that he was hitting crossing targets on motorcycles. He was 'sane' enough to be a defence force member and to be selected as an officer cadet - yet he flipped, which goes to prove that it is simplistic to say you just need to keep the guns away from the nutters.
The current spike in shootings is gang related - thankfully the good news for the rest of society is that they tend to target opposing gangs (usually drug related). It's unfortunate that criminals will always find guns.