Actually, they're not contradictory at all.
See, the argument for stricter controls is based on the assumption that it'll reduce the chances of another shooting spree. Which makes sense, but it won't reduce it as much as one would expect.
Why? Well, consider the possibility that someone manages to pass all of the proposed checks. Hell, he could be a stable guy. He could own that gun for years, and still have a license to own a gun. Suppose his life had been good, but things go downhill so bad he decides he's had enough of society and all it's Grade A Manure. Not exactly sure what makes these people do it, but for some reason he's just sick of it all and decides to go out with a bang, and destroy whatever he can on the way out the door. He still has the gun.
Or, again, there's the possibility that someone bought a gun on the black market (some Australians are using the dark web for that) or stole one, or someone who could have bought one for them when they couldn't do it themselves, either for prior convictions, mental health (and you have to be stupid or crazy yourself to knowingly give someone a gun when you know their mental state isn't up to par), or underage, as was the case with the Columbine boys. A shooting spree is still possible.
Then there's the fact removing guns from the equation to prevent another massacre won't necessarily work, because while it will certainly reduce the risk of a shooting spree, there have been
plenty where guns weren't used at all. There was that one incident in China a couple years ago where a group of people with either cleavers or long kitchen knives (the article switched between the two, but hey, a cleaver is a knife, and they can get long) started hacking at people. Some sort of terrorist group, or something. There's also the Bastille Day incident from the year before, with the van being driven into the crowd. Or the bombing in Oklahoma City back in '95. The list goes on.
Now, what we don't (and won't) hear about from the mainstream media are the stories of the regular people who have concealed carry licenses and manage to stop what could become another major killing spree.
But it does happen.
Further, the argument for weapons that are a little bit shy of military grade is the reason the 2nd amendment was made in the first place: To give the regular citizens a chance to fight back against their own government should that government become an enemy of the people. There were those who felt that even having a standing army was a bad idea. And, if you think about what these people had just been through, can you blame them? They had just been invaded, by their own military, at the orders of their own king.
Now, people argue that they couldn't have predicted what kind of guns we'd have today, but that doesn't matter. The point is to give the people the ability to revolt if a revolution were to ever become truly necessary. The weapons citizens had back then were virtually identical to what the Continental Army was using. The 2nd Amendment wasn't written with hunting in mind, nor was it for protection from criminals. It was, and still is, for protection from our own government and military.
This right here is another example of why you can't really make a clear comparison between Australia and the United States. The relationships between Britain and both countries had been drastically different, and in the case of Australia it was probably because of what had just happened with the American colonies.
Glytch: I'd seen a drill sergeant illustrate almost that exact point to a private, by showing him how quickly a person can cover a distance of twenty feet, and said that's why they train in hand to hand AND carry some sort of blade.
There is no such thing as a science experiment gone wrong.