Thursday, December 20, 2012

The Truth about Australia's Gun Laws

 Slate
At the heart of the push was a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-automatic shotguns and rifles, or about one-fifth of all firearms in circulation in Australia. The country’s new gun laws prohibited private sales, required that all weapons be individually registered to their owners, and required that gun buyers present a “genuine reason” for needing each weapon at the time of the purchase. (Self-defense did not count.) In the wake of the tragedy, polls showed public support for these measures at upwards of 90 percent.


What happened next has been the subject of several academic studies. Violent crime and gun-related deaths did not come to an end in Australia, of course. But as the Washington Post’s Wonkblog pointed out in August, homicides by firearm plunged 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides. The drop in suicides by gun was even steeper: 65 percent. Studies found a close correlation between the sharp declines and the gun buybacks. Robberies involving a firearm also dropped significantly. Meanwhile, home invasions did not increase, contrary to fears that firearm ownership is needed to deter such crimes. But here’s the most stunning statistic. In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn’t been a single one in Australia since.

I wish I had an Australian Dollar for every time I read a lie about the results of the Australian gun laws. Similar to the lies often repeated about England, in Australia, according to the gun-rights fanatics, violence is rampant AS A RESULT of the strict gun laws.

It's become quite clear that the pro-gun folks are seriously lacking in honesty and integrity.  Their monomaniac interest is the elimination of gun restrictions, in spite of everything. And they'll do or say anything to achieve that goal.

The fact seems to be that gun-rights advocates don't care if proper gun control would work in the US as it has in other countries.  The unforgivable part is that most of them are law-abiding and responsible enough to continue to enjoy their guns even under the strictest imaginable gun control regimen.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

13 comments:

  1. Registration, permission just to own a gun, and while this report doesn't go into it, bans on types of guns and carry not allowed--no, safety at the expense of rights isn't worth it.

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  2. PM John Howard could have gone farther in pushing the agenda. He could have demanded more. Hopefully this mistake will not be repeated.

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  3. Actually, I have said before that AU seems to be an example (perhaps the only one) where gun-control seems to have lowered violent crime. I can't explain why other than to wonder about cultural and socio-economic differences, gangs, drugs, access to mental health care.

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    1. Why are you the first pro-gun guy I've ever heard say that?

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    3. Mike, I told you before, that I call it like I see it. You don't believe me by now?

      Although I did just learn that AU has had at least one school shooting since the ban:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monash_University_shooting

      I learned from here:
      http://pjmedia.com/blog/gun-control-its-the-software-stupid-not-the-hardware/?singlepage=true

      And yes, I know PJ Media is biased. I have yet to find ANYONE in the GC debate not working from, and quoting source from a, their own position of bias. (Which is why I am always asking you to argue against a study based upon methodology and not just the researcher.)

      Anyway, many valid observations from the PJ article.

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    4. Well, on the scale of bias, PJ is at the maximum, far beyond the best gun-control outlets.

      I have noticed that you call it like you see it.

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    5. "Well, on the scale of bias, PJ is at the maximum, far beyond the best gun-control outlets."

      You are soo stilted. Have you not read the crap from HuffPo or Mother Jones? Wow!

      For example, any time you read an article about gun-control and they use 'gun-deaths' exclusively with no mention of murder rates or violent crime is on the fringe extreme.

      Look at your buddy Piers Morgan for example. He won't even use (as you do), the fact that the UK murder rate is 4 times lower than ours - as damning as that is by itself. No, he has to continually state that the UK has 30 something gun murders a year compared to the US 10k or so. In other words, forget about cultural difference, gang activity and other missed control variables for a minute - he won't even give figures adjusted for population size!

      And you want to claim that is not about as far on the bias spectrum as possible. Please, sell you bridge somewhere else cause I ain't buying it.

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    6. You're right those guys are bad too, but none of them compares to Glenn Reynolds. He's particularly nasty.

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  4. MikeB,

    Rights are about safety, liberty, and human dignity. Efforts to improve one at the expense of others is perverted.

    Law enforcement could take dangerous people off the street and even prevent some crimes if they could just storm into any home or business, any time, for any reason whatsoever. But that infringes on citizens' rights to privacy and to be secure in themselves and their property. Thus our Founders wrote the Fourth Amendment prohibiting arbitrary searches and seizures. Do we repeal the Fourth Amendment because it might save lives?

    It is a FACT that criminals attack people and do so with every possible advantage. It is also a FACT that the less prepared citizens are -- in terms of tools and training -- the more vulnerable they are. Any government policies or laws which deny defensive tools and training to citizens is morally wrong and reprehensible.

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    1. Well, how do you explain the improvements in Australia then?

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  5. All this would be fine except for the fact that it's all a lie. The violence by guns in Austrailia hasn't been changed at all and many like myself that have lived there for 55 years have seen no indication that any good has come from any of the laws that have been invoked against the citizens of this country. If you want to know the truth this site isn't where you will find it there is not one shred of truth in any of this.

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    1. Sorry, but I suspect it's your comment that has not one shred of truth. The Slate article backed up its claims with links to the studies.

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