Quote:
Originally Posted by noncom23
Geeeeez. That bureau at the Crime selection I
linked to has the same stats.
Thats the bureau incorrectly quoted in your
blog, saying the bureau didn't exist.
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The Bureau of Criminology quoted in your link doesn't exist. There is an Institute of Criminology. And a Bureau of Crime Statistics. But let's move on.
Firstly, statistics can be made to support any position if someone only uses part of the data. And gun statistics seem more prone than other statistics to this manipulation, by both sides of the debate. And everything certainly isn't perfect with respect to gun controls and societal violence in Australia. So we could probably fire links at each other forever, to little effect
That said, in the ten years following the Australian implementation of a gun buyback program gun related homicides dropped by 59%. Firearm suicides dropped by 65% with no uptick in non-firearm suicides. And they haven't had another mass shooting like the one that prompted the gun reduction, since 1996. Which, after all, is what they were trying to do.
None of the above claims that other violence in Australia changed for better or worse. It simply says that not as many people died from guns following controls brought in to address that particular statistic.
Australians didn't need to turn in all their weapons. The government bought back 20% of the weapons in circulation. They focused on the semi-automatic weapons used in the Port Arthur shooting. That was it. Want a gun, get a permit. Doesn't seem like taking all the guns away, at least to me.
Sources to this data and links to additional sources here: Massacres and Gun Rules: What U.S. Can Learn from U.K. and Australia | TIME.com
There are lots more statistics that refute the claim that gun controls didn't reduce gun crime in Austalia. Look at the graph, below. In particular, note that the gun buyback program in Australia came in in 1996. That was a bad year for gun homicides. Look at the US gun homicide rate for comparison of the shape of the curve over the same time period.
Those graphs are from this link, here:
cameronreilly.com | The Facts About Guns In Australia
More here:
Quote:
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In the years after the Port Arthur massacre, the risk of dying by gunshot in Australia fell by more than 50% -- and stayed there. In the 16 years since the announcement of legislation specifically designed to reduce gun massacres, Australia has seen no mass shootings. Gun deaths which attract smaller headlines are 80 times more common, yet the national rate of gun homicide remains 30 times lower than that of the United States.
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Full article here:
Gun control: Change is possible -- and fast - CNN.com
I don't think gun controls are a cure all for what ails society. I don't think banning guns works. I think it is our obligation to control access to them. I think economic pressures work better than laws, so gun owners should be held financially liable for the consequences of not controlling their weapons. That wouldn't outlaw guns, it would simply provide an incentive to make sure guns that were laying around were secured.
I also don't think that using statistics about violence in general has much to do with gun murders. I think having more guns is a very inefficient way of reducing minor crimes, since they bring so many other unintended consequences. There is a famous statistic about how for every time a gun is used in self defence, it is used x times in a murder, y times in a suicide, and so on. There are more consequences of the gun being easily accessible than there are incidents of the good guy with the gun saving everyone. On an individual basis (I can now protect my family) it would feel good. On a society basis, not so much.
Finally, to perhaps provide a third party view across the link pasting war, I provide a link to Snopes. Because of the number of claims of Australian gun controls not working, they actually analyzed it. Their view, positive and negative, is here. They characterized the emails floating around as a having a mix of true and false information. Nice to read something more neutral sometimes.
snopes.com: Australian Guns Stats