This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Classic Theme
Thottbot Theme
Discrimination on... gun holders?
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
Magician22773
I've got no idea who Mother Jones are, to be honest
Mother Jones is about as far left wing as you can get. I am not sure if even using Glen Beck's "The Blaze" or Heritage Foundation would be a fair comparison of an equally "right wing" source.
with rough estimates of some 200 people who haven't been killed by firearms over the last 15 years.
Assuming I am reading this correct, you are saying that Australia's gun control has been shown to have stopped 200 killings over the last 15 years. If that is correct, I am sure that, with a little time to source this
estimate
, that I can show at least 100 times that number of people that have saved their own life, or the life of others, by having the right to bear arms.
Just a few clips from
one site
I found...
A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 3.5% of households had members who had used a gun "for self-protection or for the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere." Applied to the U.S. population, this amounts to 1,029,615 such incidents per year. This figure excludes all "military service, police work, or work as a security guard."
A 1994 survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Americans use guns to frighten away intruders who are breaking into their homes about 498,000 times per year.
Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.
Now, I believe every life is precious, so I am not discounting the 200 people saved in Australia, but even if you divide every statistic above by 10%, to account for the population difference, I believe it shows that having the ability to defend yourself is a "better" option, than the smaller number of lives saved by disarming the public.
We've got a number of studies in Australia that show that shooting crimes have come down following a no-questions-asked buy-back of 'illegal' weaponry and a tightening of gun laws,
It seems that there are also quite a few sources out there that show the
exact opposite
.
However, after looking at several different sources, my conclusion is the that gun ban, at best, had little effect either way. It seems to me that Australian crime rates and types have stayed about the same as they probably would have, with or without the ban. So what I see demonstrated is that Australia was willing to spend a half billion dollars, destroy hundreds of thousands of weapons, and restrict the rights of its citizens...all for no significant change.
If you want me to consider Australian-type gun control to effective, I would want to see nearly all gun crime gone. Considering it is all but impossible to legally purchase or possess a firearm there, shouldn't there be all but no gun crime?
Post by
Squishalot
Magician, you'll forgive me, of course, if I ignore that break and enters dropped by 40% over the same period, or consider that the population increased by 20% over the same period of time (vs 13% in the US). I'd also love to question where your link picked up 'rape' numbers, because we only report 'sexual assault', but then again, I should expect a US study not to understand what Australian data it's Googles up.
Let's also discount the fact that
65% of that sexual assault occurred in residential housing
, not on the streets, or that 42% of the assault numbers did as well, yeah? Because that wouldn't go to help support your argument at all.
Assault numbers are meaningless to your argument if they a) don't strip out domestic abuse; b) track firearm usage vs non-firearms; and c) aren't controlled for population growth. Assaults on the street are typically crimes of passion, rather than premeditated criminal acts, and wouldn't be terribly influenced by gun control anyway, considering that most people will keep their guns at home. I think the break-and-enter values would be much more reflective of the numbers of gun control impact, seeing as home / self defense is the primary reason being claimed for personal gun usage.
Post by
Magician22773
Lets stay on topic here. We are debating gun control, and the effect it should have on gun violence.
My question is:
Why does the country with some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the world, still have a similar amount of gun crime both before and after enacting bans on private gun ownership?
(I am giving the argument the benefit of the doubt even using the term "similar". By every account that I have read, it could be argued that gun crime has actually gone up since 1996, but every article seems to have some way of explaining it away, usually falling back on population growth, so I will settle on "similar" or "no change")
If I am to accept sweeping changes to a Constitutional right, that both may affect my ability to protect my family and property, infringe on my personal freedom to participate in a hobby that I enjoy, and is deemed unacceptable by nearly 1/2 of all Americans, then I want to see some reasonable evidence that is is going to have a
drastic
effect on the problem it claims to be a solution for.....gun violence. I will not, and should not, accept these changes if the best that I can expect is for things to stay the same.
From what I see
here
, the case is not very compelling:
In 2005 the head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn, noted that...."the 1996 legislation had had little to no effect on violence".
In 2006, the lack of a measurable effect from the 1996 firearms legislation was reported in the British Journal of Criminology. Using ARIMA analysis, Dr Jeanine Baker and Dr Samara McPhedran found no evidence for an impact of the laws on homicide.
A 2010 study on the effects of the firearm buybacks by Melbourne University's Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research concluded, "Despite the fact that several researchers using the same data have examined the impact of the NFA on firearm deaths, a consensus does not appear to have been reached.....The results of these tests suggest that the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates."
So, what am I missing here? I admit, I am not Australian, so maybe there is something that I cannot find just through Google searches. But so far, everything I see shows similar statistics, that the only noticeable "change" in gun crime since 1996, has been the lack of a mass shooting. But that also seems to be questionable due to New Zealand's lack of that particular crime as well.
Post by
Squishalot
My question is:
Why does the country with some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the world, still have a similar amount of gun crime both before and after enacting bans on private gun ownership?
http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/F/2/6/%7BF267B5F0-BB7E-4772-A64C-1B36DC33B377%7Dti75.pdf
Paper written in 1997 outlining that firearms were involved in 21% of homicides in Australia between 1995-1996 (opening page), down from 40% twenty years earlier.
http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/E/4/0/%7BE4031E6F-031D-415C-B544-8CE865A3CA0C%7Dfacts_and_figures_2008.pdf
Paper written in 2009 outlining that firearms were involved in only 10% of homicides in Australia in 2008.
Same source - Australian Institute of Criminology.
Is that straightforward enough for you? Finding a statistically significant increase/decrease in Australia is much more difficult than in the US due to the very low number of occurrences we have in the first instance - of only 282 homicides in 2008, we're looking at 28 committed with firearms, which is why you can't purely look at conclusions of studies to get the raw underlying effect.
I'd also like to note that it's not that difficult to pick up a shooting license at a gun club in Australia, nowhere near as difficult as people suggest. If you live on acerage / farming land, pretty much every household will have a rifle of some sort. However, if you're doing it for recreational shooting, you a) don't need to own a high caliber pistol/rifle when you can use a club firearm instead; and b) submit to the appropriate regulatory processes involved in owning a weapon. We take our cars in for an annual registration to confirm that they're still drivable and owned, and it is a criminal act to misrepresent ownership of a vehicle. Why not the same for weapons?(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
gamerunknown
As a result, the crime rate in Kennesaw has dropped.
Correlation != causation. Crime rates have dropped consistently in developed nations since the 80s. One theory (with regression analyses conducted) is that
lead is responsible
(lefty link, shields up). Personally, it seems a bit simplistic to me.
Yes, England and Wales have a higher rate of violent crime, but I'd rather be punched than shot - and intentional homicide rates are far lower in the UK, especially firearm homicides.
Post by
207044
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Crimes have been consistently going down in developed nation one thing for squish though. Also keep in mind your tracking gun only violence. Like UK since gun ban/ restrictions gun violence has gone way way way down. But knifing and other forms of homicide skyrocketed.
Gamer has already responded to this:
Yes, England and Wales have a higher rate of violent crime, but I'd rather be punched than shot - and intentional homicide rates are far lower in the UK, especially firearm homicides.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.