Gun control - US vs. rest of the world

[2inquisitive]

James R,

To highlight the controversy and perhaps provoke argument.

And what is the definition of trolling?

Actually, I'm not sure that implementing the measures I suggested in the opening post would require an amendment of the US Constitution. Perhaps they would, perhaps they wouldn't.

It is your last item, 'Require 'cause' to be shown to obtain a gun license'. Our constitution (the Bill of Rights) guarantees the right of the populace to keep and bear arms. It is a right we can forfeit because of unlawful activity, mental health problems, etc. By requiring 'cause' to obtain a license, you are suggesting a segment of law-abiding citizens should be denied the right to own a weapon. Do we deny blacks the right to a license because, as a group, they are the most violent segment of our society? Or do you deny everyone the right to a license unless they work in law enforcement, are security personell, etc.? Do you realize criminals do not obey the law, that they would keep their guns whether they had a license or not? You are suggesting to penalize the law-abiding citizens, to leave them defenseless against armed criminals. Why not just make it against the law to use a gun in the commission of a felony, to make it illegal to shoot unarmed citizens who have broken no law? Hey, that gets rid of gun crime, viola! Just make it illegal!

I think most people react differently when a homosexual is pointed at them compared to when a gun is pointed at them.

No, James R, I would react the same if I were defenseless against a homosexual that had something 'pointed' at my naked butt. I have no problem if the activity is conducted in their home between consenting adults. I have no problem if my neighbor has a gun in his house.

Not at all. I'm as entitled to express my opinion as anybody else. Feel free to join in the chorus of your countrymen who are telling me I don't know "shit" about America, if it makes you feel better.

I did not say you did not know 'shit' about America. In fact, I think that is all you do know, the 'shit' that is reported in the news. You, along with some others, seem to believe that is representive of many Americans. The rest are 'sheeple' because they just go about their jobs and raising their families without causing problems.

Now, I suppose I should take a look at the Australian constitution so I can point out Australia's mistakes. I think the first thing I would suggest changing would be your ineffective and unpopular gun laws that seen to have been drawn up by a moron, or a group of morons.

 

[Pandaemoni]

While I also generally agree with this, have we not had enough modern (20th century) instances of government oppression and genocide to make it slightly less than the fantasy you make it out to be?

I think there are substantial distinguishing factors between, say, Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, Stalin's Soviet Union or other oppressive 20th century nations and the United States. I'm not saying that in a dismissive way (as of course there are differences) as I do see your point, but I think it would take an rather long series of steps to take America from the nation it is today to a totalitarian regime. I would even say that I could see such a series of steps coming to pass, but it would be fairly extraordinary in my view (and it would almost certainly have to begin with a massive attack on the U.S. homefront leaving people begging to have their freedoms curtailed).

In general though I think our government is well designed to keep any one person from exercising the sort of extraordinary power needed to take advantage of even that sort of crisis (at least over the long term). I have enough faith in the system of checks and balances and in the idealism of voters and members of the military that I see the chances of the nation's becoming increasingly tyrannical as remote.

 

[mikenostic]

["If the people are deprived of the right to keep and bear arms, then crimes, including murder and robbery, would be perpetrated with knives, clubs, poisons and 'illegally' manufactured or acquired "arms". Even the law abiding would secretly keep and bear arms, if for no other reason than to protect themselves, their family and community, from any armed, or threat of armed, intrusion." Geistkiesel 2007

Yep. The only way my 12 gauge is going to leave my possession is if I sell it or happen to give it to one of my relatives as a gift.

 

[Baron Max]

In general though I think our government is well designed to keep any one person from exercising the sort of extraordinary power needed to take advantage of even that sort of crisis (at least over the long term).

I wonder if the Germans thought the same things in the 1930s?

I have enough faith in the system of checks and balances and in the idealism of voters and members of the military that I see the chances of the nation's becoming increasingly tyrannical as remote.

I don't know. If the USA keeps getting more and more liberal, and more and more socialistic, the military is not going to be happy! And with the right leader at the right time, things could go to shit really quickly.

Baron Max

 

[quadraphonics]

but I think it would take an rather long series of steps to take America from the nation it is today to a totalitarian regime.

Indeed, and this favorable state of affairs arose, in part, because Americans have the right to bear arms.

In general though I think our government is well designed to keep any one person from exercising the sort of extraordinary power needed to take advantage of even that sort of crisis (at least over the long term).

And a fundamental part of that design is the right of citizens to bear arms. Moreover, even if the checks and balances are sufficient to prevent any individual from becoming dictator-for-life, that doesn't preclude government tyrrany. China, for example, has regular, peaceful transfers of power, but you can still be shipped off to a work camp, have your organs removed and sold and then be tortured to death for believing in the wrong religion there.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I wonder if the Germans thought the same things in the 1930s?

A. The organization of the German government in the 1930s was nothing like the organization of ours then or now. The leader was elected by the members of the government, not popular vote. B. The majority of Germans were quite happy with Hitler so if you could go back in time and pose your question to them, they would not understand it.

 

[quadraphonics]

Do you not think the NRA is unreasonably influential in determining gun policy in the United States?

Depends on what you consider "unreasonably influential." Suffice it to say, however, that anyone with even a basic understanding of interest-group politics and lobbying ought to understand that "brainwashing" the entire population is not a prerequisite for relatively small groups to make large impacts in democratic politics.

Do you think the amount of violence in the American media does not contribute to creating a culture of fear?

I reject the premise of this question, which is that a "culture of fear" exists in America. It doesn't. Although I suppose that if most of your understanding of American culture derives from TV and movies (which, for obvious reasons, tend to dwell on and exaggerate aspects such as violence), then you might mistakenly believe that.

You're right. I have not done that in this thread. I suggest you investigate this for yourself.

...

It's worth mentioning that this isn't the first thread on gun control we have had on sciforums. Perhaps if you do a brief search you might find some of the evidence you require. Some of it may even have been posted by me - you never know.

Yeah, great tactic. Berate an entire nationality on the basis of their presumed response to a case you don't bother to make and then, when someone calls you on this, try to belittle them for not making your case for you. But, hey, why say something thoughtful when you can post sarcastic flame-bait instead?

I'm not so sure that both sides of the story get equal airing, as you claim.

Given that you have evinced exactly dick in terms of knowledge about American culture, government and discourse, I'm not sure why you think anyone would be interested in your unsubstantiated assessment on this point. Presumably the basis for your doubts is your conviction that any reasonable person who heard out your side woud agree with you (which causes you to invent far-fetched mechanisms that prevent Americans from hearing both sides -- not that it's at all clear that you consider Americans to be reasonable).

But, hey, as long as I'm complaining about weak arguments from authority, here's an example that backs up my point: more than one of the gun control measures you suggest have been tried in America. So it's certainly the case that at least some of your ideas have been given as much of a fair hearing as can be expected.

What gave you the idea I'm "vexed"? I'm getting exactly the reaction I expected here.

I didn't say you were vexed by the reactions here (what troll ever is?). I said you were vexed by the fact that Americans, in general, don't share your views on the issue. The basis for this view is your insistence that the benefits of your proposals are (or should be) obvious, and is conclusively demonstrated by your invention of various conspiracy theories to explain their stances ("brainwashing by the NRA," "media-induced fear culture"). If you had a mature, informed understanding of the issue (which is to say, an appreciation of why reasonable people can disagree), you wouldn't exhibit the behavior you've manifested in this thread.

I never claimed their benefits were self-evident.

To be exact, you said they were "obvious." Are we done playing pedant?

Clearly, many Americans see no benefit, and much harm in gun control. At the very least, we can conclude that what is "self-evident" to many in other parts of the world is not at all self-evident to Americans.

In other words, it's not self-evident. It tortures the definitions of "obvious" and "self-evident" to apply them to a small subset of people that happen to agree with some proposition, and then berate the rest of the population for being oblivious. Propositions that are actually "obvious" or "self-evident" would be agreed upon almost unanimously. These are the kinds of cheap debate tactics that I'd expect to see on Fox News.

That subpopulation is unrepresentative in many ways. The people who have access to the poll are affluent, mostly of above-average intelligence, presumably with some appreciation of the issue at hand, who are also interested enough to want to venture an opinion. They are people who know sciforums exists.

They are also overwhelmingly native speakers of English, and so concentrated in certain nations. To ascribe their views as representing 'the rest of the world' is not only grossly misleading, but also typical of the colonial mindset you inherited from the British.

But what of that? No poll ever has perfect "random" selection. Look hard enough and you'll find biases in every poll sample.

The issue is not the existence of biases and variance, but the aknowledgment of them. I haven't complained about any of the aspects you're so defensive about (sample size, educational level, affluence) because you haven't explicitly misrepresented any of those aspects. You have, however, repeatedly asserted that the poll IS representative of *all* countries other than the United States.

You're smart enough to know what the results of a sciforums poll reflects, and what it does not.

Yes, and that's why I complain when you misrepresent it. Why do you go to such lengths to avoid admitting exactly which countries are represented here?

But claiming that such a poll shows us nothing at all meaningful is as silly as claiming that it can be extrapolated to everyone everywhere.

I didn't say it was meaningless. I said it was obvious and facile. Anyway, I'm glad you admit that it's silly to pretend that the poll represents the views of the "rest of the world."

That's very much a matter of your point of view, isn't it? Naturally, you see America as a leader and probably above reproach and beyond comparison. Maybe it is time you recognised that there is a world beyond the borders of the United States.

Wow. Apparently you missed the point, which was that such phrasing ("out of step") is grossly prejudicial, and so should never be used by someone seeking to foster productive dialog. Of course, your knee-jerk reaction nicely illustrates both this point and, happily, my larger point, which is that your object is not productive dialog but rather the manufacture of pretenses for you to spout off shallow, condescending generalizations about America and her inhabitants. I.e., you're a troll.

What "authority" do you think I need to post this thread? What qualifications do you require?

To post? None. To get away with the arrogance you so regularly substitute for meaningful dialog? Something on the level of international reknown for your expertise in the area would be required. Although, frankly, at this point I'd settle for evidence of an understanding of the objects of your critique that extends beyond tired stereotypes and generalizations, coupled with a little lip-service to the ideals of honest inquiry. Apparently it's naive of me to expect that mods on SciForums will refrain from trolling.

 

[iceaura]

but I think it would take an rather long series of steps to take America from the nation it is today to a totalitarian regime. I would even say that I could see such a series of steps coming to pass, but it would be fairly extraordinary in my view (and it would almost certainly have to begin with a massive attack on the U.S. homefront leaving people begging to have their freedoms curtailed).

Been reading the papers lately?

 

[Pandaemoni]

Been reading the papers lately?

I don't think what we've seen so far is nearly enough. If a nuke is set off and kills millions, then maybe.

A few thousand deaths isn't enough to trigger it. More people die in car accidents every year than died on 9/11. In the U.S. your lifetime risk of being murdered by non-terrorists is about 1 in 200. If terrorists were able to pull off a 9/11 sized attack every year in the U.S. then the lifetime risk of dying in such an attack would be only 1 on about 1300. While there is some hysteria over terrorism in that regard, most people are more supportive of restrictions of the freedoms of others, or of occasional inconveniences, like heightened airline security, which they don't deal with often. (Even then, when little old white women or medal of honor winners get hassled at airports, people complain).

 

[Pandaemoni]

Indeed, and this favorable state of affairs arose, in part, because Americans have the right to bear arms.



And a fundamental part of that design is the right of citizens to bear arms. Moreover, even if the checks and balances are sufficient to prevent any individual from becoming dictator-for-life, that doesn't preclude government tyrrany. China, for example, has regular, peaceful transfers of power, but you can still be shipped off to a work camp, have your organs removed and sold and then be tortured to death for believing in the wrong religion there.

All this creeps into the matters of opinion, but I don;t see the right to bear arms had anything to do with our separation of powers or the system of checks and balances. There is no general right to bear arms in Britain, and I don't think they are likely to fall into tyranny either. If God came down and eliminated the right to bear arms tomorrow, I don't think many people would suggest that the U.S. would be reasonably likely to start slowly moving towards tyranny simply because the "fundamental" underpinning that is the right to bear arms was then gone...so how fundamental can it be?

As I noted above, the federal government already has us vastly outgunned. If the government were a tyranny, then there would be no pussyfooting around with insurgents. The rule in an extreme tyranny could easily be that if you take up arms against the tyrant, he kills you and everyone within ten blocks of you, just to be sure he got you. Since the tyrant is already immoral enough to have seized control, I'm sure the rules of engagement for his loyal military will be "do whatever you have to do." Under those rules, you will need weapons that are already illegal to have any chance of making a difference.

 

[James R]

2inquisitive:

It is your last item, 'Require 'cause' to be shown to obtain a gun license'. Our constitution (the Bill of Rights) guarantees the right of the populace to keep and bear arms. It is a right we can forfeit because of unlawful activity, mental health problems, etc. By requiring 'cause' to obtain a license, you are suggesting a segment of law-abiding citizens should be denied the right to own a weapon.

You're probably correct, though I do not claim to be an expert in US Constitutional law. A change to the 2nd amendment might well be necessary to get really good gun control. In the meantime, it would still be possible to pass some sensible measures.

[quote\Do you realize criminals do not obey the law, that they would keep their guns whether they had a license or not? You are suggesting to penalize the law-abiding citizens, to leave them defenseless against armed criminals.[/quote]

I would be very interested to see what the percentage of the number of shootings in the US in any given year was actually law-abiding citizens protecting themselves or their homes against armed criminals.

My guess is the percentage would be vanishingly small.

The vast majority of murders, for example, are committed by people close to the murdered person, not by strangers invading homes with evil intent.

Now, I suppose I should take a look at the Australian constitution so I can point out Australia's mistakes. I think the first thing I would suggest changing would be your ineffective and unpopular gun laws that seen to have been drawn up by a moron, or a group of morons.

There's nothing about guns in our Constitution. We did not consider it necessary.

As for our gun laws being ineffective, since they were passed back in the late 90s, guess how many mass spree killings (such as Virginia Tech) we have had in Australia? Zero. Not a single one.

How many has the US had in the past 10 years?

 

[Bells]

I think the first thing I would suggest changing would be your ineffective and unpopular gun laws that seen to have been drawn up by a moron, or a group of morons.

How has it been ineffective?

The gun laws in Australia were changed after a particularly horrendous mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996, where 35 people were killed after a person, by the name of Martin Bryant, decided to go on a killing spree in a popular tourist destination. This came after a series of mass shootings across the country, and the Port Arthur Massacre was basically the nail in the coffin, as far as gun ownership was concerned. The measures adopted by the Federal Government was to put into place mandatory licensing and registration of all firearms, as well as to ban all automatic and most semi-automatic weapons, as well as pump action shotguns. Those wishing to acquire a firearm were also made to give a genuine reason (eg. farmers, cullers, target shooting, collecting) and self-defence was excluded.

We have had no mass shootings since the gun laws were changed. So how has it been "ineffective"?

 

[iceaura]

A few thousand deaths isn't enough to trigger it. - -

Are you sure it isn't triggered ? It's slow, remember.

While there is some hysteria over terrorism in that regard, most people are more supportive of restrictions of the freedoms of others, or of occasional inconveniences, like heightened airline security, which they don't deal with often

Of course. It's always others, and always will be, even in the final stages if they arrive.

Airplane "security" has actually affected millions of people, and not trivially. The wait at the passport office is now months - it was once days - and the government is putting a tracking chip in them. This affects millions more. And so forth.

I would be very interested to see what the percentage of the number of shootings in the US in any given year was actually law-abiding citizens protecting themselves or their homes against armed criminals.

My guess is the percentage would be vanishingly small.

Why the restriction to "armed" criminals? And why the restriction to actual shootings?

If you have noticed, according to Americans here it's the threat of the weapon that is the benefit, not the use of it. Actually having to shoot someone represents a failure of benefit. The police are kept honest, ideally, without anyone ever actually shooting a police officer.

Never mind. We have had, in my town, at least four instances of actual shootings of home invaders by residents in the past couple of years. Multiply that out by cities of comparable size, and there have been at least 500 such.

As a percentage of the shootings that are not criminals shooting each other, hunting accidents or murders, suicides, and the like, that is not vanishingly small.

What it is a vanishingly small percentage of, is the benefits of private weapons in personal and home defense.

There's nothing about guns in our Constitution. We did not consider it necessary.

The gun laws in Australia were changed after a particularly horrendous mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996,

So this entire lecture from you guys - on how backwards Americans are to think private gun ownership has something to do with hundreds of years of respectful, constrained government - is based on maybe 10 years of gun control in which nothing bad has happened to you that you've noticed ?

Come back in 110 years, and tell us all about it.

 

[Mr. G]

A quick poll of sciforums members.

Please answer whether you are for or against the following specific measures:

• Ban all automatic weapons from private ownership.
• Require the registration of ownership of all guns and ammunition.
• Require a licence to own a gun privately.
• Require cause to be shown to obtain a gun licence (e.g. farmers, members of shooting clubs).

That will do for the purposes of this poll.

If you disagree with any of the above measures, vote disagree. If you agree in principle (even if you think certain details might need tweaking) vote agree.

Americans have the Constitutional right to own arms.

What the rest of you do amongst yourselves is your own doing.

What you think about Americans' right to own arms is irrelevant.

Let's see you try to take our arms from us.

Won't that be fun?

 

[madanthonywayne]

How has it been ineffective?
We have had no mass shootings since the gun laws were changed. So how has it been "ineffective"?

Were mass shootings really a big problem before you banned guns? Of course each such event is trajic, but even in the gun crazy US, they're quite rare.

Violent crime in general, on the other hand, is less rare. And banning guns only makes it worse.

The International Crime Victims Survey, conducted by Leiden University in Holland, found that England and Wales ranked second overall in violent crime among industrialized nations.

Twenty-six percent of English citizens -- roughly one-quarter of the population -- have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized.

The United States didn't even make the "top 10" list of industrialized nations whose citizens were victimized by crime.

Jack Straw, the British home secretary, admitted that "levels of victimization are higher than in most comparable countries for most categories of crime."

Since the gun ban in Australia:

although lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:

* Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent.
* Assaults are up 8.6 percent.
* Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent.
* In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent.
* In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily.
* There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21902

So fewer school shootings (which is good), but more of practically every other crime. Not such a good deal, if you ask me.

And here's some info from another source:

Australia saw its violent crime rates soar after its 1996 gun control measures banned most firearms. Violent crime rates averaged 32% higher in the six years after the law was passed than they did the year before the law went into effect. Murder and manslaughter rates remained unchanged, but armed robbery rates increased 74%, aggravated assaults by 32%. Australia's violent crime rate is also now double America's. In contrast, the United States took the opposite approach and made it easier for individuals to carry guns. Thirty-seven of the 50 states now have right-to-carry laws that let law-abiding adults carry concealed handguns once they pass a criminal background check. Violent crime in the United States has fallen much faster than in Canada, and violent crime has fallen even faster inright-to-carry states than for the nation as a whole. The states with the fastest growth in gun ownership have also experienced the biggest drops in violent crime rates. http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/NationalPost61504.html

 

[2inquisitive]

James R,

I would be very interested to see what the percentage of the number of shootings in the US in any given year was actually law-abiding citizens protecting themselves or their homes against armed criminals.

My guess is the percentage would be vanishingly small.

I agree the percentage would be small. What percentage of law-abiding citizens do you consider to be an acceptable sacrifice by denying their right to protection? Where I live in small town, mostly rural America most of the citizens do own guns. Murder and armed robbery in the rural areas is relatively rare, but that is where most of the guns are concentrated. Most of the violence is concentrated in urban areas with a high concentration of drug use, prostitution, low employment, etc. Most of the cities with the highest crime and gun violence rates are also the ones with the strictest gun control laws. The problem is, the criminals do not buy their guns legally. They have little to fear from the unarmed law-abiding citizens, so gangs can run amuck, terrorizing law-abiding citizens from turning them in to police. The guns located in rural homes is a deterrent against crime, it is seldom necessary for the citizen to have to actually use them. But James, this is only one of many reasons to own firearms. The focus should be on disarming the criminal element, not taking away the average citizen's right to defend his family and neighbors. Laws do not disarm the criminal.

There's nothing about guns in our Constitution. We did not consider it necessary.

But you do consider it necessary to pass restrictive gun control laws and the citizens' rights are not protected. A oversight, perhaps?

As for our gun laws being ineffective, since they were passed back in the late 90s, guess how many mass spree killings (such as Virginia Tech) we have had in Australia? Zero. Not a single one.

Mass spree killings seem to come in spurts, often thought to be copycat killings. In the 1950's, for instance, the US had no mass killing sprees and virtually no gun control laws. Restrictions have increasingly been imposed, but that has nothing to prevent more and more mass killings. The VT killer should not have been able to legally obtain a firearm. He carried out his spree on a campus where guns were banned. The laws did nothing to protect the victims, only left them completely defenseless against a single shooter with a gun.

You are lucky (and hopefully your luck holds) that you haven't had another mass shooting in Australia. You do realize that Martin Bryant did not have a firearms license, don't you? Did the lack of a license stop him?

 

[2inquisitive]

Bells,
"We have had no mass shootings since the gun laws were changed. So how has it been "ineffective"?"


That particular statement was a satire in response to James R's habit of throwing out unsubstanciated opinions as if they were facts. But if you want one example of 'ineffective laws', I can give you one quickly. I do know others also.

In the state of Victoria, $21,000,000 was spent in "buying back" 18,124 firearms. In the same period of time, Victoria imported 18,184 firearms as replacements.

 

[geistkiesel]

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts....

James R and 2inquiisitive,

Your rhetoric is restricted to the philosophical question of yes or no gun control. Absent is integrating parameters into the discussion that bear on the question of the use in guns in criminal activity.

In black ghettoes, where the crime rate is excessive, and where gun deaths and injuries are elevated needs an analysis. A large use of police power is directed at controlling controlled substances. Most of the substances can be achieved in some form or other with physicians perscription, so there i8s the formal recognition that no control;led substance is harful per se. Yet, the prisons are crowed, over croweded with racial i9imbalances, where the huge crimi8nal population derived from the controlled substance culture is thrown into a ghetto with the most devastating effects.

No one has, or can prove that the mere ingestion of a controlled substance is harmful, yet thyese pe0rsons are targeted for punishment in blatant violation of law and the constitution. Clinton, early on stated that the "Constitution was a radical document and that when freedoms are abused, the government must reighn in those freedoms." Then he went on to justify why "sweeps" through the hood were necessary, talking about the black neighborhoods, to collect illegal weapons "in the possession of artificially manufactured criminals."

With sanity in the drug laws, the fear of gubn possessi9on would rapidouy disappear, abnd in an accelerated mode if all children were taught how to safely handle a weapon, of all types, at the earliest possible age; where the power of the gun is taught not to be a toy and is as serious as learning how to cross the street.

But weapons are treated as drugs. Once the law is in place we assume that it is working and is necessary.

Consider that the government has declared drug consumption, possession, growing etc poses a threat to the health and safety of the public, and that any violation of the constrolled substance laws is rightously defined as a criminal act. Now as the addicted is touted as the bogey man of all biogey men, we pay a bloated police force to protect us from freaking out drug addicts instead of simply handing them their shit and let them go on their way, and subtract the wasted assets of the nation now creating and then controlling manufactured criminals.
Whoops, did 1984 slip by unnoticed?

As David Bohm reminds us the universe is an integrated whole and we cannot cavalierly ignore interacting parts which directly and significantly affect masses of people. :shrug:​

 

[James R]

iceaura:

Why the restriction to "armed" criminals? And why the restriction to actual shootings?

If you have noticed, according to Americans here it's the threat of the weapon that is the benefit, not the use of it. Actually having to shoot someone represents a failure of benefit.

More guns means more shootings, whichever way you look at it.

By the way, there is no "benefit" to shooting even a home invader - certainly not to the home invader himself. Such people ought to be prosecuted by due process of law, not by vigilante "justice".

Never mind. We have had, in my town, at least four instances of actual shootings of home invaders by residents in the past couple of years. Multiply that out by cities of comparable size, and there have been at least 500 such.

As a percentage of the shootings that are not criminals shooting each other, hunting accidents or murders, suicides, and the like, that is not vanishingly small.

How many total shootings have there been in your town overall in the couple of years you referred to? Make sure you include suicides, accidental shootings and shootings by people who know each other.

So this entire lecture from you guys - on how backwards Americans are to think private gun ownership has something to do with hundreds of years of respectful, constrained government - is based on maybe 10 years of gun control in which nothing bad has happened to you that you've noticed ?

No. Australia has never had the kind of rampant gun ownership that you have in the US. Nor has it had anything like the same rate of mass shootings, to take just one example.


Mr. G:

Americans have the Constitutional right to own arms.

You've missed the point, as usual. Laws can be changed. Please read the entire thread and try to keep up with the conversation.


madanthonywayne:

Were mass shootings really a big problem before you banned guns?

There was quite a string of them in the 1990s. The Port Arthur massacre was only the worst of them and was the trigger for Australians to say "enough".

Since the gun ban in Australia:

although lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:

* Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent.
* Assaults are up 8.6 percent.
* Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent.
* In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent.
* In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily.
* There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/

Last time I checked, worldnetdaily.com was not an Australian publication. Perhaps the guys who wrote this should have actually spent some time in Australia and been more careful about their selective quoting of statistics. Then, you would not have been so misled by them.

For example, I live in Victoria. That 300 percent increase in gun homicides they mention over the last 10 years hides a story. In Victoria, there are very few gun homicides. If there is, say, 1 gun homicide in Victoria in one year, and 3 in the next year, that's a 300 percent increase. In contrast, given the same 300 percent increase in the US, what would be the increase in the total number of homicides?

Victoria, having so few gun homicides normally, had a spate of organised crime warfare in the late 90s and early 2000s. Essentially, a single group of perhaps 20 criminals in total started shooting each other. Given the extremely low normal gun homicide rate, this greatly affected the statistics. Yet, all these criminals were intimately acquainted with each other, and most are today behind bars. The general public was not even involved in any of these gun homicides. There were no "innocent" victims involved.

 

[iceaura]

By the way, there is no "benefit" to shooting even a home invader - certainly not to the home invader himself. Such people ought to be prosecuted by due process of law, not by vigilante "justice".

Can't tell #4 in the poll from legitimate government, can't tell vigilante violence from self defense, can't see any benefit in preventing harm to one's household. Australia had a better reputation for common sense, with me, last week.

btw: If there is no benefit in shooting home invaders, what is the benefit in prosecuting them?

More guns means more shootings, whichever way you look at it.

So? More airplanes means more plane crashes, too.

No. Australia has never had the kind of rampant gun ownership that you have in the US. Nor has it had anything like the same rate of mass shootings, to take just one example.

"Rampant" gun ownership?

So what were the comparative per capita rates of mass shooting, back before Australians were saved by the gun banishments?
Or not saved:

Victoria, having so few gun homicides normally, had a spate of organised crime warfare in the late 90s and early 2000s. Essentially, a single group of perhaps 20 criminals in total started shooting each other.

That describes most shootings in the US, as well.

Another factor in the US - lead poisoning. Lead exposure correlates much better with gun violence than gun ownership does, in the US - there are regions of the US with very high rates of gun ownership and almost no gun violence, and vice versa.