Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Open Letter From Australia to the NRA


The National Rifle Association recently linked violent movies to gun deaths. Therefore, I feel perfectly confident in assuming that the reason gun deaths have declined so dramatically in Australia since 1996 is that the country must have banned violent movies. In fact, I suspect that all you can see is Disney stuff, musicals and documentaries on crocodiles.

However, Aussies watch the same movies as Americans. The real reason gun-related deaths have fallen dramatically in Australia since 1996 is that it banned assault rifles, implemented other gun controls and undertook a gun buyback. 

The gun homicide rate in Australia is about one-thirtieth of that in the United States.

Steve Warren
West Valley City

21 comments:

  1. Really but there assault, robbery and rape went WAY up. AFTER they banned guns, why is that? Oh wait I know because people who follow laws can NOT defend them self's! Or do I need to post the link showing what I claim is true AGAIN for you Mike?

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    1. There are no links that prove that bullshit. There are plenty of gun-rights fanatics who have said it, but that doesn't make it true.

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  2. As everyone knows Australia is made up entirely of criminals and criminals are used to not being trusted so I clearly can not choose the cup in front of you!


    Everytime a Gun Nut lies about Violent Crime( notice never any links or studies of findings) have gone WAAAAAY UP in Europe or Australia the NRA gets a dollar.

    Ann Coulter proved that Whites never kill with guns ergo the violence in Australia is because of the "Abbers"...

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    1. I love The Princess Bride quote.

      I do enjoy bursting your bubble though. The simple fact is that criminals in Australia attack the citizens of Australia at a much higher rate than criminals in the U.S. attack U.S. citizens. For example criminals in Australia rape victims three times more often than in the U.S.
      http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap-crime-rapes

      Do you research and homework. The data is out there.

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    2. And I suppose you believe that's because so many women in the us are armed and fighting off their attackers with guns?

      The overall violent crime rate cannot be compared unless they count exactly the same things as violent crimes. They don't.

      Did you have a look at the murder rate? That's one thing, due to it's finality, that cannot be disputed.

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  3. I love the bullshit excuse of violent games/TV/Movies as the cause of school violence, put forth by the NRA's Wayne LaPierre in his crazy rant the other day. Nearly every other nation in the world plays the same violent games and watches the same violent shows. They have the same number of dangerous, crazy people, too. And yet, The U.S. leads the advanced world in gun-related violence and homicides in general.

    No, the problem is that we make it so easy to arm every man, woman, and child with guns. The time has come to end the slaughter.

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    1. Because we have the highest murder rate in the world? Oh, wait, because every state with lots of guns has a high murder rate? Oh, wait, um, what's your reasoning?

      And on the subject of one side or the other wanting to keep violent media away from children, do you recall Tipper Once-Named-Gore?

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    2. Baldr, the USA also leads the whole world (not limiting it to what you call "advanced") in gun related self-defense. See what happens when you only look at "gun stats"?

      Incidentally, Australia has orders of magnitude more kangaroo related deaths than we do. Why? Because we don't have kangaroos!

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    3. You mean the self-defense based on 95% brandishing which is determined over the telephone by the gun owner himself regaling the interviewer with his deeds of heroism?

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    4. The same. Whatever you think that number is, wouldn't you say the USA has the most in the world? If not, what country do you think has more. If you are going to put the USA at 500 DGUs a year, I'd put the UK at zero per year, and Australia somewhere around three. What do you think?

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    5. Yes, they definitely would have fewer. What does that prove?

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    6. It proves the folly of using the "gun death" metric. You guys constantly compare gun availability to only their bad use (actually you throw in some good uses too, but count them as bad). I just did the same logic: where there are more guns, more good uses of guns occur. Yes, it is a big "no-duh", but so are all those "gun death" studies. So I'll ask you the same question, what does that prove?

      And of course the take away is to examine violent crime and murder rates, like I have been harping at you for years.

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    7. I don't see the folly. It's a question of which has more, DGUs or gun violence. You know what I think.

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  4. It is nice that criminals with firearms kill fewer people in Australia than in the U.S.

    It is NOT nice that criminals rape, assault, and rob Australians at a much higher rate than the U.S. As it turns out, the violent crime rate in Australia is 2 to 3 times higher than the violent crime rate in the U.S.

    Oh, and a lot more people feel safe walking the streets at night in the U.S. than they do in Australia.
    http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_per_of_saf_wal_in_dar-crime-perception-safety-walking-dark

    But if anyone is still clinging bitterly to the idea that citizen disarmament will make them safer, they can move to South Africa. Even though South Africa has extremely tough gun control laws and 1/6th the population of the U.S., they had more than three times as many murders where the criminal used a firearm as the murder weapon. That means the murder rate (with firearms) in South Africa is about 18 times higher than the U.S. even though South Africa is a gun control paradise.

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  5. Ok Steve, so then why has the USA's violent crime and murder rate dropped so much since 1996?

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    1. I don't know if Steve is reading. I'll mention a few factors, illegal wiretapping by the government, improved police techniques relying on digital technologies, cell phones which have become ubiquitous. There are probably other things I can't think of right now. The whole thing is irrelevant, in any case, because there is no evidence that increased gun ownership is responsible.

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    2. I never said increased guns were responsible. I do say that gun control is NOT responsible, since we have had less of it over that time.

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    3. Isn't that the unspoken inference behind mentioning that the violent crime has dropped? Be honest.

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    4. Some people probably infer that. I don't. It does prove that gun control doesn't work. Proving a positive causation is much harder.

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    5. That's total bullshit. Positive or negative causation is equally unprovable.

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  6. Certainly, the violence people see depicted so often cannot be called the only cause of real violence in society. That would be a gross over simplification. It's equally inaccurate to suggest that what people see repeatedly lacks the ability to impact their behavior.

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