Tuesday, May 13, 2014

More Thunder from Down Under

These were made by an Australian in regard to their tightened gun regulations.



The data that supports these are found here:
www.aic.gov.au/dataTools/facts/weaponUseTrend.html

20 comments:

  1. None of these stats show murder rates, just "gun murders". Let's go check the AIC website and look at murder rates from 1996 to latest available (2011)...

    Wow. Australia's murder rate dropped 36% since enacting their gun ban. That's pretty good. I was hoping we would have seen it skyrocket or at least be flatline, but you know me, I don't hide from the truth. I gotta say, melting down all those guns worked awesome! It was so awesome that it even lowered the murder rate in the USA by the same 36% over the same time period. Who would have thought it would have the same affect here in the United States where we got to keep our legally purchased property? Amazing.

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    1. Maybe it's about global warming. Yeah, that's what's causing the lower violence rates.

      Actually, as I've said before, if it weren't for the loose gun laws in the states we would have seen even better reductions in murder rates.

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    2. Yes, you have said that before, but there is no statistical evidence that back up your statement. You just say it.

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    3. MileB: "Maybe it's about global warming. Yeah, that's what's causing the lower violence rates."

      Na, warm weather leads to more violence. That is statistically provable.

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    4. It says "gun murders" because it was written in response to the meme that NRA folks present as 'fact' about crime escalating in Australia after the gun ban. The usual response to any positive comment about the ban is 'but violent crime has exploded', which is not at all true. It's broadly down despite an unrelated blip around 2001. Not sure what data set you are using - and US crime stats seem to be in poor shape - but an equivalent slide murder incidents may well be true. You'll note the meme here doesn't say that this reduction in Australian gun murders hasn't been 'caused' by the gun ban. It most likely hasn't. What the gun ban here has caused - and this has been demonstrated statistically - is a reduction in suicides (both gun-related and total). Australian murders are few & far between, always have been, so causal factors of the decline are very difficult to determine statistically. Crime (inc violent crime) is down broadly here, although this is more closely related to the availability (or not) of illicit drugs and other factors.

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    5. PS - you are correct about warmer weather leading to more violence. I encourage you to keep an open mind, keep questioning things and keep checking evidence-based research. It's disappointing the US has not invested more in this space as a policy support.

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    6. That's interesting about suicide reduction. That kinda destroys one of the main pro-gun positions about gun availability and suicide.

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    7. Can you post a link to prove of causation in this reduction in suicides? Semi-auto functionality has absolutely nothing to with suicides (not too many quick follow up shots) so I'm wondering what the claim is.

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    8. Yes, Anonymous did say the gun ban CAUSED the decline in suicides. I agree that probably cannot be demonstrated statistically, but a significant decline would most likely have something to do with the fewer guns. At least that's what unbiased people who don't hide behind statistics and proof understand.

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    9. It's amazing that you claim bias of your opponents while making statements like this. You point to a decline in your favor and say it most likely has something to do with guns, and anyone who doesn't agree must be bias. But when I show you a statistical drop that works against you, then you are on about "other factors" and "it would have dropped more with fewer guns" and anyone who doesn't agree with your spurious claims must be bias.

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  2. "Gun murders" are a different stat than crime. So pointing to a decline in murders committed with one type of weapon does not answer the question of whether or not crime went up. Here you can see below assaults rising steadily.

    http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/violent%20crime.html

    AIC is a good source for Australian crime statistics. As a general summary, crime rates increased to the mid 2000s then came back down. Overall murders are also down (36% as I said above). That matches the United States, but we did much better in crime and violent crime rates. That means the USA has done better than Australia over that time period.

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  3. Gun murders aren't 'different' to crime stats, they're a specific sub set of violent / serious crime stats (as opposed to volume crime, organised crime etc). This is true for pretty much every country. The memes here don't even attempt to demonstrate a change in all crime by citing the gun murder change. As I said in the previous post, it's just replicating another meme used by the NRA (but these ones contain accurate figures). You also can't determine which country did 'better' based on these figures alone. Australia's population increased 24% b/w 1996 and 2011, for a start, so the rise in violence you've noted is about in line with that. My guess would be it's also related to the use of 'ice' (crystal meth). The other critical figures that are not considered here are per capita crime rates. The US has an absurdly high rate of gun murders for its population. Moreover, you can't actually just look at the changes in raw numbers & draw conclusions, it's just not that simple. Regression analyses are required to demonstrate causality. You've also not provided the source of your US data & I'm afraid US crime stats are notoriously inaccurate, particularly re gun related crime. Australia has fewer states to match up & invests more in research.

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  4. http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/127977-2013-02-05-gun-control-in-australia-watch-and-weep.htm

    This is the meme being circulated by the NRA & others. I've had US gun nuts flick this up in numerous online discussions telling me it's true. It's not. I know because I'm an Australian crime analyst. Australians are pretty unhappy about our situation being misrepresented - some might say lied about - for their own purposes.

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    1. They do a lot of lying and distorting, yet they insist they're on the right side of the argument. I often point out that if they really were in the right, they wouldn't have to resort to so many mendacious tricks.

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    2. 'Gun murders' being a subset of murders, and murder being a very small subset of violent crime, means showing a drop in 'gun murders' doesn't answer the question of whether or not violent crime increased. That's how you lead off your first post. Regarding rates vs. totals, it is a little frustrating that AIC shows totals rather than rates (especially since this was a period of rapid population growth). The 36% drop in murders I mentioned above for both countries is adjusted for population.

      I get my USA data from the FBI Unified Crime Report. I have never heard about questions of its accuracy. Could you elaborate more on that? But since we're talking about a drop in numbers this would only be relevant if the FBI UCR were changing in accuracy over time. There is a difficulty in comparing crime rates across countries because of classification differences. For example Australia's violent crime rate is much higher than the USA, but the difference could be explained by how crimes get classified, so it doesn't tell the whole story. Above we were talking about change in crime rates, so classification differences don't matter.

      I have done regression analysis for gun control, and it doesn't come out good for gun control. Geographically there is no correlation. Vs. time, it's even worse for gun control as we've largely expanded rights, and quantity of guns, while our murder rate dropped the same as Australia's, and our violent crime decreases were better than Australia. And there wasn't a mass confiscation and destruction of guns to get that.

      I must point out, I am not making causation statements. I'm not saying the confiscations in Australia is the reason behind any change. What I am doing is proving that gun control isn't the answer. This whole post was about how awesome Australia is doing since 1996. I am saying we did even better over here AND we got to keep our guns.

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    3. One thing you have to realize about that video you linked to is that it was made a long time ago- shortly after the ban. If you are going to call the NRA “liars” for publishing those numbers, you’d have to dispute it with contradictory numbers from the time that video was made (late 90’s/early 00s?). Since the bulk of Australian crime decreases happened in the 2000s, these numbers might very well be right. You said yourself there was a spike in 2001.

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  5. I can't address every point tonight because I have to fly out early tmrw, but the point about crimes rates falling broadly and gun murders are two different points and I didn't suggest that one evidences the other. It doesn't, for all the reasons you articulate. The AIC website does show per capita rates for all manner of crimes, you just have to hunt around for it in their reporting. Regression analysis done on the Australian situation demonstrates a decline - caused by the gun ban - in suicides. Dr Andrew Leigh did the research. It's online. I've never seen any regression analyses for the US situation, but would expect there to be substantial challenges in terms of the data - the fact that each state would have its own legislation, reporting categorisation & reporting approach is the major issue. The Australian Bureau of Statistics does this matching across states here and the AIC use the data from there. The process is rigorous and most of the supporting data is publically available. I agree there are differences in classification across countries that make comparisons quite difficult. There is no comparable investment in matching up all the US states, unless it's well hidden. There is very limited crime research published from the US more generally, compared to Australia, the UK or Canada. There seems to be an underlying assumption in the US discussions that one can equate the number of guns with crime rates - why? There are many other factors involved. But there is this constant cry of "But if guns are taken away, crime will skyrocket!" Which is where the misrepresentation of Australia often comes into play. We took most guns away, and one of my fundamental points is that crime *didn't* skyrocket. Many other things are contentious and debatable. The NRA (specifically Wayne LaPierre) have referred to Australia in the last 6 months or so - it's on the NRA website - and have continued to use us as 'evidence' that gun control does not work. They are fundamentally misrepresenting the facts that even the basic Google search would have shown to be colossally inaccurate. Home invasion figures have never, ever existed for Australia - due to the complexity of categorising them - so that category would appear to be completely false. I'm not saying that the confiscation of guns in Australia has caused anything bar reduced suicides, as this aspect has been properly evidenced. I am saying many of the arguments used in relation to Australia are wildly inaccurate (at best) or fabricated (at worst).

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    1. I lolled up the Leigh study you mentioned. I didn't have a chance to read all 49 pages, but skimmed it over. For one, the only causal statement I found was regarding suicides with a gun. Overall suicides were more ambiguous, and if you look at the charts on page 9 you can see why (non-firearm suicides dropped at the same rate, but because they started from a higher point have a smaller 'percent decrease'). But the fatal flaw that I noticed is that he didn't account for the guns coming back. I've read several reports that gun ownership has returned to pre-Port Arthur levels. Leigh's report concentrated on a snapshot of how many guns were confiscated and which states had the most, and then looked at suicide rates from then on. Well that period of 1997 to present was a period of growing gun ownership after taking a big hit in 1997- and the suicides were decreasing during this period. Sure, the guns that were destroyed were semi-auto and pump action, and likely replaced by bolt action, break action etc. But suicide is a one shot deal. How quickly you get get off the next shot can only be relevant in homicide and self-defense. As I said, I only had time to skim, so if you know of where this was addressed in the study, please let me know. I'll also point out that currently Australia has the same suicide rate as gun-crazy United States (11/100,000).

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    2. FYI, here's a link to an article on how gun ownership surpassed pre-port Arthur levels:

      http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-12/gun-ownership-on-the-rise/3662504

      Note also that they are making the same complaints you said about US crime reporting. Nothing is perfect, but the USA and Australia are probably two of the better countries at trying to be consistent on crime reporting. There is certainly no reason why the numbers would be skewed in a pro-gun or anti-gun bias.

      Finally, I don't know your name, but I want to thank you for the god discussion we've had so far.

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