The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the results of Australia's gun control, results that you'd expect using simple common sense. These improvements happened after they "cut the country's stock of firearms by 20 per cent and roughly halved the number of households with access to guns."
Thanks to TTAG for the link and their skeptical take on it.
What's your opinion? If the United States were to halve the number of households with access to guns, wouldn't you expect gun violence to decrease? Or would all those lost DGU opportunities outweigh the benefits?
Please leave a comment.
Hmm... cue an Australian Linoge style graph.
ReplyDeleteNow for a ban on firearms as a suicide prevention tool to be shown effective, you have to account for the substitute effect.
Hanging and carbon monoxide poisoning have increased and are now the top methods. So we now must ban crossbeams, bridges, internal combustion engines and enclosed spaces.
California has had some good news about controlling the illegal posession of firearms this week. L.A. Mayor, Villaraigosa and the chief of police organized a dawn raid on the homes of parolees in Los Angeles. They found a lot of guns. Those guys are back in prison.
ReplyDeleteBut what do we know of the shooter in this case? What were the ages of the occupants of the first car? How many? We don't know if he was legally in posession of a gun or if not. Did he have a criminal record? I guess we do know he was riding around with a loaded gun and that he did murder somebody. The truth is that anywhere between Los Angeles and the Mexican border, you mind your Ps and Qs in traffic, because a lot of guys out there play rough. It's violent. Starting a conflict under these circumstances is taking your life into your hands. This will never change within our lifetimes no matter what laws are enacted or enforced.
Better enforcement of existing laws is inevitable. It is the NRA which cruelly seeks to prevent any progress in this direction in a transparent move to maximize production profits from the manufacture of firearms. Within ten years or less the entire controversy of untraced weapons will largely disappear due to internet registration of each gun sale.
What we can do in the mean time is to ban as many semi-automatic and high-powered guns as the public will allow.
"Better enforcement of existing laws is inevitable. It is the NRA which cruelly seeks to prevent any progress in this direction in a transparent move to maximize production profits from the manufacture of firearms."
ReplyDeleteSo the NRA prevents law enforcement from enforcing current laws? How so?
"Within ten years or less the entire controversy of untraced weapons will largely disappear due to internet registration of each gun sale."
Of course because criminals will rush to logon and register their guns.
"What we can do in the mean time is to ban as many semi-automatic and high-powered guns as the public will allow."
What is a "high powered gun" and why does it need banned?
Fortunately for the sake of freedom and the American way of life, the public will not allow your silly bans".
Do you actually believe your bullshit or are you just posting this nonsense for fun?
What we can do in the mean time is to ban as many semi-automatic and high-powered guns as the public will allow.
ReplyDeleteWe're there. Now what?
So the NRA prevents law enforcement from enforcing current laws? How so?
ReplyDeleteQuite a few ways.
Tiahrt Amendment, for one.
"If the United States were to halve the number of households with access to guns, wouldn't you expect gun violence to decrease?"
ReplyDeleteOf course. If we could take away bicycles from children, I would expect to have very few, if any, bicycle-related child-injuries too. I'd also expect a bunch of unhappy children.
Reducing the number of guns from a population will inevitably reduce the number of gun-related deaths. The question is, will violent crime go down, and the answer historically has been "no."
Australia is never a great comparison, unfortunately, because as a whole, their society isn't as violent (and doesn't record violence in the same) as other countries.
AMusing that TTAG would want to call on John Lott since the Aussies consider John Lott to be as reliable as Michael Bellesisles:
ReplyDeletehttp://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/lott/
Actually, Australia is a super comparison to the USA as far as gun culture goes with one exception: there isb't the misunderstood Second Amendment out there to bugger up any attempts to regulate firearms.
Laci
Uh, no, it really isn't, yappy dog.
ReplyDeleteThe Aussies don't commit suicide at anywhere near the rate the rest of the world does, they don't commit murder or assault at the same rates as other "first world" countries despite the same standard of living. Australia is a land unto itself.
Guns are not the issue.
"Tiahrt Amendment, for one."
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, the ATF can still track where and when a particular firearm was purchased.
One of the anonymous commenters said, or I should say repeated like a pro gun mantra, "Reducing the number of guns from a population will inevitably reduce the number of gun-related deaths. The question is, will violent crime go down, and the answer historically has been "no.""
ReplyDeleteI don't believe it.
Of course you don't believe it Mike. You selectively salt and ignore those statistics that don't fit your preconceived notion and hold the exceptional cases as the gold standard.
ReplyDeleteAnd this stuff never happens in Oz
ReplyDelete"I don't believe it."
ReplyDeleteJust stick your fingers in your ears and close your eyes and sing really loudly. That'll block out all the reality for you, MikeB.