Oh, this silly little child seriously tried to use Australia and then cited Mother Jones as a valid argument for gun control. A classic anti-gunner mistake.
Okay. *cracks knuckles* Let’s do this then.
[this segment brought to you by lee-enfeel]
People die Australia as a result of firearms violence at almost the same rate they did prior to the firearms act, and some sources state that more than a quarter million illicit firearms exist in Australia currently.
The total firearms death rate in 1995 - the year before the massacre and the laws introduced - was 2.6 per 100,000 people. The total firearms murder rate that year was 0.3/100,000. From 1980-1995, Australian firearms deaths dropped from 4.9/100,000-2.6/100,000 without the implementation of firearms laws. This is a rate of decline that has remained fairly constant; Looking at 1996-2014, in which the rate has dropped from 2.6-0.86, it shows that the decline has been slower in a longer period of time since the law’s passing. Likewise, homicides declined more quickly in the 15 years prior to the firearms laws (0.8-0.3) than in the 18 years since it (0.3-0.1). This just indicates that firearms deaths haven’t been noticeably affected by the legislation you’ve claimed has done so much to decrease gun crime.
It should also be noted that around the same time, New Zealand experienced a similar mass shooting, but did not change their existing firearms laws, which remain fairly lax; even moreso than some American states like California, New York, or Connecticut. Despite this, their firearms crime rate has declined fairly steadily as well, and they haven’t experienced a mass shooting since.
The “australia banned guns and now they’re fine” argument is really old and really poorly put together. Gun control is little more than a pink band-aid on the sucking chest wound that is America’s social and economic problems. It’s a ‘quick fix’ issue used by politicians to skirt around solving the roots of the violence problem in the United States, which are primarily poverty, lack of opportunities, and lack of education.
You could ban guns tomorrow nationwide and gun violence and overall violent crime would not be reduced at all.
[this segment brought to you by cerebralzero]
In 2005 the head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn,[37] noted that the level of legal gun ownership in NSW increased in recent years, and 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.[40]
A study coauthored by Simon Chapman found declines in firearm‐related deaths before the law reforms accelerated after the reforms for total firearm deaths (p=0.04), firearm suicides (p=0.007) and firearm homicides (p=0.15), but not for the smallest category of unintentional firearm deaths, which increased.[43]
Subsequently, a study by McPhedran and Baker compared the incidence of mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand. Data were standardised to a rate per 100,000 people, to control for differences in population size between the countries and mass shootings before and after 1996/1997 were compared between countries. That study found that in the period 1980–1996, both countries experienced mass shootings. The rate did not differ significantly between countries. Since 1996-1997, neither country has experienced a mass shooting event despite the continued availability of semi-automatic longarms in New Zealand. The authors conclude that “the hypothesis that Australia’s prohibition of certain types of firearms explains the absence of mass shootings in that country since 1996 does not appear to be supported… if civilian access to certain types of firearms explained the occurrence of mass shootings in Australia (and conversely, if prohibiting such firearms explains the absence of mass shootings), then New Zealand (a country that still allows the ownership of such firearms) would have continued to experience mass shooting events.”[44]
At this point I should also probably point out that Australia’s gun laws have not even reduced gun ownership in Australia. In fact, gun ownership in Australia is actually higher now than in 1996.
All of these inconvenient facts aside, we haven’t even touched on the cost of implementing Australian style gun control in America.
I keep hearing people say that the US should adopt Australia’s gun control policy and I don’t think they have really thought about the big picture of that plan.
Australia had far less guns per person and people in their country did not live in a society that was brought up respecting The 2nd Amendment. The culture of Australia is very different than that of the culture of America when it comes to gun ownership and self defense.
Because of this, the Australian government was able to buy back 631,000 guns at the estimated price of about $500,000,000. You read that correctly, 500 MILLION.
And even after all of that, it still did nothing to prevent violent crime and criminals in Australia still have access to illegal guns, despite being an island country that isn’t bordered by other countries with high violent crime rates and rampant with illegal drug cartels.
There are over 360,000,000 legally owned firearms in America. If we go by Australia’s numbers ($792.39 per gun), these guns would cost our government $285,261,489,698.89 to buy back. Almost 300 BILLION dollars, assuming that every gun owner voluntarily turns in their guns… Which is a very slim to nothing chance.
Who’s going to pay for that? Anti-gunners? I think not.
So, in closing, you want America to put in place gun legislation that will cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars AND has already been proven time and time again to be completely ineffective at protecting innocent lives or creating a safer society?
Suicide is a phenomenon for which at least a very large portion of substitution of method occurs. If a person wants to die and his/her “preferred” means is not available, he/she can quite easily determine another quite satisfactory means. A good thing about means other than guns, when it comes to trying to kill oneself, is that most other means are quieter—so it’s likely your intent won’t be discovered if you are unsuccessful, leaving you free to try again until you are successful. The “success” rate for the average attempt with a gun may be higher than for other means, but a suicidal person can use some of the other means repeatedly until successful.
The gun suicide rate averaged about 3.45/100k from ‘79 to ‘87, then dropped unevenly at about .158/100k (average) per year from ‘87 to ‘96. This (‘97 & ‘98) is where gun controllers would think the suicide rate should drop immediately or start dropping at a higher rate (i.e., higher than .158/100k). Instead, the average drop per year was virtually identical (.156/100k) from '96 to '04.
The truth is that the semi-auto and pump firearms that were the target of the ban/buyback have no more value for suicide than any of the allowed firearms. If one shoots oneself in the head with a rapid fire gun, one does not then take another shot. It takes only one shot to commit suicide. So one should not expect the ban (that hardly reduced the stock of long arms and didn’t reduce the stock of handguns at all) to have had any impact on suicide.
It is also inconceivable that any other part of the new gun restrictions would have a perceptible impact on the gun suicide rate. Attempts to identify people who are likely to try suicide (except for those who have already done so) have been woefully inadequate. And those contemplating suicide are likely to hide weapons rather than surrender them all to their government.
One may wonder (from looking at the graph) if a trend in gun suicide had started from '93 to '96, in which case it could be argued that gun suicide dropped abruptly in '97 and '98, interrupting the trend. It is very possible. The '93-'96 points lie very close to a straight line. Another year or two of data points along the line would have made it quite probably a trend. A trend of only three years cannot be well proven because the possibility of such patterns occurring from chance alone is too great. If '93 to '96 was a trend, the post-'96 trend still appears to be heading towards getting back on the '93 to '96 trend line in a few years. Note too that the values from '01 to '04 look much like a nonlinear trend, largely because of the small departures from the curve.
Unfortunately, we can’t be very certain of conclusions drawn from such short-term trends even if the trends are very smooth. On the other hand, long term trends are not really good bases for detecting a change at a particular point in time if the fact is ignored that there really are many true short-term trends. A long-term trend needs to be stable to be useful. Suicide and crime rate trends result from many things, some consistent over the long term and some only over short terms.
The non-gun suicide rate averaged about 7.859/100k from '79 to '85, then jumped up where it averaged about 10.086/100k from '87 to '94. It increased at a rapid average rate of about .873/100k per year from '93 and '94 to '97, then dropped at a high, consistent rate (.585/100k per year, average) from '98 to '04. Note that the '96 rate was significantly below a trend line through the '93, '94, '95 and '97 points. Remember this when we get into the discussion of assault and robbery rates.
It is noteworthy that the rates for total and non-gun suicides dropped fast and consistently from '98 to '04. There is no way these impacts could relate to firearms. So something else has been actually working and reducing suicide rates. Maybe it was good economy. Maybe Australian governments have actually been doing something worthwhile. Whatever the cause, it had no impact on gun suicide rates, which simply continued to drop at essentially the same rate as between '91 and '97.
At this point you can cram your Australia argument deeply and securely straight up your ass. Moving on.
No shit, people die by guns where more guns are present. People also drown more often in places where there are bodies of water present. What this weak argument ignores is the fact that gun control does absolutely nothing to create a safer society.
Gun Control in Other Countries:
People have a habit of making the false assumption that stricter gun control results in lower violent crime and/or lower gun violence. This assumption is simply not true.
Gun Related Deaths per 100,000
Countries With Strict Gun Control:
Yep. Nothing but rainbows and butterfly kisses in all of those countries. Nothing bad every happens in those countries since they have strict gun control.
And while we’re throwing out graphs, charts, and reports, here’s some more vital information and studies that I’m sure you won’t want to talk about.
Banning guns would not reduce murder and suicide
No rise in mass shootings
Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware
Guns are excellent self defense tools
Mexico’s 90% Gun Supply come from the USA Myth
DOJ Study Fails to Show 1994 Assault Weapons Ban Worked
64% of gun control advocates believe the incorrect assumption that gun crime has gone up
53% of Americans oppose stricter gun laws
64% of Americans believe it would be bad if only the government had guns
62% of Americans believe that the government wouldn’t fairly enforce gun laws
74% of Americans believe that the Constitution allows them to own a gun.
Police feel safer with an armed public, oppose gun control
Majority of criminals fear and avoid house and people they believe to be armed, fear armed civilians more than the police
Anti gunners wishing harm and death on gun owners part 1
Anti gunners wishing harm and death on gun owners part 2
No correlation between homicide and gun ownership rates for OECD countries
No correlation between suicide and gun ownership rates for OECD countries
No correlation between homicide and gun ownership rates between states in the USA
No correlation between household gun ownership, income, and poverty between the states in the USA
Anti gunners wishing harm and death on gun owners part 3
South American gun control little to no effect on major crimes, no correlation to crime rates
South American gun ownership and crime rates not linked, no correlation
Chances of being shot or killed based on firearm deaths and population count:
Death by gun, suicide excluded:
0.0032%
Death by gun, suicide included:
0.0095%
Death in a mass shooting alone:
0.000032%
Injury by gun, no death:
0.024%
Death of injury by gun including suicide:
0.033%
Gun deaths and injuries etc based off general stats used by anti gun people, rather than exact numbers from each year because its faster and easier to do. Going by exact yearly figures would result in very little change to the average numbers used above.
Guns compared to other ways you can die:
Unintentional fall deaths:
Deaths per 100,000 population: 8.4
Motor vehicle traffic deaths:
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.9
Unintentional poisoning deaths:
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.7
Deaths per 100,000 population: 13.9
All Drug poisoning deaths:
Deaths per 100,000 population: 12.4 (2010)
All firearm deaths (suicide included):
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.3
All firearms deaths (suicide excluded):
Deaths per 100,000 population: 3.6
Firearm deaths broken down completely:
3.6 for homicide
6.3 for suicide
0.30 for unintentional
0.10 undetermined
10.3 for deaths total in general of 3.6 for homicide only. You are more likely to trip and die than be killed by a gun. Cars kill more than guns but are not even protected by the constitution and isnt a right, and are less regulated than guns!
[Sources are FBI and CDC]
Even more valuable resources if you or someone remains still unconvinced
If this all is still somehow not enough to convince you or someone you know that guns are fine and not as bad as everyone makes out to be, then I honestly doubt the following will do it but I will still post for anyone interested
Google Earth map showing locations of self defense by gun
List of self defense stories, sort by state or gun
Massive collection of sourced information pertaining to firearm laws, myths, and statistics including:
Sniping Rifles – Sniper Rifles
Handguns For Women Handgun Sales
Violence and Violent Crime
“Pocket Rockets” and “Saturday Night Specials”
Concealed Carry and Concealed Weapons Permits
Licensing and Registration
Firearm Deaths (Homicide, Accidents)
International Gun Ownership and Crime
Guns, Crime, Criminology and Crime Prevention (Self Defense)
Guns and Police (Law Enforcement/LEO)
romaincrisis
gummygunk
vaporwave
discoholicmusic
snowghoul
