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Gun Control In Australia


Flashermac

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"Just 12 days after the 1996 shooting in Port Arthur, then-Prime Minister John Howard – a conservative who had just been elected with the help of gun owners – pushed through not only new gun control laws, but also the most ambitious gun buyback program Australia had ever seen. Some 650,000 automatic and semiautomatic rifles were handed in and destroyed under the program.

 

Though gun-related deaths did not suddenly end in Australia, gun-related homicides dropped 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides. Suicides by gun plummeted by 65 percent, and robberies at gunpoint also dropped significantly. Many said there was a close correlation between the sharp declines and the buyback program.

 

A paper for the American Law and Economics Review by Andrew Leigh of the Australian National University and Christine Neill of the Wilfrid Laurier University reports that the buyback led to a drop in the ï¬rearm suicide rates of almost 80 percent, "with no significant effect on non-ï¬rearm death rates. The effect on ï¬rearm homicides is of similar magnitude but is less precise.â€

 

Perhaps the most convincing statistic for many, though, is that in the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there were 11 mass shootings in the country. Since the new law, there hasn’t been one shooting spree.

 

In the wake of the shooting, polls indicated that up to 85 percent of Australians supported the measures taken by the government."

 

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In other words, the police interviewed in the video are all liars.

 

p.s. These folks aren't Christian Scientists:

 

 

Crime climbs in Australia after widespread gun ban

 

 

August 29, 2012

 

 

After Australian lawmakers passed widespread gun bans, owners were forced to surrender about 650,000 weapons, which were later slated for destruction, according to statistics from the Australian Sporting Shooters Association.

 

The bans were not limited to so-called assault weapons or military-type firearms, but also .22-caliber rifles and shotguns. The effort cost the Australian government about $500 million, according to an association representative.

 

Though 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 ban, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily.

 

* There has been a reported dramatic increase in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.

 

 

The Maui News

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You tarnish the messenger because you do not like the message.

 

 

 

"In the last 16 years, the risk of dying by gunshot in Australia has fallen by more than 50 percent. The national rate of gun homicide is one-thirtieth that of the United States. And there hasn't been a single mass shooting since Port Arthur."

 

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I don't know what the anwer is.

 

The statistics I read is that gun sales are up in USA.

Membership is up in NRA.

 

US Supreme Court has ruled in the Chicago case that gun ownership is legit.

 

So how does a society stop the mass killings by nuts with guns?

 

What is the definition of a nut?

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Enforcing the existing laws would be a good start. I don't understand why AK-47s and AR-15s are being sold in the US. They are semi-auto versions, but any GI with a file knows how to change that quickly enough. They are not hunting or sports weapons, just for war. For home defence I'd sooner have a pump action shotgun - but now then want to ban those, even though they are legitimate hunting weapons.

 

The press is very reluctant to talk about the drug connection - in every mass shooting in recent years! What kind of drugs are the docs giving to people that makes them loony? That woman who drowned her 5 children was using them too.

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Flash,

Anyone can bend statistics to their point of view. I did a quick google and apart from websites which have a vested interest in gun ownership (gun clubs, sporting shooters etc), the figures seemed to drop. I'll try to cut and paste the figures from the Australian Institute of criminology in the following post.

I have never heard of the "Christian Science Monitor" - would they have a vested interest in blurring figures? Gun lobby type websites show similar figures of gun related crime post 1996 in Oz.

 

The people interviewed in the youtube clip seem to have been misinformed at the time. Especially the collector. Collectors could keep their guns so long as they were "crimped", "filled" or had their firing mechanisms removed or altered (from memory). My dad was affected and I remember him taking all his guns to the local cop shop to hand in. They advised him he didn't need to hand them all in, as he was a farmer and needed to be able to put injured animals out of their misery humanely. He did however get a good price for a couple of guns which were already unserviceable. He kept his trusty .22's (semi automatic) and one or two collectibles which didn't fire - but he sold them legally to another collector for a good price too.

 

I agree with you re AK47's and the like, and even now (down under) anyone who is a member of a gun or hunting club can own firearms, even pistols etc. I work with a lot of them. The main benefit which came from the 1996 laws (IMO) is the safe storage of weapons. Safes, keeping ammunition separate etc, I shudder to think what could have happened on dad's farm, as for years he kept shotguns, .22's and ammunition in his shearing shed, which didn't even have a door at one end. One was in a box, others were in a modified old fridge!

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Number of firearm related deaths

 

Year Accident Suicide Homicide Other (a) Total

(a) Other includes legal intervention and under determined deaths.

Source: Australian Institute of Criminology adapted from Australian Bureau of Statistics Underlying Cause of Death 1991-2001 [computer file]

 

1991 Accident: 29 Suicide: 505 Homicide: 84 Other: 11 Total: 629

1992 Accident: 24 Suicide: 488 Homicide: 96 Other: 14 Total: 622

1993 Accident: 18 Suicide: 431 Homicide: 64 Other: 9 Total: 522

1994 Accident: 20 Suicide: 420 Homicide: 76 Other: 13 Total: 529

1995 Accident: 15 Suicide: 388 Homicide: 67 Other: 9 Total: 479

1996 Accident: 30 Suicide: 382 Homicide: 104 Other: 5 Total: 521

1997 Accident: 19 Suicide: 330 Homicide: 79 Other: 9 Total: 437

1998 Accident: 21 Suicide: 234 Homicide: 57 Other: 15 Total: 327

1999 Accident: 28 Suicide: 269 Homicide: 50 Other: 6 Total: 353

2000 Accident: 45 Suicide: 222 Homicide: 57 Other: 7 Total: 331

2001 Accident: 18 Suicide: 261 Homicide: 47 Other: 7 Total: 333

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