Gun Control V3.0

Ok then raw numbers

Link

Homicides has remained steady.

Assaults have gone way up.

Sexual assaults have gone way up.

Robbery has dropped after peaking dramatically in 2001.

You were saying?


But I should be fair. While property crimes peaked around 2000 they have been dropping since then. And since the laws were made in response to a murderous rampage obviously the unaffected violent crime rate is nothing to be worried about while the late drop in property crimes show this law worked.

 

What's your argument?

That table shows homicides in 2003 were lower than 1996. It shows robbery in 2003 at it's lowest rate since 1996. It shows a decrease in the number of assaults in 2003 from the previous year.

The only increase in 2003 was in sexual assaults which is tracking at just about twice the rate of population increase in that time, not good, but not shocking.

Thanks again.

 

hmm waiting

 

Ah, but there has been more than one change to the gun laws and there have been long amnesties that would skew the dates these laws actually took effect.

The argument by gun sites is that Australia is more dangerous and crime is increasing because of these laws. It obviously isn't the case.

 

Nor is it decreasing, and while of course it's rather impossible to prove a direct causality the roughyl stable murder rate combined with the much trumpeted drop in gun releated murders rather destroys the arguement guns make it "more lethal".

The total effect here is you're arguing that it doens't really change anything so we should do it anyways because the guns themselves ar einherently bad and someone posiiong people who visit a fast fodo place randomly is somehow betetr then a shooting rampage.


The sad fact is that occasionally you do get murderous rampages be they gun, knife, poison, or car.

The problem is dangerous people, not tools.

 

The population has increased by about 2 million in that time, farraday.

In real terms the overall homicide rate has fallen by nearly 13% in that time.

If the rate was the same, in 1996 the homicide number would have been 306, not 350.

 

Without Port Arthur there would have been 313 homicides in 1996.

Unless Port Arthur situations are common in Australia it is something of an outlier isn't it?

I am confused though, could you explain which massacre happened in 1997 to actually cause an increase in the number of deaths over the previous year's horrible massacre?

 

I don't know what the individual incidences are and neither do you. I don't understand your reasoning about Port Arthur. Want to take it out? Let's take out some other causes of homicide from all the rest of the years then.


What I'm arguing here is that gun related deaths have decreased by 47%, the overall homicide rate has decreased by 13% and the rest of the crime rate is pretty much uneffected by gun laws.

Sounds like a good argument to me.

 

Oh thank you loopster. I would never have found this without your encouragement.

The percent of gun related murders peaked in Australia in 1969 and have trended downward every year since.

Obviously then the 1997 law was a watershed, ending the rampant gun crime in Australia coming as it did 28 years after the peak.

As for the homicide rate...

It was 1.91 in '96 2.04 in 1999 and 1.7 in 2003. Given the drop in gun related homicide since 1969 I think it's fair to say that the variance in the numbers has almost nothing to do with any gun restriction.

 

I aim to please, farraday.

You got a link? I'd like to see it before I retort as you know I will.

 

It's the pdf file avialable on the site for stats and statistic 2004.

For ease of linking here

PDF warning

The relevant graph is on 17, however since it is a pamphlet this should be roughly 9 pdf pages down.

 

That's misleading. Read it again. It shows the percentage firearm related homicides make up of the overall homicide rate. It doesn't say the number is higher or lower. For all we know from that is that 10 people were killed in 1969 and 4 of them were by firearm.

There's no actual figures. All it says is related to total homicides, those made with firearms have a lower percentage now.

 

But you were so gung ho about firearm related deaths dropping!


I am confused about your claim then. The homicide rate has fluctuated in the past decade while the percent of homicides in which guns are used has continued to drop.

Is your claim that before the last decade murder was relatively unknown and only recently ahs it become a big issue? That the drop before 1997 was entirely due to an explosive rise in non gun homicides?

 

The homicide rate has fallen as has the number - the direct number - of firearm related homicides in the past decade. There's been a downward trend in the overall homicide rate even before population factors are calculated.

What happened in 1970 for the gun related percentage of the homicide total to start falling? What were the numbers for the 80's? I don't know. I haven't looked it up, you were the one to raise the 1969 issue, not me.

 

You can hardly blame me considering a main crux of your arguement is that gun deaths are falling because of the law.


Another pdf

PDF Warning

While it doenn't offer numbers, it does give a chart of homicide rates over the last century.


Given that the current rate(1.7 I believe you quoted) is well in line the most you can say of the fluctuating rates is that Australia's homicide rate is more or less stable despite it's growth.

It is also worth noting that despite the slightly incresing murder rate from 1969 to 1995(the chart ends at 95) the precent of that rate that were gun murders dropped significantly.

Whatever the cause, it is clear that the 1997 law has not impacted the murder rate as on a macro scale and any benefit added to the number of gun homicides is lost in the 3 decade trend downward despite the slightly elevated murder rate.

Alright then I need to head to bed, in the meantime I would defy anyone to show a corellation between the gun laws and gun crime that is not part of a pre-existing trend.

Gun homicides rates were down well in advance.
Homicides rates while increased off their lows were and are wll in line with historical data.

I am nto addressing any issue of if guns are good or bad, only that in Australia there is absolutely no evidence that the gun laws have had any positive or negative effect.

 

Holy smoke. Did you see figure 4 in that report?

As for the rest, I'll admit well the rate has been fairly steady over the past 80 years or so, but trending upwards from the 1940's. The trend of the last few years has been down though.

 

I don't think bringing down the general rate of gun related offences was necessarily the intention of the governement at the time in any event - they just had to be seen to be doing something and a blanket ban on all automatic and semi-automatic weapons seemed like a good a plan as any.

 

It's our culture that makes us murderers. And I ain't talking about videogames and movies.

 

farrie, to be fair, there's no correlation between gun control laws and crime.

Yes, I said it.

What you basically assume with it is that when guns were taken, people somehow became easier prey from criminals; yet as an active shooter I can assure you noone kept guns for self defence.

I apprecaite that on a raw data level, it appears the law was linked to an increase in crime, but that doesn't factor in outside data.

E_S

 

E_S you may have missed the last line in my last post where I said there is no evidence gun control laws in australia have had any positive or negitive effect.

However from that one almost has to conclude that if gun control has no effect positive or negative then it can not in any stretch of the imaginiation be considered as "working".

 

Define collection piece, Fred. Was it's original intent to be used as a weapon?

It depends. It could have been a ceremonial weapon. That would make it relatively useless for anything more than decoration...

The US constitution defines rights for Americans.

That's true. The Constitution defines some of our most important inalienable rights--but what I was trying to say is that it does not give us those rights. We already have them; all people are endowed with rights when they are created.

The law in Australia prohibits weapons of the nature you describe and stockpiling them is illegal as well.

That's why I said legitimate law.

I don't think bringing down the general rate of gun related offences was necessarily the intention of the governement at the time in any event - they just had to be seen to be doing something and a blanket ban on all automatic and semi-automatic weapons seemed like a good a plan as any.

What a sad lack of logic...

 

The Constitution does not give you the right to bear arms. It gives you only the right not to be prohibited from bearing arms by the federal government. Any attempt to 'incorporate' the Second Amendment to apply to the states (which has never yet been attempted) would fall foul of its preamble: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state..."

 

Fred, with all due respect, would you consider it possible your ideological position on guns is the result of a kind of cultural "indoctrination"? I'm just trying to find something of a bridge here.

E_S

 

14th amendment doesn't apply to the 2nd amendment, but it DOES apply to the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th?

EDIT: I know it's illegal to possess a handgun in the city of Chicago, as well as Madison. I wonder if a city could ban guns outright, ala Unforgiven?

 

I wonder if a city could ban guns outright, ala Unforgiven?

It wouldn't shock me. Our rights are slowly being chipped away.