Gun advocate mocks Australia's tough laws

[Yuuki]

Australia Also has a a rape rate 3 times higher than the U.S.

So less guns = more rape. Interesting.

Japan has next to nothing in gun crime but is near the very top when it comes to suicides rates.

So less guns = more suicides now. Brilliant.

Apparently comparing apples to apples is just beyond some people -_-

 

[Yuuki]

Australia Also has a a rape rate 3 times higher than the U.S.

So less guns = more rape. Interesting.

Japan has next to nothing in gun crime but is near the very top when it comes to suicides rates.

So less guns = more suicides now. Brilliant.

Apparently comparing apples to apples is just beyond some people -_-

Its a known trend that while more giuns = more gun deaths. Anyone could figure THAT out. What a lot of people seem to miss that less guns = more violent crime in general.

Again, apples vs oranges. Find something where violent crime suddenly went UP in the same country AFTER guns laws were introduced.

You are implying that if strict gun laws in US will result in rape/murder rates increasing enough to offset the number of lives lost to gun violence every year, I'm going to have to ask you to step outside and think for a minute.

After the Sandy Hook massacre, some (rather crazy) people had the nerve to imply that psychos like 20-yr-old Adam Lanza would've still been able to kill 26 people just as easily with his BARE HANDS (or a knife/sword) if you took his gun away, which is insane. Absolutely fucking insane. The guy wouldn't even have had the balls to come to the school without a gun.

Some lunatics are also implying that the Oikos University massacre wouldn't have been any different if there was no gun involved, the crazy student would've still somehow killed 7 classmates with no gun. Hahahahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

 

[Godhead]

That Van Cleaver guy reminds me a lot of one of the judges that my IB theatre class got a year back. We had an australian in our class and the judge docked off points from us which eventually cost us a rank in the competition because "he didn't learn how to speak with an american accent".

 

[Yuuki]

I am not going to bother finding you their papers on the subject, if you want to educate yourself thats good but I am not particularly inclined to be your teacher.

I'll take a massive decrease in deaths/murders over more robberies/assault/rape any day.

I'd rather be beaten-up by someone in the street and have my belongings stolen, than getting held hostage for hours at gunpoint and watching my friends get shot one after the other followed by me getting shot...and then the ************ commits suicide.

Give me violence over murder any day, it's how people sorted things out before guns. It was FAR HARDER for some angry teen to commit a massacre without a gun, I can tell you that right now.

 

[TTYTYTTYYTTYTTTY]

Eh, that's fine.

I'll just be over here enjoying my comparatively low murder rate and complete absence of gun massacres in a country where someone firing two shots (from a bolt-action rifle) into someone else's garage door is enough to make the papers.

Australia's murder rate has not changed substantially since the gun ban went into place. In fact it went up after the ban and then went back down later to barely below pre-ban conditions. So who cares how people are being murdered? Your changing gun laws haven't done anything.

A gun can cause you to commit collateral damage, whereas with a knife/fists your attacking just the people you want to, unless someone tries to be a hero.

 

[mrhappy1489]

How many major metropolitan areas does Australia have with populations of more 250,000 people?

Now, how many are filled with poverty and drugs?

I'm tired too of people trying to compare statistics of the United States to their country. If we gave you Detroit, Chicago and DC, you'd look like a violent madhouse too.

I live in Detroit area and our murder rate is comparable to Somalia. This does not reflect the majority of the United States, but it does throw the stats off quite a bit when you take all the ghettos we have and add them in to the national average.

Which would suggest that the problem is not guns, it's too many poor people with too much drugs with too little to live for and very little respect for life, packed much too closely together. You're gonna have a bad time.

Don't take this the wrong way, but how many mass shootings have occurred in those cities? I've tried to bit of research but it's all very muddled and buggy and I'd like to know from at least a somewhat credible source how often it happens? I am aware that there are lots of killings there, but that's less of a gun problem and more of a society problem. Restricting gun control would be more likely to effect mass shootings by limiting how easily people can get access to weapons.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Except stopped massacres. That seems like sort of a thing.

Who cares? The public sure, but they are by and large idiots. I only care about statistics of which is better and which is worse. Just because 20 people dying at once to gunshots gets more air time in the media doesn't make 20 people dying individually from non guns any better.

Also the amount homicide victims was a record low in 2007 (the last year statistics are available for).

Also also the amount of homicide incidents has been steadily declining for well over a decade.

Sure and they were at a record high in 1999, after the gun ban went into place. What's your point? That murder rates fluctuate based on factors that have nothing to do with gun control? Because that doesn't really help your argument at all.

Gun control has been loosened since the 70s in the US. Gun control bills get shot down, and people are increasingly allowed to bypass laws already in place but use of things like different loading systems instead of banana clips. Laws were put into place allowing people to own and sell miniguns as long as they were manufactured before a certain time. And what do you know? 2011 had the lowest murder rate since 1963. A record low! And the homicide rate has been declining for the past 20 years, despite making guns easier to get. Now if I was dumb as you I'd go "Look our way is the right way, guns for everyone saves lives!" But I'm not. There are reasons why the murder rates went up after Australia instituted the ban, and there are reasons why it went down later. There are reasons why the US murder rate was high in the mid to late 1800s, why it went down, then back up, then back down again. And those reasons have nothing to do with firearm availability, and everything to do with racial homogeneity, the Human Development Index and comparative wealth.

 

[Yuuki]

I am not going to bother finding you their papers on the subject, if you want to educate yourself thats good but I am not particularly inclined to be your teacher.

I'll take a massive decrease in deaths/murders over more robberies/assault/rape any day.

I must admit, it takes some guts to admit that you are pro-rape.

Well seeing as how you just admitted that you're pro-murder (and pro-rape too I guess) I guess that makes you a far worse person

 

[Raioken18]

Err... I'm from Australia, let me share a little of my knowledge.

Border security may seem racist/sexist, but it is usually about certain things i.e. baggy clothing can hide drugs and weapons, people who are strung out tend not to be clean shaven etc. So yes it is profiling, but it's not necessarily motivated by race. With that said, some of them are idiots, sorry bout that.

People here tend to use racial taunts and sometimes just swearing as a form of hazing whoever they talk to. For example, earlier in the week there was a topic about the C-word, here there are two contexts for it and you can tell by the manner in which it is delivered: "Yo C-word" is a greeting, where as "You are a C-word" is offensive.

My best mates include people from different races, so we refer to each other as black, white and yellow all the time. Combined with the above method of swearing in normal conversation to outsiders it does seem really offensive, but it's just friendly banter.

So on the outside I think Australians get a bad rep, but when it counts we'll always help out someone no matter who they are... Though I was bashed because a Muslim woman had "fallen" down some escalators and I helped her to get up, there was a large group of Lebanese men standing around not helping her that then followed me to the car park. It's not the only time, and is apparently against most middle eastern cultures to touch or talk to their women.

So maybe... it's just certain cultural values that conflict with Australian values that create a feeling of racism... anyway back on topic.

As a regular Australian. I've never heard gunfire, or seen a real gun that wasn't carried by a police officer. As for robberies with melee weapons such as knives, it is much easier to run away screaming for help. I remember the news around the time of the Port Arthur Massacre, and the strict gun laws have made everyone feel safer.

Now let me tell you about all those people who are like, criminals will always have access to weapons. Guns, being much harder to get do have a black market even here. This appears to be primarily controlled via bikie gangs. However, bikies and upper level criminal organisations have structure as well. This means that aside from bank tellers and gas station owners, few other members of the law abiding public will have guns waved at them. Police and other bikies appear to be the individuals most at risk. Mass shootings appear to be a concern of theirs and anyone of their own displaying mental health defects are neutralized (More for the safety of other members, but it provides a mental health checks as a secondary effect).

Someone outside of said organisations is going to have a hard time acquiring a weapon from them, let alone enough ammunition to be able to do anything on a large scale. Not to mention that the cost of illegal automatic weapons would be sky high due to their illegality.

 

[Amakusa]

Google must be damn hard to use...

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?Article_ID=17847

and in case you cant be bothered to click the link

Moreover, Australia and the United States -- where no gun-ban exists -- both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:

Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America's rate dropped 31.7 percent.
During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

The research institute is called the Austrailian Institute of Criminology now but here is their site too
http://www.aic.gov.au/

Edit: Hell seems like the Uk is starting to have more problems with gun violence and violence in general as well despite their tough stance on such things.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/11/gun-crime-soars-in-england-where-guns-are-banned-n1464528

hmmm i had a look at that site and i have call bullocks on that. That article is saying because australia has restricted access to guns is the only reason that explains the difference between the USA and Australia in those statistics which is a load of BS. Also the validity of using information from a USA conservative think tank that comes with it's own inbuilt biases is questionable. Also saying something increased by a % without give exactly what is was before. I can say something rose by 49% but from what was the base? If there is like 10 knife crime deaths a year and it rose by 49% for that year, so now it's only like 15 knife deaths a year. This article you linked is just manipulating statistics and is thus bullocks.

Here is some other info concerning nsw in 2006

"Our analysis also shows that the number of recorded firearm offences has been declining in NSW in recent years. Over the 11-year period examined, the number of people killed with a firearm decreased by 45 per cent and the number of robberies with a firearm decreased by 33 per cent. While recorded criminal incidents involving a handgun have generally followed the same trend as all firearm offences in NSW, handgun offences have not declined to the same extent. As such, the proportion of firearm incidents that are committed with a handgun is now higher than it was in the mid to late 1990s. For example, in 2005 approximately 60 per cent of armed robberies involved a handgun, compared with just 43 per cent in 1995. Having said this, the prevalence of handgun offences in NSW still remains low. Last year there were 267 robberies involving handguns in NSW. On a per capita basis this equates to an annual rate of 4.0 incidents per 100,000 population."
Sarah Williams & Suzanne Poynton (2006)

So what is the point of this. Concerning firearm offences in NSW, the point of tougher gun control laws was to make it harder for firearm offences to occur and to make it harder to commit crime in general with a firearm. Which it seems to have done.

Your argument saying that gun control laws increase violent crime and is the ONLY or a MAJOR reason for violent crime is BS, if that is the argument you want to make, find me peer reviewed evidence that says gun control laws is the only or a major reason for violent crime to increase. Not some conservative think tank playing with statistics and without giving per capita of 100,000 comparisons.

Edit: and on that note back to work, i spend too much time reading forums TT

http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/bocsar/ll_bocsar.nsf/vwFiles/CJB98.pdf/$file/CJB98.pdf

 

[Thaluikhain]

Off topic concerning the bolded bit: Pump action shotguns are the in the same class as semi-auto rifles.........why...why is a pump action shotgun in the same class as a semi-auto rifle. It makes litteraly no sense..........excuse me, my brain hurts.........

Same as rimfire semi-automatics, yes. Doesn't matter so much, though, the way it's set up, IIRC, Cat C shotguns are treated differently to Cat C rifles. You have to have a reason for whichever you are getting, and why a Cat A or B isn't good enough. It is a bit odd, though.

On Topic: So, would I not be allowed to have a gun because I have Aspergers Syndrome, even though I have never hurt anyone? Or if I have grown up my whole life and was taught how to shoot since I could life the gun, would I still need to take that class?

AFAIK, absolutely no to the first, definitely yes to the second. Same as you need to be taught to drive even if you are certain you can already. Better safe than sorry, lots of people reckon they know i tall. You might get Recognition of Prior Learning, though.

 

[Zipfiend]

A US gun lobbyist has said Australia is not on the same planet as the US ...

Umm...quite. What planet does he think it's on then? Someone needs to go back to school methinks.

Don't care about US gun laws anymore. If they're happy for their children to get shot, who are we to tell them they can't murder their own kids?

Look, the only way a child can get their hands on a gun in the US, is bad parenting. To be honest we have no real control what goes on outside the home. But I keep my firearms in a safe and all my firearms out of the reach of anyone but myself. When I have children I will teach them how to handle those firearms safely and only under supervision. Its called being a responsible adult.

You should not convict a tool for the offence of the owner. The tool is just that a tool.