True:
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The stupidity continues, where you ignore the consequences of criminals being caught on on video. Granted, not all video shows actionable evidence, but not all armed victims do anything but be the one whoâs shot first. Or are not present at all, and are burgled anyway.
As I mentioned, my comments referred to government overreach and police brutality. But by all means, twist things into a conversation about how many homeowners funnel guns into the hand of criminals by, whups, not having their weapons in gun safes. Because itâs more important to maximize the gun collection rather than securing it.
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Simple answer: Criminals are always going to be able to get the guns, so the upstanding citizens need to get them too.
It pains me to see that this topic has turned into yet another debate about guns. I try to avoid these discussions because they are always the same, nobody changes their mind and all the angriness leaves me in a sad state. Honestly, you could be having this conversation in any one of the countless other topics about gun control - could we dedicate this one to how disturbingly common harassement of women who speak their mind is in pretty much every community, especially those that traditionally are largely populated by men? Because I know we all agree that itâs terrible and that every occurance is too much, no matter who does it or why. Everyone is thinking âwe all know this sexist stuff is bad so letâs focus on the hot topic that divides peopleâ but talking about sexism is vital so it can be understood.
Too often itâs only framed as âX are sexistâ and âwe X arenât sexist, itâs not a problem in X communityâ. It becomes impossible to curb because people refuse to believe that sexism (a way of thinking that hurts both women and men in different ways), though not even nearly practiced by all, is so tightly rooted in our culture that no group of people is immune and it can manifest in subtle or neutral ways (like âpositiveâ stereotypes; women are more responsible which means stuck up, men love to have fun which means irresponsible). It might be more prevelant in some communities, but the solution isnât to blame X community NOR to sweep it under the rug by saying itâs just a few evil people. Instead, we have to regocnize the underlying attitudes (which tend to be more universal at their core, but concentrated in places where they have yet to be challenged as much) and the factor(s) that challange those attitudes, which are often unrelated to gender but can bring out sexist behavior (which makes it easy to believe itâs not truly sexist, even if said behavior is rape threats).
I know it can be maddening to hear people rant about sexism in your community when you yourself rally against it and yet are painted with the same brush as if it was your fault. But please, donât become angry with the wrong people and start playing down the harmful attitudes because it can cause hordes of good, well-intentioned people to ignore the ignorance, which makes it seem more accepted than it truly is. Voice your opinion, even if it seems pointless - but, and this is important, donât attack the sexist people and call them terrible human beings. Having sexist beliefs does not make one terrible (acting upon them is a major dick move, but condemning behavior is not the same condemning a person), especially since many have grown up without anyone challenging them. âDonât know any betterâ is not an excuse and people are completely accountable for their actions, but the important thing is to make people see the error in their ways. If you only insult someone and donât explain why their way of thinking is colored by sexist assumptions, theyâll be none the wiser and become even more defensive of their stance.
Some harrassers are trolls, but donât make the mistake of assuming they all are because trolls feed on real harrassement, sometimes taking it to another level. People say donât feed the trolls, and itâs true you shouldnât start arguing with them at lenght, but if people donât show their disapprovance, some poor person is left on their own devices with some insulting asshole (with more energy than most have) while others stand by in apathy. Even if the person is obviously a troll, it poisons the conversation and leaves a bad taste in the mouth of everyone who reads the topic (fortunately, Boing Boing doesnât tolerate it much thanks to moderation and a devoted community and I donât have to always log off feeling depressed because of an apathetic society that thinks you just have to deal with it). It can even happen in real life - someone starts attacking a person verablly (sometimes even physically) in a crowd and people just ignore it, thinking itâs not their problem and that you canât help it that some people are dicks.
Harassment (especially the online kind) can be targeted at anyone, but itâs been proven time and time again that women tend to get special treatment. On top of all the usual insuls, women are criticed for their looks and some perceived female-specific weaknesses and, most disgustingly, receive rape threats. Considering how common sexual assaults are, I canât believe how carelessly threats are thrown around and why it isnât looked down on more. Of course the majority of people do disapprove of rape threats, but when for example people are attacking a women who is criticizing sexism in video games, even the most extreme assholes who call her an ugly cunt should be calling out the ones who make remarks about rape - thatâs how taboo the threats should be.
On an unrelated note, I wonder how common it is for victims of assault to take to carrying a gun. My guess is that it varies hugely. I can see how it would give some a feeling of control and safety. Personally, as a victim of rape, I would feel even more terrified if I had a weapon on me when I was assaulted - not because I fear it would be used against me, but because if I failed, it could make the attacker angry and therefore more brutal. I know itâs not a particularly dignified way of thinking (far from the badass revenge killers of movies), but my top priority is to get away from the situation with the least amount of mental trauma. Thatâs why I also wouldnât attempt to bite the personâs dick off even if I had a chance (that, and tearing through someoneâs flesh is a gruesome way to hurt someone and sounds difficult for someone who canât even bring herself to punch someone - though I guess the adrealine might make it happen).
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I agree with you that âdocument and hold accountableâ is the best option in most cases, and tends to lead to the most widespread permanent change. Especially in an aware and engaged, free and democratic society.
But thatâs the crux of the problem there- The society as a whole needs to actually see what happens and actually care. They need to be willing to stand up and speak out about it. They need to be willing to campaign and vote to stop it. And they need to know that doing so wonât cause them to lose their job, get excommunicated, be branded a traitor, or wind up in prison or a mass grave- Or if it will, they need to be willing to go that far.
Now, I want to make it very clear that I am not saying that we all need guns because otherwise the gubâmint is gonna ship you off to a concentration camp for passing out leaflets. What I am saying is that the system that keeps us from being at that point is broken, and deteriorating fast. I believe that system is strong and salvageable, and we are a long way from being that bad.
But right now, if you document a cop casually assaulting a group of college students with pepper spray⌠Well, he spends a couple weeks on paid leave and then gets fired, but not only does he keep his pension, but he gets a $38k payout for his trauma. And most people donât care enough to share the picture on Facebook, let alone march in the streets over it- So it keeps happening.
Deterioration of the safeguards. Thatâs what we need to be worried about- Because like I said in my other post, this stuff does not exist in a vacuum. And this leads me to my main point:
what was more effective to the cause of civil rights, scary black militias or TV news reports featuring handheld movie footage of dogs and firehoses being used on peaceful protesters?
I donât actually think there is any such thing as peaceful protest.
This isnât to discount the efforts of people like Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr, but to say that thereâs more to that power dynamic than just not being violent.
If you are a corrupt politician, and I show up at your doorstep with 40,000 protesters, I am sending you a very clear message of âthere are more of us than there are of youâ. This is base-level animal instinct stuff. You are looking at enough people to remove you from power- If you have a fair and democratic system, it isnât likely to be in a way that involves bloodshed. Again, we are talking about turning the masses against the leadership- and that means mob mentality and threats of violence, even if theyâre buried under so many layers of law and morality as to be invisible- They still affect the lizard brain.
What peaceful protest does is to make an offer to put those layers of law and morality first. It says âWe are willing to negotiate and settle this peacefully- for the moment.â What a man like MLK does is to become the good cop in this negotiating tactic:
You can talk to the nice reasonable minister whoâs telling his people not to riot, or you can talk to the angry black men with the guns.
Guns escalate violence. No disagreement from me there. 80% of the time, introducing a gun into a volatile situation makes things worse and way more likely to end in bloodshed.
And thatâs kind of the whole point of the thing. When the angry masses have guns, the power elite are going to make damn sure things never get to that point. In an enlightened and democratic society, that means treating the people fairly. In a less enlightened society, it means keeping them afraid, or keeping them sedated.
I am really, really pushing hard for us to become more enlightened, more aware, more engaged, and more fair. I really think thereâs time to not just fix the broken parts of the system, but to grow far beyond what we ever thought possible.
But Iâm not willing to abandon all contingency plans. Things often get worse before they get better, and weâre already pretty bad right now.
Yes, guns are barbaric killing machines- But we are still a barbaric culture who canât solve our problems without violence. Itâs not that weâd be better off without them, itâs that we canât be without them until weâre better off. Gun violence is a symptom, and ignoring the disease will just make it worse. We need to fix our governmental system, develop an entirely new economic model, and fix the damage weâve done to both the planet and the species- Then we wonât need that underlying threat of angry armed masses rioting in the streets, and the guns themselves will just dwindle away naturally.
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I appreciate the sentiment. I donât agree entirely, and the gap of my disagreement is a fair portion of the whole, but that is another discussion about larger issues.
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Thatâs practically projection, to complain that a debate about guns turned into a debate a guns.
These harassers are part of a rising Fascist movement, and Fascism tends to be violently sexist and patriarchal.
Sure if it was a discussion of volleyball, there would be trolley assholes in the discussion of volleyballs, but having people standing on your sidewalk with volleyballs wouldnât be quite as menacing and it would not be overtly political. When guns are part of armed street level intimidation from sexist thugs who reject elections, thatâs most likely Fascist. And it canât be answered in the same terms as someone standing on your sidewalk with a volleyball.
wait⌠waitâŚ
are you telling me youâre not Kurt Russell?
At first I was like âhow am I gonna pass the time at work todayâ and then I remember I replied to you in a gun debate 
crime wise, you are very unlikely to get hurt in America in most places.
These charts disagree. Look at the countries which surround the US on these lists and ponder whether you consider them to be safe places to go.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Serious-assaults (Australia is on page 2)
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Murders-committed-by-youths-per-million
What about police surveillance? Mandatory searches? Loss of privacy?
What about those things? Theyâre bad and have nothing to do with whether itâs a good idea to allow people to own a âkill this nowâ button. Thought youâd try to sneak a Slippery Slope past me because the straw man didnât work, hey?
Again, the likelihood of that happening is small.
Small is relative. The fear of such a thing potentially happening is not a fear I ever have to worry myself with. Wouldnât that be nice? To say the chance is small is in no way reassuring and Iâm not going to do the distasteful thing of listing all the mass shootings youâve had in the US in the last decade and then ask you to do the same for Australia.
But if limiting guns is a public safety issue, why wouldnât we also limit oneâs ability to harm oneâs self?
Since owning a gun increases your chances of something bad happening to you by means of that gun, are you trying to make a case for gun control? My point was that guns pose a huge risk to those not holding the gun. Combined with the increased risk to the owner of the gun themselves, youâre making a killer case for me here.
Why not ban a frivolous activity if it saves even one life?
Itâs impossible to ban frivolity and dumb ideas but itâs entirely achievable to ban guns. Guess weâd better go with the thing we can change instead of the thing we canât.
How many small private owned planes could beâŚ
Can I buy a small plane and some napalm for $50 (or less) on the streets?
Ah, see I donât think that is a fair statement at all.
I didnât say âuntrueâ, I said âoverblownâ. I also said âprovablyâ because there are many reports from various health and public policy organisations (in multiple countries) that have come to that very conclusion and suggested that drug policy be adjusted to reflect the fact that outcomes and risks do not match the law.
The first is one is more likely to make bad choices while under the influence.
Since alcohol isnât going anywhere and you admit itâs inevitable that some people are going to consume it and do bad shit, Iâd rather take away a thing we can control - a thing that makes a rash decisions easier to fulfil.
Second A LOT of the people injured by guns are done so because of the drug trade.
Here, where we have effective(ish) gun control laws, this is not the case. The drug trade definitely increases associated crime but people getting shot over a street-level deal doesnât happen here. Anyone getting shot over drugs here is usually because of turf, not someone trying to score a couple grams.
It somewhat disgusts me that you mention gun crime in Mexico as if it enhances your case, since US gun policy is directly responsible for the nightmarish situation they have in Mexico. In Mexico guns are heavily controlled and highly illegal for anyone except the police and military to own. The cartels smuggle drugs to America, get cash, purchase insane quantities of primo hardware at the documentation-less loophole of gun shows and then send those firearms back to Mexico to perpetuate the fear and violence.
What about allowing me the ability to protect myself in the unlikely event of attack?
Myth #6: Carrying a gun for self-defense makes you safer.
Fact-check: In 2011, nearly 10 times more people were shot and killed in arguments than by civilians trying to stop a crime.
⢠In one survey, nearly 1% of Americans reported using guns to defend themselves or their property. However, a closer look at their claims found that more than 50% involved using guns in an aggressive manner, such as escalating an argument.
⢠A Philadelphia study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater if he carried a gun. His odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fact-check (This is not my first day on the job)
A gun can stave off an attack by 3 or 4 guys with bats and knives.
In a place where guns are impossibly cheap and accessible, why would the bad guys have bats or knives? Remember: bad people of the world do not play by ârulesâ.
A 90lb women now has an advantage over a 250lb man.
Myth #7: Guns make women safer.
Fact-check: In 2010, nearly 6 times more women were shot by husbands, boyfriends, and ex-partners than murdered by male strangers.
⢠A womanâs chances of being killed by her abuser increase more than 7 times if he has access to a gun.
⢠One study found that women in states with higher gun ownership rates were 4.9 times more likely to be murdered by a gun than women in states with lower gun ownership rates.
i.e. - any increase in perceived or actual safety is outweighed by the increase in danger.
Youâre making an assumption that is is somehow easier for a man to pull a trigger than strike out with a punch or a stab.
And youâre making the incorrect assumption that itâs somehow not easier. Firstly, pulling a trigger can be done at any distance and done instantly while stabbing or punching someone has to be done at close quarters and doesnât happen faster than the speed of sound. Secondly, if youâre dealing with someone who is armed with fists or a knife there is training that can be undertaken that allows you to have a very good chance of disarming that person. This is not as true for guns.
I feel like you used to be better at this man. Is it all the mass shootings that are making you question your position or are you just phoning it in these days so people like @rkt88edmo can write down your shaky talking points for future use in arguments with people who are less stubborn, less well-read and less persistent than I?
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I didnât claim that the percentage of gun owners outweighs the percentage of non gun owners, so I donât really know what you think your link proves. Itâs not relevant whether more or less than 50% of people own guns, itâs a matter of the difference in percentage between countries. Here are a few pages that compare household ownership rate and the US annihilates every other country in the list by a massive margin.
Itâs worth noting that Switzerland has a high ownership rate as there is mandatory military service for men there and people are free to keep their gun after service is completed.
Itâs also worth posting this little graphic from here:
So the US far outweighs any other country in household rate of ownership aaaaaand totally smashes the world in number of guns owned in total (from http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/weapons-and-markets.html)
âThere are an estimated 875 million small arms in circulation worldwideâ
âŚand America has 300m of those. More than 1/3 of the worldâs supply. If thatâs not an addiction, I donât know what is.
The takehome from this is that you characterise my points as untrue hyperbole, then post a link that you mistakenly think proves that Iâm spouting hyperbole, only to be totally disproven. Next time people will take what you say as potentially being full of shit, as you clearly are on this subject.
even the trolling that Teapot has done on this thread often gets counted as âgun sanityâ by control advocates.
It is gun sanity and I troll you for fun and sport because your position is laughably selfish and ignorant of the facts on the matter. Iâve provided a wealth of stats (relevant ones, no less) that backup my trolly argument and your side has provided none. The reason Iâm such an unpleasant troll on this subject is because your side is loud and redneck-filled (check the topic of the OP if you will) and your sideâs selfishness in the face of a damning quantity of evidence that shows youâre wrong lead to people being killed and maimed at fucked up rates. Iâve stopped giving a fuck anytime some loon shoots a bunch of people over there because itâs so emotionally draining to watch the inevitable gun rights argument that erupts, only for the dangers to be misrepresented by you and your cronies so you selfishly continue to own a boom stick. I want people to know that the only way to get your shitty laws fixed is to unrelentingly argue against you nuts, and not allow the myths you perpetuate continue.
And the thing is, if there was a direct correlation between, say, gun ownership and homicide, youâd expect the United States to have the highest murder rate. It doesnât.
Actually, a more relevant stat might be the original one I included "firearm-related homicide per 100,000 by country) on which the US ranks 15th. Notice that thereâs no western democracies on that list until you get to Israel, who has a homicide by firearm rate of less than a third of Americaâs.
and wonder how on Earth someone could be crass enough to use those tragic events to forward a political agenda.
Fuck. You. Itâs your political agenda that stands in the way of the progressive gun ownership laws that would help prevent such shootings, and itâs that agenda that is made apparent every time a mass shooting happens which is why you NRA cunts trot out this line as if youâre taking the higher ground. You donât fool anyone with a brain.
PS: Look at your buddies on your list - a veritable whoâs who of places youâd have to pay me a serious sum of money to go:
NEXT!
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It is a flawed argument. Youâve equated armed asshats with unarmed asshats. There is one huge difference between those two groups.
Youâve got no NFI buddy, but donât let that stop you from pretending to be an expert in Australiaâs crime rate and how it confirms that guns are awesome.
Hereâs a list of violent crime rate in Australia:
http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTools/facts/vicViolentCol.html
In every category of âviolent crimeâ the trend is undeniably downwards, except for sexual assaults which have increased (which could be a result of increased reporting) and kidnapping which has, despite a generally downwards trend, remained fairly constant.
Since your number-cranking is clearly completely shithouse, maybe you should leave it to the professionals?
Hereâs the graphs as I know you wonât click because youâre just here to rep your side and not here for actual facts:
keeping us safe by spying on every phone call or e-mail is also "reasonable,"
Except that the percentage of phone calls or emails that pertain to the commission of a serious crime is drastically lower than the percentage of deaths that involve a firearm. Nice false equivalency, bub.
Edit: I just saw this little piece of veiled racism, you piece of shit: Let the cops pull people over for hunches. Make pulling over somebody for âdriving while blackâ OK. I bet that we could save a LOT more lives. Yet, is it the right thing to do?
Pulling black people over would save lives how exactly, you worthless xenophobic skinbag?
You can give me a bunch of BS about what we should do, but looking at the data from two countries, one with fairly relaxes gun laws, and one with strict gun laws, I can plainly see which one is getting better and which one is getting worse.
Countless studies have found that countries with lower incidence of private gun ownership have lower rates of murder and overall serious crime. Funny that your calculations, clearly biassed by your position, have come to the opposite conclusion.
You seem desperate to shift the conversation to crime as a whole, but what weâre talking about here is GUN CRIME. Assault is a terrible benchmark for âviolent crimeâ because assault is often committed with zero violence whatsoever. I can be charged for assault for threatening you verbally, pushing you or spitting on you. None of those bear any relation to gun crime yet likely make up a significant number of cases of assault.
Gun crime since the buyback is unarguably down and furthermore the graph I posted above is for âarmed robberyâ which includes all weapons - thereby negating your argument that people are just committing crimes with different weapons.
Comparing 1995 to 2007, the US beat Australia in EVERY CATEGORY of violent crime.
This says nothing since the difference could be attributable to a huge number of factors such as differences in the reporting of crimes, relative increases or decreases in police force or resources.
We actually DO make lots of great arguments. It is just that people against freedom generally do not understand the data, or simply ignore them.
This rhetoric is vomit-inducingly pathetic.
The most common example is worrying about âfirearms deathsâ under the assumption that murders committed with knives and clubs are perfectly fineâŚIf you want to talk overall crime rate or murder rate by ALL methods, that is fine and a valid subject.
Nice try buddy. See that graph I posted of murder? People murder in all kinds of ways. Murder is down. Your argument is moot. Will you now respond to this fine and valid subject? I also perviously explained that attacks with other weapons arenât as bad because they can be defended against more effectively and cannot be committed at a distance. The National Rednecks Associationâs weapon of choice in arguments is cherry-picking, so I find it hilarious when you clowns accuse other of it.
So, they are worried about âfirearm homicide rate.â Presumably stabbings and beating deaths are just OK to them. Riiiiight.
Is this the ONLY argument you have? You seem to be repeatedly making it and Iâve already addressed that, in the case of Australia, murder rate is down. What reasons do I have to believe your numbers when youâve not provided them, your commentary makes clear that youâre on the NRAâs side and confirmation bias is undoubtedly coming into play and the fact that so many other sources disagree with you?
Sorry, she WAS a civilian, not actually being a police officer at the time.
You admit she was part of the church security team. She had police training. Her behaviour as a trained policewoman who was responsible for church security means she would have been at a state of readiness that a civilian would not and she also would have been checking people out as a civilian would not.
Yup, no guns = women strangled or stabbed instead of shot.
Really? Again? This has to be like the fifth time or something. Your own previous reply to me says that murder in the US is down. Stop repeatedly making arguments youâve already disproved for me.
So, seriously, this many logistic and factual errorsâŚ
I think you need to look up the meaning of logistic.
Sorry, take a gun away from a murderer and he will use a knife or a club.
Then why is murder down, despite a growing population?
Please go away and return once you get a clue.
Please stick your beloved baby in your mouth, pull the trigger, and donât return.
^Since youâre clearly somewhat mentally deficient I probably need to explain to you that me telling a gun owner to do this doesnât equate whatsoever with gun nuts showing up at the home of a gun control advocate with things that look like automatic weapons. This isnât me making a threat, itâs me telling you that Iâd prefer if fools like you killed yourself. It might not be a tasteful thing to say, but itâs in no way a threat.
âWildly disparate???â Murder rate in 2007 (per million): US - 56.1. Australia - 13.3. Four times higher.
You donât think itâs unusual that the US has a 4 fold difference in murder rate compared to similar countries? Classic NRA ignorance.
Yemen has a lower murder rate than the US ffs.
The US murder rate in 2007 was 4.2 times that of Australia. However, in 1995, the difference was 4.6, so we are indeed heading in the right direction.
âŚand in 2012 it was 4.8 times that of Australia.
Whoâs cherry picking data again?
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Those people are wrong. Most statistics disprove the arguments theyâre making:
Theyâre probably going with the ârepeat a lie until everyone thinks itâs trueâ form of argument, or maybe theyâre too busy stroking their cocks guns to know that educated people have access to information thatâs based on research, not gut feeling or wishful thinking.
Final thought: How do the NRA have such power if, even in a place where the readership is fairly educated, gun proponents canât make one factual or salient argument. You guys should seriously just do us all a favour, stick your beloved baby in your mouth and pull.
Yeah, Mexico has extremely strict gun laws and they have no problem with guns, right?
Itâs Americaâs lax gun control laws that allow the cartels to get the firearms they have you fucking ignorant cunt.
Simple answers are best for simple people. Youâre clearly one of those.
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I donât care what your constitution is specific about. The presumption that a country built on the US constitution is automatically going to be awesome while a country based on an amended constitution is going to be worse is simply nonsense. No one knows the outcome of things until theyâre been tried and the guys who wrote the constitution lived in a very different, very much less enlightened time.
We live in a country world where your job can move overseas without notice, your retirement savings can vanish into thin air, you have no idea whatâs in your food or where it comes from, getting sick can put you into bankruptcy and a lifetime of debt
Fixed that for you. I donât know why you think the US is special in any of these areas, except for maybe healthcare. Your healthcare system really is a fucking joke.
The average American seriously lives in fear that he wonât be able to provide for his own basic needs.
The average American doesnât read international news. Welcome to life. There are places in the world which make the USâs social safety nets look like heaven in comparison to their own. First world problems - now with guns!
they fight to keep the immigrants from taking what little they have left.
uh, I believe itâs pronounced âimmigantsâ. But seriously⌠taking guns away from people that think like this is the safest thing you can do.
So I really donât have that much tolerance for the whole âI donât really care about your laws or your culture, but if youâd just do things our way, we can go ahead and civilize you peopleâ attitude.
Oh, you mean like the attitude the first settlers had towards native Americans that has continued to colour their suffering to this day? Thatâs real good of you. Fuck your stupid constitution if you canât have a discussion about whether parts of it are relevant today as they once were. Blind flag-waving is fucking pathetic.
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shhhhhhâŚyou are messing up his made up arguments. donât you know that gun advocates are always the victims, thatâs why they need guns! 
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Yes that was the justification and reasoning for the 2nd amendment and is now completely obsolete. The reason that it isnât brought up by either side is that pro gun advocated donât want to remind people that the only justification is now laughable. It has been a long time since small bands of civilians with firearms could effectively do anything against any modern military force. What a joke. That idea was amended onto the constitution, and its time has come for it to be unamended.
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Sorry, that link that you posted does NOT include assault, just sexual assault. The assault numbers are almost an order of magnitude larger than sexual assault or robbery. So, those graphs do NOT include the single largest category in violent crime. So, whoâs numbers are âshithouseâ now?
The first of the big changes to the Australain law happened around 1996, so I chose 1995 as the last year completely uncontaminated by the changes to the law. I chose 2007 as the last year that I could find complete data. Yes, I wish that I had slightly more recent data, but 2007 was the best that I could do.
ALL crime data came from the Australian government (1995 data from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/818290ca7df32b80ca2570ec001b2fc2!OpenDocument ) (2007 data from http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/violent%20crime/victims.html ). Note the"gov.au" in the URL. I chose the categories of Murder, Robbery, Assault, and Sexual Assault to look at. I could have included kidnapping, but the numbers were VERY small, and I was lazy. Feel free to include those if you wish.
Population statistics were a bit more fuzzy, but errors were still less than 1%. 1995 population was 18.1 million, and 2007 population was 21.181 million.
From that, the murder rate dropped by 25%, from 1995 and 2007. However, the violent crime rate went up by 40%. For every million people, there were 94 less murders, but and additional 61,480 victims of violent crime in general. To put it another way, for every person NOT murdered, there were an additional 656 victims of violent crime.
In addition, if you look at those graphs that you presented, the rates of sexual assault and robbery did seem to peak around 2007. Really, it is a pity that the Australian government did not include the SINGLE LARGEST CATEGORY of violent crime in those graphs. I wonder why? Also, do you see the major crime drop around 1997 after the new gun laws went into effect? Me neither.
If we actually DID have complete numbers for up to 2011, we may indeed see that Australia is safer. However, between 1995 and 2007, Australia most certainly was not safer, so concluding that the gun grab of 1996 caused it is completely refuted. I wonder what happened around 2006 that actually made a difference? If I had to guess (and I admit that it was a guess), I would attribute the change in crime to be more related to economics than gun laws.
Now I do admit that I may have missed something. My Masterâs degree was in Engineering and not Statistics. However, since you seem to be an expert, I am sure that you will tell me where I screwed up my math. If you do not reply, I will assume that you could find no flaw.
EDIT Doing some quick math using US FBI data ( http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_01.html ) we get the following US data for the SAME YEARS (1995 vs 2007):
Murder in US: down 31% (vs down 25% in Australia).
Robbery in US: down 33% (vs down 6% in Australia).
Assault in US: down 32% (vs UP 59% in Australia).
Sexual assault in US: down 19% (vs. UP 31% in Australia).
Wow, Comparing 1995 to 2007, the US beat Australia in EVERY CATEGORY of violent crime. Logically, anybody who wants to follow Australiaâs laws must love crime. You can give me a bunch of BS about what we should do, but looking at the data from two countries, one with fairly relaxes gun laws, and one with strict gun laws, I can plainly see which one is getting better and which one is getting worse.
