Virginia Tech

[zenwood]

Statistics show the buyback has had little effect on gun crime in this country.

Today's Editorial in The Australian disagrees:

Under a gun buyback scheme, about 600,000 guns were surrendered at a cost of $500 million. Research by the Australian Institute of Criminology has shown this to be money well invested. Rates of homocide and armed robbery have fallen ...

see http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...6-7583,00.html

[Brown Dog]

Hi browndog,

What is it that sporting shooters have been deprived of and if i wanted to join what can i use now?

not having as windup, just wondering?

cheers

hi Dazzler

I can only speek from the exerience of being a longarms owner in NSW ...not pistol...thats a whole different kettle of fish.

A normal sporting shooter would have a Cat A or B license. Cat A is restricted to rimfire, Cat B is centrefire. I cant remember wich Cat. shotguns come under.

The the guns now banned are semi auto's (rifles and shot guns) and pump action shot guns(you can still buy pump action centerfire). I dont have any particular desire to own any of these types of guns...but I cant see how they are any more dangerous than a bolt action centerfire rifle.

Some say that semi auto shotguns were prefered by clay target shooters with a smaller build (ie female shooters) due too the action reducing some of the recoil. Some people were made to give up priceless family heirlooms for a few hunred dollars. I find it ridiculus that I cant invite a mate who may be interested in trying out shooting as sport to the range to have a shot with one of my rifles before he has to go through the hassel of obtaining a license. I only shoot target at the momment and dont have access to a property that I can shoot on...so I couldnt break the law and let my mate have a shot.

It could be argued that the new laws havent really deprived sporting shooters of much...we can still own as many rifles as we want (as long as you can demonstrate that you have a genuine need for that particular gun).And thanks to the efforts of oranisations like the SSAA and the Sporting shooter Party of NSW shooting sports have manged to secure grants for new ranges and such.


I can see from a non shooters point of view how it could appear that shooters are winging about nothing...however new laws have given all sorts of grief to shooters who have done nothing wrong except tried to follow the new laws....
One example . If you use membership of gun clubs as your genuine reason to own a gun and you shoot at a couple of different clubs...the clubs have to report any members who dont fulfill their attendace requirements... So a member who may only shoot at one club once a year but has fullfilled the required attendance at another club gets reported....and the Firearms register in some cases has actually confiscated guns of people who have done nothing wrong. This is now only just being rectified (I got a letter from the register last week) 10 years after the Act was brought in.

My point is these laws have done nothing to effect the use of illegal guns already in the community. But because of the bureaucratic nonsense that goes with participating in shooting sports these days they have done a good job of discouraging some people from trying out a sport that statisically is safer than a lot of others.

My other point would be, that every time something like this very sad event happens it seems some people automatically push gun control as the solution. IMHO some control is obviously needed, but in this country anyway, it is misdirected to a certain extent.

cheers
BD

[glock40sw]

Thanks for those details Glock. I assumed you were advocating even more prevalent gun ownership. Is that right? Or are you advocating stricter controls -- ?

G'day.
What I'm suggesting is that a holder of A CCW permit should be allowed to carry a firearm on their person.

As for Austrailan gun laws, CCW is not available. Not even to off duty police.

I am against stricter gun control measures as they do nothing to prevent illegal firearms use. Gunlaws are a political measure to give the Sheeple a "feel good" that their elected masters are doing something for the common good. If the government was serious about firearm crime, they would be carrying out dawn raids on known drug dealers etc, etc.

Instead, they target licenced firearms owners because we are easy marks, and they don't have to pay overtime to the police that would otherwise be out on the street who are carrying out the said dawn raids.

So, Is Australia a safer place since the 1996 buyback?
Look in the local rag. Even police will not go into some suburbs of Sydney due to ethnic violence against them.

The perpertrators of this violence may not be using firearms, but a thrown rock or beer bottle can kill just as good as a bullet. Afterall, no matter how someone is killed they are still dead.

For Gun Control Australia to use this tragedy to again push their illogical barrow is lower than a snakes guts. It goes to show that they have little or no compassion for the victims or the families of the victims.

GCA blurt forth false information at the drop of a hat and the mainstream media soak it up like a sponge. They couldn't give a rat's arze about verifying the info. Besides, sensationalist propaganda from GCA sells papers.

As the saying goes... "never let the truth get in the way of a good story". This seems to be the catch cry of the australian media whether it be print, radio, television or web based.

I have been listening to the falseties and rhetoric from the gun control advocates since the Strathfield and Hoddle Street incidents.

Elicit drugs are illegal and banned. But how many die each year?

Go figure.

[Brown Dog]

Today's Editorial in The Australian disagrees:


see http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...6-7583,00.html

this illustrates my point exactly. People (see media) automatically piont at gun control as the solution
here is a little more from that article. Its very easy to pick holes in....

Following the Port Arthur massacre, John Howard resisted pressure from the gun lobby and the National Party and enacted tight uniform national gun laws. Under a gun buyback scheme, about 600,000 guns were surrendered at a cost of $500 million. Research by the Australian Institute of Criminology has shown this to be money well invested. Rates of homocide and armed robbery have fallen, and Australia's example has been followed by other countries including Canada and Britain.

1. their is no such thing as the "gun lobby". John howard didnt resist pressure, he ignored council from the most knowledgable organisation on firearms matters in Australia the SSAA.

2. I dont consider something a sucess if $500million dollars is spent to only achieve not even half its goal.

3. Im not a statistician....but the below graphs dont seem indicate that there has been a significant decrease in homicide or armed robbery


cheers
BD

[silentC]

What I'm suggesting is that a holder of A CCW permit should be allowed to carry a firearm on their person.

As for Austrailan gun laws, CCW is not available.

I've yet to hear anyone from the 'gun lobby' suggesting that they should be allowed to carry guns for self-defense - what other possible reason could there be for it? So what you are now saying is that it's not about sport shooting, it's about the right to carry a gun for self-defense. Maybe both sides of this debate have an agenda?

[Andy Mac]

Hi BD,
I have never been a fan of Howard's knee jerk reaction regards gun control: coming from a farm I'm quite OK about legitimate gun ownwership. I just think the whole buy-back scheme amounted to a huge waste of resources (and heirlooms) in materiel...superbly engineered and expensive 'tools' scrapped.
More to the point, I was always dubious about the outcome, in that the criminal element will aquire the guns anyway. So I recently went searching through the latest Year books put out by ABS, and I think they must have been a bit later than those you quoted, because I found a substantial drop in firearm-related crime...against what I thought would have happened . It doesn't change my opinion of Howard and many of his policies, but the buy-back has had an effect.

Cheers,

[Brown Dog]

Hi BD,
I have never been a fan of Howard's knee jerk reaction regards gun control: coming from a farm I'm quite OK about legitimate gun ownwership. I just think the whole buy-back scheme amounted to a huge waste of resources (and heirlooms) in materiel...superbly engineered and expensive 'tools' scrapped.
More to the point, I was always dubious about the outcome, in that the criminal element will aquire the guns anyway. So I recently went searching through the latest Year books put out by ABS, and I think they must have been a bit later than those you quoted, because I found a substantial drop in firearm-related crime...against what I thought would have happened . It doesn't change my opinion of Howard and many of his policies, but the buy-back has had an effect.

Cheers,

thanks Andy...

I just had a quick look at the ABS web site and you are right about the figures of firearm related crime dropping.... though these more recent stats I have seen(from ABS) lead me to ask the question.... Is the drop in gun use in crime because of the buyback or because the rate has dropped overall ?

For example as seen below 18% of attemted murders involved a firearm. That hasnt changed much from previous years before or after 1996.

I would be interested to see which stats you are refering to

In 2005, a weapon was most likely to have been used in attempted murder (72%) and murder (59%) offences. A knife was the most common type of weapon used and was involved in nearly one-third of murders (30%) and attempted murders (29%). A firearm was involved in 18% of attempted murders, 10% of murders and 5% of robberies (table 11.19).

Murders involving a weapon increased by 7% from 2004, but were 15% lower than in 2001. The proportion of weapon use for this offence was similar in 2005 compared with 2001 (59% in 2005 compared with 60% in 2001).

cheers
BD

[Daddles]

Howard's buy back was only part of the package - another part was the amnesty against illegal weapons. I don't know how many that took out of the mix, but I do know of at least one. A friend was given a .22 calibre, fully automatic combat weapon (with the styling, it could be nothing else) with a 20 round magazine. This thing had no safety so once cocked it was live. With it's snub nosed barrel, it could have only two uses - spraying a confined space (such as a bunker) and posing - I can see no reason for it to be in the community (how it got there in the first place is another and more troubling question).

You can complain about the buy back and the amnesty all you like, but it did have positive effects as well.

Richard

[glock40sw]

I've yet to hear anyone from the 'gun lobby' suggesting that they should be allowed to carry guns for self-defense - what other possible reason could there be for it? So what you are now saying is that it's not about sport shooting, it's about the right to carry a gun for self-defense. Maybe both sides of this debate have an agenda?

G'day Silent.
I was talking about CCW in the USA.
NOT in Australia.
As I stated, It is not available here.
Here It is all about Sport Shooting, Targets shooting, Hunting and Collecting.

Sorry for the confusion.

[Daddles]

The majority of murders are crimes of passion - ie, unplanned, spur of the moment things. Having a firearm readily available just makes the attempt more deadly because a firearm is more efficient at killing people than anything else, though dying from a knife wound is just as dead as dying from a gunshot.

Not having a firearm available doesn't stop the attempt. However, it could be argued that the current storage requirements make getting the thing operational provide a safety valve for those emotions.

This whole gun ownership thing is argued from extremes and that is why it won't be resolved, not on here anyway. I'm not interested in arguing extremes. I'm rather glad that the number of un-necessary weapons in this country has been reduced. As I understand it, if you need a gun, you can own one. The bureaucratic hoops you have to jump through to do so probably need revisiting.

Richard

[zenwood]

I found a substantial drop in firearm-related crime...against what I thought would have happened... the buy-back has had an effect.

Andy Mac's statistics seem to be conflicting with Brown Dog's. It would be nice to reconcile these. What seems to be needed are, say, yearly armed robbery, gun-related murder, and gun accident figures per capita of population for the 10 years prior to the buy-back, and for the years since. State-by-state and national figures would be good. This ought to be an empirical question: either there is a statistically significant difference before and after the buy-back, or there isn't.

Comments like this would seem to be uncalled for:

Gun Control Australia ... have little or no compassion for the victims or the families of the victims.

[silentC]

What seems to be needed are, say, yearly armed robbery, gun-related murder, and gun accident figures per capita of population for the 10 years prior to the buy-back, and for the years since.

The problem with that is that they mustn't be viewed in isolation. You also need to look at crime rates in general for example. Maybe as a society, we could become generally more or less law-abiding. That would also be reflected in reduced or increased gun-related crime but in a way that is not associated with gun control.

There's an article in the SMH today indicating that crime rates, including murders and armed robbery, have dropped over the last 2 years in NSW BUT the individual rates of these crimes have risen substantially in a number of Sydney suburbs: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...696889228.html

[zenwood]

I agree, silentC: it's a complex question, with many contributing factors. (As the SMH article points out, alcohol also seems to be a factor.) But there are statistical techniques for multi-variate analysis. These should at least yield some evidence to help make a judgement of the benefits of various gun policies. Gun-related crime and accident rates both per capita and as a ratio of the rates of crime in general would yield two different metrics.

Country-to-country comparisons might also shed some light, I suspect.

[silentC]

The other thing to note is that the events which usually lead to these debates are often caused by people who would probably not have any difficulty in getting hold of a firearm legally if they wanted to under current legislation. From what I know of them, they usually don't have any criminal record or history of mental health problems that would exclude them. Apart from being 'a bit weird', there's nothing that would exclude them.

So whilst in Virginia, it was perfectly legal for Cho to buy a gun and carry it without a permit as long as he didn't conceal it, although the same thing is illegal in Australia he would potentially still have been able to get a gun by going through the proper channels and would not necessarily have needed to resort to the blackmarket.

[johnc]

Gun control does seem to have a positive impact on deaths through shooting, including suicide. In the UK with tougher gun laws than ours there was 46 deaths in a population of 58 million. New York with a population of 8 million acheives a death rate of 590. Australia before the gun buyback acheived an average of 492 deaths a year and over the last seven years has averaged 247 deaths a year, not wonderful but better.

The criminal argument is a difficult one, the buy back must make it harder to get illegal weapons but plenty of crims will still get the guns they need. However on the suicide and domestic violence front there are many people alive who would not be if we had lax laws.

The commentry and research indicates that some of the gain was happening anyway, but much of the gain is a result of restricting access to firearms.

In the buyback I lost two guns and handed in a heavy calibre firearm we didn't want. The semi auto's are great for getting off a lot of rounds and bolt action are not. I am no fan of John Howard but I support his stand on guns and believe we should be a lot tougher on hand guns which don't have a place in Australian Society in my opinion. My apologies to Glock and others who may feel offended but this does not reflect on the individuals, but on the idiotic few we need to be wary of.

John