All;
In the last 5 days there has been a flurry of editorial in the Newspapers and on TV after the US NRA - National Rifle Association published an article attacking Australia;s Gun Laws.
Firstly, I should point out that I am both an Australian citizen and a British citizen. In England I owned a gun (registered) a twin bore Shotgun for shooting game on the land (I come from country folk) and I served in the British Army and was particularly good with both a pistol and Assault rifle. And in school growing up I was a crack shot as Captain of the Full bore Bore Shooting Team (303 Bolt action Rifle). Also when I first arrived in Australia, although I lived in the City, I had applied for a Gun licence (as in Australia there were a lot more guns around - for instance all Police , Security guards etc are all armed in Australia, even protective service officers on the trains and trams are armed), but after our Port Arthur Massacre in 1996, I supported the new laws banning guns because in Australia we couldn't live with more massacres like which we had experienced.
I should say though that I have a lot of friends in the US (both personal and business) that have licensed guns and some that carry them in public as a concealed weapon. I can tell you that I worry especially as a Transgender women travelling alone in the US especially on public transport, even on some roads and in Taxis, that I feel a lot safer when I know that my friend or colleague is armed.
Mind you I feel the opposite in Australia. Its just that the US is a much more dangerous society.
I remember once being in downtown Philadeplia for a conference and being advised to stay within a two block radius of the Hotel, and always walk in groups of 2, because if alone, one is most likely to get mugged or killed by some criminal. Another year I was advised NOT to travel on the Dan Ryan Expressway after dark, other times not to advertise I was driving an Avis Hire Car. So I would have felt safer with something to defend myself. (But only in the US).
I would love to hear peoples views
Here is what we have seen in our Australian Newspapers:
From the NRA Article
A spectre is haunting America—the spectre of gun confiscation. Seeking feel-good solutions to complex problems, an increasing number of politicians are going beyond the familiar narrative of "common-sense gun laws" and seriously discussing a tactic of seizing firearms from law-abiding citizens—leaving them helpless against the attentions of armed criminals.
Lest we think these are only the ideas of an extremist fringe far from the corridors of power, let us not forget what it means when President Barack Obama praises the restrictive gun laws passed in Australia in the wake of the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre.
"It was just so shocking—the entire country said, 'Well, we're going to completely change our gun laws,' and they did. And it hasn't happened since." Those were the words of the president when he discussed gun control with comedian Marc Maron on a special podcast appearance.
To say that this is simply a reductive or naïve portrayal of events does not go far enough; it is almost certainly disingenuous. What occurred in Australia in 1996 was not just a stricter gun law—it was a mass confiscation. To paint it as the product of a national consensus is an insult to those Australians who were furiously opposed to being disarmed by their government.
The comprehensive law that initiated the confiscation bore the Orwellian name of the 1996 National Firearms Agreement. Of course, Australians were encouraged not to acknowledge those who disagreed. Semi-automatic firearms, along with pump-action shotguns and rifles, were collected in what was euphemistically termed a "buyback." Citizens were paid for turning in their guns, indeed—but they faced jail time if they did not. There is another word for a mandatory buyback: confiscation.
An NRA News investigative report by Ginny Simone captured the raw feelings of many gun owners at the time. Two thousand Australians gathered outside Parliament, chanting "We want justice!" Collector Raymond Carn said, "It was 40 years of collecting ... I felt sick. I had to hand them in, because if I didn't I was going to jail." A retired chief inspector of police summed up the matter thusly: "It's become very, very obvious ... that the expenditure of half a billion dollars has done absolutely nothing to reduce crime." There have been many competing reports as to the immediate aftermath of the gun confiscation: While NRA reported a 69-percent increase in armed robberies, anti-gun sources glibly hailed the supposed reduction in crime that had resulted.
Facts tend to become clearer in hindsight, and there is now a growing consensus among impartial researchers that disarming Australia's citizens did not make them safer.
A 2013 Breitbart feature found gun violence becoming a huge concern. "There is no single source of gun violence," explained New South Wales police commissioner Andrew Scipione. "Guns have fallen into the hands of organized crime, outlaw motorcycle gangs, mid-level crime groups and petty thieves, and the lines are often blurred." Unsurprisingly, the criminals are still armed.
The Australian government destroyed anywhere from 600,000 to a million firearms. Those guns that were still granted legal toleration had to be stored locked and unloaded, meaning that they would be of limited use in the case of a home invasion. The Australian people paid a massive price in liberty. Their reward? At best, an unexamined resolution that things were somehow better now. For those who became victims, or who simply examined the situation with open eyes, it was rather clear that they were not.
Gun rights were, for all practical purposes, gone forever. As one interviewee in Ginny Simone's special noted, "We don't have a chance in hell of getting those rights back."
This is the gun-control regime that our president applauds for its decisive resolve. It robbed Australians of their right to self-defense and empowered criminals, all without delivering the promised reduction in violent crime. Australia's gun confiscation is indeed a lesson to America: It is a sign of what is to come if we hold our rights lightly.
Another article in the one of the Main Australian Newspapers:
After the tragedy, which saw 35 people murdered and 23 wounded, the Australian government introduced the National Firearms Agreement. Most people haven't looked back since.
It banned certain semiautomatic and self-loading rifles and shotguns while introducing a strict national system of licensing laws and a "buyback" scheme for those handing over their weapons — a scheme which saw the government destroy more than 600,000 weapons.
"What occurred in Australia in 1996 was not just a stricter gun law—it was a mass confiscation. To paint it as the product of a national consensus is an insult to those Australians who were furiously opposed to being disarmed by their government," the NRA article stated.
Australian gun control laws are often used as a reference point by American politicians following yet another massacre. While, the NRA and pro-gun groups use the laws to illustrate extreme government control.
Discussing a shooting at a church in Charleston, where nine people were killed in June, President Barack Obama told comedian Marc Maron on June 22 that the U.S. should follow Australia's lead when it came to tighter gun control.
"The truth of the matter is, this doesn't happen with this kind of frequency in other countries," Obama said. "When Australia had a mass killing, in Tasmania about 25 years ago, it was just so shocking to the system, the entire country said, 'Well, we're going to completely change our gun laws,' and they did. And it hasn't happened since."
He added, "I don't foresee any legislative action being taken in this congress, and I don't foresee any real action happening until the American public say to themselves: 'This is not normal, this is something that we can change and we are going to change it.'"
The NRA pounced on that statement by the president. It called the government's tactics "feel-good solutions to complex problems" that would leave citizens "helpless against the attentions of armed criminals," and warned of implementing "restrictive" gun laws like Australia.
The recent NRA article reinforces its claims that Australian gun laws have not worked by linking to a story on the Sydney Morning Herald from 2005, which quotes the New South Wales Director of the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn. "There is now a growing consensus among impartial researchers that disarming Australia's citizens did not make them safer," the article reads with a link to the Herald's article stating the gun buyback did not reduce armed robberies and abductions.
Unfortunately for the NRA, Weatherburn told Mashable Australia the NRA has taken his quotes totally out of context.
He confirmed, yes, there is no proof the gun buyback reduced the armed robbery rate, but that was not its purpose.
"The evidence on whether the buyback reduced gun suicide is incontrovertible, it did reduce gun suicide," he said. "The evidence on gun homicide is mixed — some studies say it did have an effect, others claim it didn't. No one knows how many guns and gun owners there were before the buyback, and that is a big problem for evaluation."
Weatherburn added, "The thing the NRA keeps ignoring is that even if the gun buyback had no effect at all,
the fact remains that countries with higher level of gun ownership have higher numbers of gun homicides.
Just do what Obama and everyone has been trying to do: Limit access to highly lethal guns. And if you want a gun of any other type, you have to have it registered."
He also opines that if governments put restrictions on gun ownership and purchasing, communities are less likely to have teenagers receiving guns as presents, or risk someone buying a gun because they are angry.
"People are always looking for miracle cures, but I don't think anyone with a brain doubts that reducing people with guns in America would reduce the homicide rate," Weatherburn said, pointing the Australia's reduction of firearms in general as the cause for reduction of murders.
The NRA is just not buying it. "This is the gun-control regime that our president applauds for its decisive resolve. It robbed Australians of their right to self-defense and empowered criminals, all without delivering the promised reduction in violent crime."
This statement is contrary to Australian statistics. All gun deaths in Australia have seen a decline during the last three decades, according to research by the University of Sydney.
In 1996, 516 people were killed by guns compared to 226 people in 2012, while gun homicides in Australia have remained below 50 victims annually during the past decade.
Suicides with a firearm have also been reduced in the last decade, with figures at approximately half the amount seen in the '90s.
Public health research by Professor Simon Chapman has since found that while the rate of gun-related homicide was reducing by 3 per cent a year before the new laws, the pace of the decrease accelerated to 7 per cent a year afterwards.
The US now has a gun homicide rate 370 times that of Australia's, Mr Chapman writes.
These figures back up the point Weatherburn is trying to make: with less guns in society, it is a safe bet that less gun deaths will occur.
The gist of the article suggests that not only has gun control failed miserably in Australia, but there is also a "growing consensus" among "impartial researchers" that suggests gun control has not made anyone safer.
Now, let's point out for a second here that this growing consensus is cited in the article via two sources, one of which is a Sydney Morning Herald article published in 2005 bemoaning the level of handgun violence amongst organised crime, which the NRA fails to mention was followed in 2006 by a significant drop off in recorded instances of handgun crime
The NRA article labels the Howard Government's "buyback" scheme as "mass gun confiscation," which they suggest leaves "law-abiding citizens... helpless against the attentions of armed criminals."
"The comprehensive law that initiated the confiscation bore the Orwellian name of the 1996 National Firearms Agreement. Of course, Australians were encouraged not to acknowledge those who disagreed."
"An NRA News investigative report by Ginny Simone captured the raw feelings of many gun owners at the time. Two thousand Australians gathered outside Parliament, chanting 'We want justice!'"
TWO THOUSAND, you guys!
The article also cites its own investigating into Australian crime, self-reporting a 69 percent increase in armed robberies following the implementation of the laws - although this point straight-up fails to cite any source other than themselves. They also quote an unnamed "retired police chief" who states that the expenditure of half a billion dollars had done nothing to reduce crime. Again, following the reductive pro-gun line of thought that suggests if we can't erase crime altogether then it's pointless to legislate against firearms.
"The Australian people paid a massive price in liberty. Their reward? At best, an unexamined resolution that things were somehow better now. It robbed Australians of their right to self-defense and empowered criminals, all without delivering the promised reduction in violent crime."
Alrighty. Let's look at the scoreboard.
In terms of mass murders involving guns and shootings - which,for the purposes of this experiment we're referring to as any incident in which 2 or more people were killed by a single rampage shooter - since the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996 there have been only two such occurrences in Australia; one in 2002 at Monash University, and one in 2011 during the Hectorville Siege.
By contrast, during the same time period, there have been FIFTY incidents of mass murder by shooting in the United States. 38 of these were perpetrated with weapons obtained through legal means (like the hunting counter at a Wal Mart, which is some truly confronting rubbish if you've ever seen one), and eight resulted in ten or more deaths.
Not enough? Let's keep going.
The United States has a population around 14 times that of Australia's. But in 2013, the US experienced 11,208 (reported) gun related homicides, compared to Australia's 40.
In the same year, the amount of justifiable gun homicides in America came in at 681. In Australia? FOUR.Gun suicides for that year in the US totalled 21,175. In Australia, it was just 173.
In fact, the number of firearms in total in the United States rates at somewhere around 310,000,000, compared to Australia's 3,050,000. Which means that for every 100 people in the United States, there are around 101.05 guns, whereas in Australia that stat is around 14 per 100 people.
