The truth about Australia’s gun control experiment

[priell3]

The truth about Australia’s gun control experiment

Australians pride themselves on ‘telling it like it is’, but when it comes to gun laws, straight-shooting often takes a back seat to a determined effort at silencing debate.

In 1996, Australia passed some of the most restrictive gun laws in the western world. They included bans on self-loading rifles and self-loading and pump-action shotguns, universal gun registration and a taxpayer funded gun confiscation program costing over half a billion dollars. The ongoing costs of running the firearms registration systems are unknown but have been estimated at around $28 million per year, or $75,000 per day. That’s more than what the average Australian earns in a year.

For that price tag, any accountable democracy should expect to have a decent debate about its efficacy. But in Australia, debate about guns has been all but silenced. Anti-gun zealots, within and outside the halls of parliament, smugly try to convince the rest of the world that Australia’s model of firearms management has been a resounding success. “We saved lives!” they claim. “We stopped mass shootings!” they say.

To satisfy their conceit, they manipulate statistics to suit themselves and pretend that ‘the science is settled’. This is an outright lie. When you look at the real facts, it becomes very obvious that the Australian experiment with gun control is nowhere near as clear-cut as the gun prohibition lobby wants the world to believe.

There is a growing body of peer-reviewed research into the impacts of Australia’s 1996 gun laws. Some of it comes from anti-gun groups, some from pro-gun groups, and some from groups which have no personal connections to firearms one way or the other.

Using a range of different statistical methods and time periods, not a single one of these studies – not even the ones conducted by anti-gun affiliated researchers – has found a significant impact of the legislative changes on the pre-existing downward trend in firearm homicide. Firearm homicides were decreasing well before the laws were implemented, and the decline simply continued after the legislative changes.

This decline in Australia is not unique or unusual. At least two other Commonwealth countries (Canada and New Zealand) experienced similar or greater declines in deaths over the same time, even though those countries have far less restrictive gun laws than Australia.

The relationship between Australia’s gun laws and suicides is uncertain. Again, deaths were declining well before the legislative changes. Some studies find that the downward trend accelerated after the 1996 gun laws, while others find impacts only among certain age groups. Some research finds little evidence for any change, others show displacement from firearms to other methods (such as hanging).

Anti-gun lobbyists cherry-pick the statistics that suit them and ignore studies that do not fall into line with the story they desperately want to tell.

The fairytale they prefer is that the gun laws have ‘saved 200 lives a year’, a claim based on laughably poor statistical modelling which produced estimates so ridiculous that they have been dismissed by Harvard researchers as ‘stretching credulity’. The scientific reality is there is no consensus whatsoever about firearm laws and suicide in Australia.

A claim you will often hear is that there have been no mass shootings since 1996, from which anti-gun lobbyists conclude that Australia’s gun laws have stopped mass shootings. But this is a half-truth. The full truth is that Australia’s close neighbour New Zealand – a country very similar to Australia in history, culture, and economic trends – has experienced an almost identical time period with no mass shooting events despite the ongoing widespread availability of the types of firearms Australia banned.

The absence of mass shootings in New Zealand despite having semi- automatic firearms does not seem to be a product of any pre-existing differences between the two countries. Studies taking into account the different numbers of people have found that mass shootings before 1996/1997 occurred at a comparable rate between countries. The inescapable conclusion is that something other than gun laws is likely to be driving the merciful absence of mass shooting events in both countries.

And yet, despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary, the anti-gun lobby continues to promote untruths, unchallenged. Notwithstanding the massive price tag attached to Australia’s gun laws, proper debate is still not taking place. Despite the fact that other policies may be far more effective at saving lives, dissenting views about the gun laws are ridiculed and shrilly shouted down. Yes, the rest of the world can indeed learn a lesson from Australia’s gun control experiment. But that lesson is really not about gun laws. It is about the dangers of allowing lobbyists, politicians and the media to prevent a rational debate.

http://davidleyonhjelm.com.au/the-tr...ol-experiment/

[coppery]

well, ya.

they will never admit to their fallacy. they will always let feelings control the argument, and they will only focus on the GUN. instead of funding productive legislation to help find ways to better a community to not incentivise crime, they will just find ways to help make a smarter and more dangerous criminal.

if gun control ever worked as well as they thought to prevent crime, then murder would never be an issue ever since it was made illegal.

hoplophobia is a serious condition which can't be treated effectively enough to sway opinions enough, and is very contagious and there is a limited time in which a newly infected individual can be saved.

[ungawa]

That article is complete nonsense. And Australia has had several mass shootings since 1996, and additional mass murders. They like fire.

[Gun]

That article is complete nonsense. And Australia has had several mass shootings since 1996, and additional mass murders. They like fire.

It was the mass shooting in 1996, 35 killed, 24 injured, that caused the ban to be put in place. Most of the other shootings were less than ten, before 1996 and after 1996. Mass murders more than this amount were attributed to arson, or putting bodies in barrels. 1987 was the worst year, which had 4 mass shootings, with a total of 25 deaths.

The author is a liberal democratic senator. Here is a look at his view on matters concerning government.

From my address to the National Press Club, 24 June 2015

“The policies of the Liberal Democrats are based on classical liberalism, which owes its origins to the Scottish Enlightenment. Every time a meddling government makes a bad decision, takes our money, wastes it, and interferes in our lives, we are proven right. In other words, every day of the week.

Here we are in 2015 and the government still wants to know if you have the right combination of genitals before it will allow you to press them together in holy matrimony. It disapproves of adult smoking so much it is attempting to tax it out of existence, while a black market springs up under its nose. It will soon have all your phone and internet data collected in a convenient place so both it and hackers can snoop on you more easily. Then make you pay for the privilege.

Our way of thinking is new to people who have not yet figured out that the divisions between left and right are irrational and arbitrary. If I talk about letting people decide for themselves whether to smoke tobacco, people think I am a right wing nutter. But if I say the same about marijuana, I am a left wing loony. If I suggest we let gay and lesbian people do what they want, I am a leftie, but if I support 4WDers, fishers and hunters, I am a conservative.

When you understand that issues like these are not of the left or right, but about the relationship between individuals and the state, you will understand us.”

http://davidleyonhjelm.com.au/classical-liberalism-101/

[ungawa]

The author's intentions don't matter to me. Nonsense is nonsense. You just confirmed what I said. There is no confusing ambiguity about violence and murder in Australia, the guy just simply didn't do his homework and has his facts wrong.

[Gun]

The author's intentions don't matter to me. Nonsense is nonsense. You just confirmed what I said. There is no confusing ambiguity about violence and murder in Australia, the guy just simply didn't do his homework and has his facts wrong.

I think you missed the intention of his article, or what I posted.

The cost of doing something so ridiculous really didn't have an impact on mass shootings (less than ten) occurring, when considering the rate at which they were occurring.

[phillyd2]

The major point so many miss is that the 2A has ZERO to do with crime so even IF shootings and crime decreased by these bans we should still support the 2A. A evil person outfitted with the right rifle, enough ammo and a bit of training and planning can indeed kill a few hundred innocents. Horrible to be sure. But it’s still a danger that we MUST be willing to accept because only the State has the power to kill tens of millions of unarmed citizens.

Any who continues to engage in this debate of crime / shooting rates is actually a foolish tool of those who want to disarm the population by accepting their false narrative.

[Mitch10mm]

The major point so many miss is that the 2A has ZERO to do with crime so even IF shootings and crime decreased by these bans we should still support the 2A. A evil person outfitted with the right rifle, enough ammo and a bit of training and planning can indeed kill a few hundred innocents. Horrible to be sure. But it’s still a danger that we MUST be willing to accept because only the State has the power to kill tens of millions of unarmed citizens.

Any who continues to engage in this debate of crime / shooting rates is actually a foolish tool of those who want to disarm the population by accepting their false narrative.

This. I tell people their statistics don't concern me. We have a 2A. I ask how they will defend against a nut with a gun

[Pilot321]

The major point so many miss is that the 2A has ZERO to do with crime so even IF shootings and crime decreased by these bans we should still support the 2A. A evil person outfitted with the right rifle, enough ammo and a bit of training and planning can indeed kill a few hundred innocents. Horrible to be sure. But it’s still a danger that we MUST be willing to accept because only the State has the power to kill tens of millions of unarmed citizens.

Any who continues to engage in this debate of crime / shooting rates is actually a foolish tool of those who want to disarm the population by accepting their false narrative.

^^^^^This. Spot on. It's about fighting a tyrannical government, foreign, or domestic, and defending yourself. It has nothing to do with crime rates.

[ungawa]

I think you missed the intention of his article, or what I posted.

The cost of doing something so ridiculous really didn't have an impact on mass shootings (less than ten) occurring, when considering the rate at which they were occurring.

How many times do I have to say this. The intention does not matter, the article was nonsense, his facts were wrong, and he apparently did no research.

If HuhWhat comes back tomorrow and posts, "Guns are good! They do more harm than good. But nobody knows for sure," do you think I'm going to be quoting that all over the internet and defending him? No, because he didn't put any effort in or make any point through lines of evidence. And he got his facts wrong.