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Gun Control for Dummies

by Whaleoil on January 18, 2013

This is what actually happens with gun control laws:

photo-1

 

Meanwhile John Howard has spoken about Australia’s handling of gun control and misses the point completely as does anyone else who equate Australia with the USA: 

“Almost 700,000 guns were bought back and destroyed – the equivalent of 40 million guns in the United States.”

The ready availability of high-powered weapons, which enabled people to convert “murderous impulses into mass killing”, was the fundamental problem, Mr Howard said.

“Certainly, shortcomings in treating mental illness and the harmful influence of violent video games and movies may have played a role,” he wrote.

“But nothing trumps easy access to a gun.

“It is easier to kill 10 people with a gun than with a knife.”

Whilst that maybe true the criminals in Australia certainly never gave up their guns.

“And today, there is a wide consensus that our 1996 reforms not only reduced the gun-related homicide rate, but also the suicide rate,” he said.

“The Australian Institute of Criminology found that gun-related murders and suicides fell sharply after 1996.”

John Howard misleads. There is much contention over such findings and the AIC report he speaks of was written in 1997. The suicide claims are an outright deception on the part of John Howard.

Some researchers have found a significant change in the rate of firearm suicides after the legislative changes. For example, Ozanne-Smith et al. (2004) in the journal Injury Prevention found a reduction in firearm suicides in Victoria, however this study did not consider non-firearm suicide rates. Others have argued that alternative methods of suicide have been substituted. De Leo, Dwyer, Firman & Neulinger, studied suicide methods in men from 1979 to 1998 and found a rise in hanging suicides that started slightly before the fall in gun suicides. As hanging suicides rose at about the same rate as gun suicides fell, it is possible that there was some substitution of suicide methods. It has been noted that drawing strong conclusions about possible impacts of gun laws on suicides is challenging, because a number of suicide prevention programs were implemented from the mid-1990s onwards, and non-firearm suicides also began falling.

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  • Mark

    But that’s a shotgun and Obama isn’t proposing that shotguns be banned.

  • unpcnzcougar

    I was watching an old episode of West Wing last night and the stats quoted were that 7 countries like UK, Sweden etc. who had gun control laws and that combined population equalled the U.S. had 180 gun related homicides compared to the U.S.’s 16,000. Also people forget that the 2nd amendment actually says “the right to bear a arm” not the right to bear arms as is frequently bandied about. They certainly at the time would not have been thinking of the range of assault weapons readily available today.

    • Shoreboy57

      Yup, nothing in the constitution about “the right to bear semi-automatic military weapons”

      • Chris

        In that case, freedom of speech only applies to parchment. Moron.

        • Shoreboy57

          Clearly in your case it should

    • John White

      Bullshit “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” I think that implies plural. It should also be remembered that it is well documented that at this time private people were allowed to own canons to defend themselves. So I do not think so called assault weapons would have been an issue.

      • unpcnzcougar

        Yes you are correct, I just checked. Being sanctimonious with the canons is a wee bit of a stretch. Just check the stats on homicides with firearms versus other countries with strict gun controls – then convince me that there is no correlation.

        • John White

          my comment about the cannon (not canon as I typed earlier) was to show that at the time the 2nd amendment was adopted that quite heavy weaponry was in the hands of private individuals. So therefore the type of weapon at the time of the 2nd amendment would easily have included ‘Assault’ weapons if they had existed then.

          With regards to gun homicides I do not believe it is the availability of the weapons that is the problem, as societies with high gun levels, such as Switzerland and Israel, do not have high gun homicides. Countries such as Mexico that quite restrictive gun controls have even higher death rates from guns than the US.

          The concentration on ‘Assault’ weapons is just a blind. What is an assault weapon? How many people on average are killed with ‘Assault Weapons? How many people people are killed with Hand guns? What is the difference between an ‘Assault’ weapon and a Hand Gun?

  • LabTested

    Just reading in the economist magazine that the murder rate in Bogata Colombia has fallen to a 27year low following the ban of guns in public places. Bogata homicide rate is now lower than Chicago.

    • John White

      And what are the gun control laws in Illinois/Chicago?

  • Shoreboy57

    May as well let the NRA run the USofA. Oh that’s right they already do

  • Meg

    And that is a fantastic example of the outright LIES that the gun nuts are putting out there.

    NO ONE is suggesting ALL guns are to be taken off US citizens. Only sensible gun control laws that remove military style weapons, that allow background checks on people buying a gun.

    And as for the attacks that idiots like the NRA and Rush Limbaugh are carrying out on children – even Chris Christie is denouncing them.

    Obama is not going to take your guns you wack jobs. He is just looking to TRY and do something about children being murdered. Unlike you.

    • Jester

      You’ll find that in NZ there is more chance of falling victim to a teachers up skirt video than a Columbine style shooting.

      You need to stick to your knitting Meg.

      • Meg

        We are talking about the current gun debate in the US, not right wing lies about education and teachers.

    • stinkeye3

      I recall something similar happening in Germany in the 1930′s, guns being confiscated “Because they are dangerous”

    • Mark

      I normally find you insane Meg but I agree with you this time. The gun lobby is putting up a straw man argument about “Obama’s gonna take my guns”. I can’t think of any reason why anyone citizen needs an AR-15. The “tyranny of government” argument by Alex Jones and other NRA people does not stack up when such guns are not allowed in Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand (i.e. Anglo-Saxon/Celtic majority countries) and there is no tyranny there. The exception in Germany in 1933 was only due to the fact that Germans are scientifically proven to be humourless anti-Semitic idiots.

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