The more I talk with people about guns (especially those on the left), the more I am accused of supporting extreme points of view simply because I a pro-gun rights. My stance is quite simple. It is a right just like the freedom of speech. (Washington DC v. Heller) I defend it just as I do the freedom of speech or religion. Gun control has failed to stop crime because it doesn't address the cause of the problem which is the lack of value for human life. People don't kill because it is perceived to be easy. I should also mention that "Assault rifle" is clearly defined by the military as a fully automatic rifle which has been banned in the United States since 1968. This means when the trigger is pulled the gun will fire until the magazine is empty. The extreme left use this as a vague term to mean anything that looks scary. In fact, no two people have given the same definition. (Despite being attacked for asking them to define the term) I will address this more in a later post.
The latest propaganda is from the NY Times expressing what a success Australia's voluntary 1996 buy back program was which was really a failure that even anti-gun groups in Australia despise.
There's articles like this one which is hypocritical and a perfect example of the line of thinking the anti-gun crowds have. It cherry picks crimes that only deal with guns and ignores everything else. The weapon or method doesn't matter because murder and violence are still bad regardless if they crime was performed with a gun or not.
It specifically says
that firearm suicides have fallen as a result of the ban which is the specific type of "correlation is causation" argument they accuse the NRA of. I will address this claim later in more detail.
Their
next claim is that homicide rates are different between the two
countries but it doesn't show how banning guns turned Australia from a
"wild west" shoot out to a peaceful utopia. Not only do they fail to show any such trend in Australia, but they fail to show the actual cause for the difference in rates which could be any factor in
the USA like a failed drug policy, lack of education, lack of
healthcare, or too much religion.
The last statistic they mention is a quote from the Wall Street Journal [10] about how the trend of sexual assaults and violent crimes has gone up. The Wall Street Journal never claimed the gun laws caused any trend. In fact, they state the opposite that strict gun laws have not made people safer which is the claim made by those pushing for such laws. They counter by talking about the types of weapons used as if that was relevant when talking about overall trends. They are attacking the Wall Street Journal for a claim they didn't make.
Their last discussion is since gun laws have had no impact then that doesn't
mean gun control fails. Actually it does. If you can't claim the gun laws have caused Australia's upward violent crime trend then you also can't
claim the opposite somewhere else. We have plenty of information about gun control in the United States that show gun laws have no measurable impact on crime. [7] This level of cognitive dissidence is what makes having an honest discussion impossible.
Obviously the two countries are nothing alike. Australia has never had a "right to bear arms" like the United States and most Australian states have had restrictive gun laws since the 1930s. (Although some restrictions were relaxed so they could compete in the Olympics.) Since the late 80's most citizens had to first obtain a license to own a firearm.
Australia buyback scheme in 1996 was a complete failure as a method to prevent crime. It was implemented as a knee jerk reaction to a mass shooting and intended to remove guns from the population. The issue was that law required compensation for property taken by the government. It was completely voluntary and only about 25% of the gun owners participated with a price tag of 21 Million [1]. It was not a ban as some would have you think and this was despite the fact the killer in Port Arthur said bought his guns illegally without a permit. [3] New restrictions won't stop killings which seems to be the goal. This doesn't mean laws are worthless. Laws are meant to deter and punish bad behavior, not stop it. If laws were effective at deterring crime then there would be no murders or drug trade anywhere.
The buy back in 1996 was for specifically for semi-automatic rifles which in the United States would include many rifles used for hunting and not scary "Assault Rifles". The left's vague definition of "Assault rifle" accounted for about 3% of the rifles. The majority were simple .22 LR rifles. [2] The buy back also didn't stop the incident in 2002 where a two students were shot.
The 2002 incident also lead to more restrictions on hand guns. This is where the "slippery slope" argument could be made. The failure of the 1996 scheme to prevent crime was not seen as a failure of that policy but that more restrictions were needed. This implies either that only crimes committed with guns are bad or people only commit crimes because guns are available.
The reason why this becomes a "slippery slope" is quite simple. The new restrictions always target the type of weapon used. If someone uses a rifle then rifles will be banned. Then if someone uses a handgun then handguns will be banned. Then if shotguns are used, they will be banned. The target of the restrictions changes depending on what the current scape goat is.
I'm sure the next assertion by the left is that the gun law changes some how made Australia safer. This simply isn't the case either. Australia has never had a major violent crime problem and homicides have been in decline for decades prior to 1996.
Five years after the ban, a policy analysis found that violent crime in Australia has gone up over 40% [4]. Later research has found that gun ownership has increased in some states and the gun restrictions have had no impact on crime rates. [5] Some claim that suicides (by gun) have dropped as a result but they didn't look at other methods of suicide in those studies. At best, the suicide rate was not impacted by the laws in 1996 even though suicides increased in 1997. [6] [11]
I do not claim that more guns would mean less crime although some studies have shown exactly that effect. [8] The fact is that gun control has failed to produce any measurable result on crime in the past. Guns are the favorite scape goat when bad things happen. [9] We should stop wasting time on failed policies and look for the real cause of the violence.
In my opinion, improving healthcare and fixing the failed drug policies.
Source:
1. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/31/1075340889254.html
2. http://www.anao.gov.au/uploads/documents/1997-98_Audit_Report_25.pdf
3. http://loveforlife.com.au/content/07/10/30/transcript-police-interview-martin-bryant
4. http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847
5. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/gun-laws-fall
6. http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf
7. http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL32842_20121114.pdf
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Guns,_Less_Crime
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bias_Against_Guns
10. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323777204578195470446855466.html
11. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/a61b65ae88ebf976ca256def00724cde
(Revision 3)
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