Yes....Let's Be Like Australia

[gthaustex]

Another anti-gun news bit, claiming that if the US would just follow Australia's lead in banning guns, everything would be better. Foreign politicians sticking their nose in other people's business.

But the gun reforms made Australia a safer place, with fewer homicides and suicides, and both Howard and Fischer are now urging U.S. President Barack Obama to take his gun control campaign to the people, just as they did, to gain a consensus.

"I knew that I had to use the authority of my office to curb the possession and use of the type of weapons that killed 35 innocent people. I also knew it wouldn't be easy," Howard wrote in the New York Times earlier this year.

"Penalizing decent, law-abiding citizens because of the criminal behavior of others seemed unfair...I understood their misgivings. Yet I felt there was no alternative," wrote Howard, adding he hoped his example would contribute constructively to the U.S. gun debate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/ ... C720130403

Let's see. What did they not take into account? -

Different demographics
Much smaller population
Essentially an island nation with most people isolated to the coasts
Fewer gang issues
No 2nd Amendment

I'm sure I missed quite a few in the above list generated off the top of my head. They are comparing apples to oranges in my opinion. The above article has been picked up by various US news outlets already, eager to trumpet the news.

Other sources say that gun control / buybacks in Australia resulted in a statistically insignificant drop in homicides and a drop in suicides.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... australia/

Similar findings published in the Chicago Tribune of all places:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013 ... gun-deaths

[Topbuilder]

"Penalizing decent, law-abiding citizens because of the criminal behavior of others seemed unfair"

Sums it up for me.

[baldeagle]

It doesn't seem unfair. It is unfair. And here in America it's unconstitutional. As for the effectiveness of the measure, homicides are down 9% but aggravated assault is up 40% and sexual assaults are up 20%. Source. Worse yet, "for both assault and sexual assault the rate of increase was greater for children aged under 15 years, with increases almost double that of the older age group."

This isn't rocket science. When you abolish the death penalty and you disarm law abiding citizens, criminals have nothing to fear any more. They're free to rape and pillage as they please without fear of dying. And abusive parents have no fear of severe punishment when they beat their children.

This is what liberals call civilized.

[philip964]

Yep your source was the government of Australia and in their words an increase of 40 percent. Criminals are in the learning phase. Wait till they figure out the elderly are pretty much defenseless in their homes.

[sdmahoney]

From the Australian Institute of Criminology:

The public's perception is that violence is increasing, but trends in violent crime reported to police since the early 1990s reveal a mixed story. Homicide has decreased by nine percent since 1990 and armed robbery by one-third since 2001, but recorded assaults and sexual assaults have both increased steadily in the past 10 years by over 40 percent and 20 percent respectively.


Quite disingenuous to claim it is a safer place.

[RPB]

Gold Coast gun licences surge
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensl ... 1i24s.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[karder]

Australia and the U.S. are apples and oranges. Australia, being as isolated and water locked as it is, doesn't have the booming drug trade that the U.S. does. Politicians seem to forget that a very significant amount of gun crime in our country is directly tied to gangs and drugs which makes the gun control arguments and comparisons silly. The maniac with the AR-15 shooting up movie theaters and schools is an extraordinarily rare event. The lion's share of gun deaths here are tied to the drug industry. The young Chicago "children who are senselessly being gunned down" are very often gang members battling over territory for drug sales and distribution. For some reason the liberals don't believe that these criminals will be able to get guns from the same place they acquire the drugs they sell and will stop shooting each other if we can get enough legislation passed. I struggle to believe that people are this willfully ignorant, but that sure seems to be the case.