Of course, proponents of civilian disarmament won’t see it that way. It’s not that gun control doesn’t work in Australia, they’ll say, it’s just that it doesn’t work perfectly. Even if there are guns in the UK’s former prison colony, there aren’t as many guns. And that means there’s less gun crime there than here. So there is better than here. See? No Newtowns! Well, since 1996. Sigh. Setting aside differences in demographics, geography and culture, there it is folks: thousands of illegal guns in a gun-free paradise. And those are just the heaters the coppers confiscated. Surprised? Only if you’re a willfully ignorant utopian or a secret statist. I wonder how many otherwise law-abiding citizens have tooled-up down under. The need for armed self-defense doesn’t stop when the government says it does. [h/t James]
Something tells me these are coming in mostly by boat. I’m just surprised it isn’t mostly just Norinco clones. These criminals really want the good stuff and there’s nothing the government is doing to stop them. Better disarm the people to make the criminals’ lives easier.
I’ve heard apocryphal stories that during the buyback, a lot of otherwise law-abiding Australians turned in some, but not ALL, of their guns, illegally holding some back ‘just in case’.
I don’t know if there’s any truth to that, but it sounds about right.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/12/22/gun-restrictions-have-always-bred-defian
To borrow from that excellent article, there were an estimated 800,000 SKS-type rifles and an estimated 1.2 million Ruger 10/22s in Australia before the gun buyback. 643,000 guns of all types were bought back.
Regardless of how many criminals are armed with guns, I want to know Australia’s total violent crime rates long before and long after they implemented their dracronian gun control. And I want to know all violent crimes regardless of weapon.
How many citizens were victims of violent assaults? How many citizens were rape victims? How many citizens were murdered? And I want to know the demographics. Maybe the murder rate declined slightly overall since their gun control … but if the murder rate of adults over the age of 60 tripled that is a horrific result.
Follow the link to a chart that compares violent crime rates for several countries, including Australia. This was produced by the Australian Government, specifically, the Australian Institute of Criminology. Violent crime increased after the ban. Go figure…
http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/B/E/6/%7BBE6AB1F6-642D-448E-9DF4-E1F036BC02F4%7Dcfi115.pdf
Between 1995 and 2007, violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2% and robbery 6.2%. Sexual assault–Australia’s equivalent term for rape–increased 29.9%. Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2%. At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8%: rape dropped 19.2%; robbery decreased 33.2%; aggravated assault dropped 32.2%. All stats are courtesy of the Australian Bureau of Statistics and U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Here is the link to what used to be the matrix of violent crime over time in the US from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/viortrdtab.cfm
On Feb 12, 2013, the matrix was removed and the link redirected, with the following message “The Key Facts at a Glance content is being revised.” Apparently, the matrix didn’t tell the right story to support the current gun control agenda, so you now get a redirect. Don’t worry, the new, improved, stats will be available this summer.
This post seems to make the opposite point than I think you meant it to. No massacres. Sure, there are some illegal guns out there but no one is using them for anything besides maybe an illegal investment.
Except that random massacres aren’t where guns prove their true value or their true danger. Those events are vanishingly rare — and because they’re also unpredictable, they’re incredibly frightening.
The real value of guns is in their almost invisible, everyday presence. A prohibitionist society like Australia or the UK leaves the field wide open for garden-variety criminals to do their worst. Take a look at muggings, theft, armed robbery, home invasions, rape, and assault.
If you take away guns and those crimes don’t go down, then you haven’t fixed anything.
I dunno about anybody else, but I’ll accept a small increase in my already remote risk of death by gunshot in return for a huge decrease in the likelihood that my family gets victimized via rape or armed robbery.
There are more machineguns buried in peoples yards in Australia than you could even imagine (20% or less were turned in).
Off topic alert: Nice call out from World Net Daily to this blog!
http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/gun-owners-refuse-to-be-intimidated/?cat_orig=diversions
Seems like Robert and the gang are popping up above the normal blog noise and being noticed.
An Aussie friend of mine (who is anti-gun) was telling me about the demographics of Australia recently. He said that 90% of the population is just in a few cities. There’s very little rural folks because there’s just not that much arable land for which to sustain large swaths of farmland. For this reason, gun ownership was really not that high to begin with.
“No Newtowns” isn’t quite correct.
2002 – Monash University shooting, a student armed with six handguns, shot his classmates and teacher, killing two and injuring five before he was tackled.
2000 – Childers Palace Fire, Robert Long deliberately started a fire at the Childers Palace backpackers hostel that killed 15 people (he hated backpackers).
There is more to consider than the absolute number of guns or absolute number of ‘gun crimes.’
My family lives in Australia and violent crime is rampant. Street crime, break-ins, rapes – everything. My family lives in a very nice area – similar to Malibu in California – and endure burglaries every couple of years.
Remove the guns, empower the criminals. Like it or not, without a realistic means of defense, the physically weak are the prey of the criminal.
Australian gun control works exactly the way the G wanted it to work. It turned a nation of riflemen into a nation of pansies with floppy hats. Mission accomplished. G’day, mates.
90% of the guns traced came from the US. Bet on it.
Okay, it’s a safe bet. So what’s your point?
Per FBI UCR & CDC in 1991 24,700 murders, consistent % where firearms used is 67.8% =16,747 murders by illegal use of firearm, 15,383 suicides by firearms, 657 justifiable homicides, 1,463 accidental firearms deaths =34,250 deaths where firearms were used
2011 14,612 murders 67.7% used a firearm = 9,892, 591 justifiable homicides, 835 accidental deaths, 19,766 suicides = 31,084 deaths where a firearm was used.
Since 1991 to 2011, that is a reduction in…..
Totals / Rate
Violent Crime -37.04% / -49.04%
Murder -40.84% / -52.01%
Rape -21.73% / -36.59%
Robbery -48.47% / -58.31%
Aggravated Assault -31.26% /-44.36%
So explain again how all this is occurring when we added another 105 mil firearms, a 42% increase, in civilian possession since 1991?
Oh wait, in Australia, all that violence increased, darn!
Come on Mikeb, show everyone how a 42% increase in firearms should equal a 42% increase in suicides. 1991 12.2 suicide rate per 100k people increase 42% = 17.3 suicide rate per 100k people.
Uh dude, why is the suicide rate in 2010 only 11.9 per 100k people?
Men who take themselves too seriously can never get a joke. My quip was in reference to the oft-repeated and false “90% of traced guns in Mexico come from the US.” Get it?
Maybe you’re just not funny. Funny looking perhaps.
That is like the boy who cried wolf asking everyone why they can’t take a joke after the 50th time. You’re not funny, dude.
I wish I could remember the source, but I read just recently that Aussies have rearmed themselves with legally imported arms to the same levels as before the buyback. If true, MEGAfail.
No crime in a % compared to USA is much higher than here. Knife are more popular. And bad guys have guns too. Cheap 9mm Chinese pistols are the flavor I bet with gangs and mobs down under.