Gun control advocates love to point to Australia as a model for why gun control — or more accurately gun confiscation, which is really their end goal — will work in the United States. The Aussies took away a lot of the guns, goes the refrain, and they achieved positive results. We should do the same!
Hogwash.
While we have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, a right few other nations enjoy, the reality is that what “worked” somewhere else (or rather deprived those people of the means to defend themselves) won’t necessarily work here. Correlation is most certainly not causation and even a cursory examination of a few additional metrics for context indicates that Australian-style gun control would fail in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
For starters, homicides (including those by firearm) have declined in Australia following the gun buybacks and restrictions passed after the Port Arthur Massacre. However, according to data from Australia’s Institute of Criminology (their Bureau of Justice Statistics) both overall homicides and homicides by firearm were already starting to decline by the late 1980s and early 1990s.
As of 2013/2014, Australia’s homicide rate was roughly one per 100,000 residents, according to The Guardian. In 1989, the rate was 1.9 per 100,000.
A Mises.org report using FBI data, the homicide rate in the United States in 1991 was just under 10 per 100,000 residents. By 2104, it had been cut in half, falling to 4.5 per 100,000 residents.
And that homicide rate decline occurred at the same time the umber of civilian owned firearms in the US increased dramatically. In other words, far fewer people are being killed by guns today than they were 30 years ago despite more far guns in circulation.
What effect did the Australian gun control law have? It arguably had some, but how much is impossible to determine to a certainty. However, the homicide rate in the United States fell at about the the same rate over the same period despite far looser restrictions on owning and carrying firearms. Not only that, but all violent crime in the developed world has been falling since the early 1990s, according to The Economist.
There may simply be more violent crime in the United States than elsewhere in the developed world. Violence, like any issue afflicting a society, has many unique causes. Why the US should have more violent crime than other industrialized nations is difficult to determine. When compared to anywhere else in, say, the G20 nations, our violent crime rate is several times that of most other countries.
While stricter gun control measures might, at least on paper, reduce mass shootings, that doesn’t necessarily mean overall violent crime or even homicides would be reduced at all. Note that the murder rate in the United Kingdom has risen since their handgun ban was implemented in 1997.
So, it would appear that while the great Australian gun grab may have had some sort of positive effect, there were many other factors at work as well. It would seem that the US doesn’t have a gun problem, we may just have a violence problem, one that isn’t going to be solved by confiscating Americans’ firearms. Merely adopting other countries’ laws and forsaking our Second Amendment freedoms isn’t a solution.
Sam Hoober is a contributing editor at Alien Gear Holsters and Bigfoot Gun Belts. He also contributes regularly to Ammoland, Daily Caller and USA Carry.
Also, most gun owners wouldn’t comply. See: NY, CA, CT.
And while actual confiscation is a no-go, inter-generational banning (I.e., your guns are grandfathered for now, but they have to be surrendered after your death) would sort-of work over time. Make very public examples of a few and most would comply or bury.
Just my $0.02.
How in the world are we supposed to advance gun rights when we can’t even agree on national reciprocity?
The democrats are against the reciprocity law. If the democrats could use the law to infringe on our rights, then why are they opposing it? My thoughts are that they aren’t able to finagle it in their favor. So pass it. If it turns out to be the wrong move, then ignore the law, just like you’re morally obligated to.
The biggest thing to me is the “developed nation” thing is a sham when comparing homicides. The reason for this is crime is part of the criteria used to determine if a nation is developed. That means that we are ultimately being fed comparisons on crime in a group of nations that are selected based on being low in crime.
I mean shit, wouldn’t Chicago or other big cities love it if they could generate their crime statistics based on the low crime parts of the city?
Hoober’s point is moot. We have seen that compliance with some states’ new firearm ownership criminalization efforts has been hearteningly low. It is reasonable to assume that any national laws of a similar nature would also be obeyed by a very few. The government’s supply of JBTs needed to force compliance is rather limited and I would expect the attrition rate among them would be so high that such confiscation efforts would grind to a rapid and bloody halt.
Sam,
As a Kiwi who moved to Australia in 1996 during the ban then on to the US (I’m now a US citizen) I can tell the real reason why Australian style Gun control wouldn’t work in America……… In both New Zealand and Australia you do not have a lawful right to self defense. If you were to put Self Defense on a firearms license application you would be denied that application and blacklisted for life. You can use no force that causes grievous bodily harm or death in your defense or the defense of another.
Owning firearms in both New Zealand and Australia has always been about hunting or sport, here in the US hunting and sport are simply by-products of firearms ownership.
Oh my gawd, Ross is from Australi, and he’s got guns……..RUNNN./ sarc
There are two things I have never understood about UK affiliated countries: Their determination to have undamaged criminals, and why more of those criminals aren’t found in a shallow grave some years after inexplicably ceasing their criminal carriers (S, S, & S). The other problem with not allowing people to defend themselves is if the criminal surrenders after having been shot or bludgeoned. The innocent victim is then placed in the position of deciding to surrender themselves to the authorities, leaving their loved ones to the mercy of proven criminals and their families, or finishing the job and dumping the body. Not a happy choice.
as an aussie i agree heartilly and if it came to that for me i would dissapear. fuck society i am over it anyway. go bush deep in a national park (we have plenty that are big enough) and dissapear
Also have to look at who is doing the crimes…and where…
young blacks…and larger cities…seem to correlate well with crime numbers…but it COULD just be a coincidence
do other developed nations have the slave descendant population we have in the USA?
How about education? Health care?
Imagine if we did not have abortion…60M+ more people or more here…many unwanted in the first place…
imagine all the crimes they would be committing
Man, your on that Black thing pretty hard. Yeh crime stats an what not, it’s not skin color it’s environment. As poverty increases you’ll see the same from whites eventually, it’s already happening.,
My dog is 5.5 now and I can’t even get her to touch a gun much less shoot one. Or did you mean my pecker? It doesn’t shoot either. It sucks being me.
Did not watch the video but I’ll take a stab at it….
1. Colt Peacemaker
2. Winchester Lever Action in some weird caliber.
3. Double Barrel Shotgun. in 8 ga.
4. Derrenger
5. Gatling Gun
My oldest daughter has expressed an interest in my guns. I told her that I’d take her shooting when she was intelligent enough to memorize the rules of gun safety. That happened when she turned four. I borrowed my father’s Cricket and she did horribly with it. I kept a hand on the gun at all times.
Now I tell her that when I feel she is mature enough to respect the power of a firearm that I’ll buy her one that’s all hers. Maybe that’ll happen by the time she’s five, maybe eight, maybe never.
Abstinence Only doesn’t work. Not for sex, not for alcohol, not for guns. Pretending that potentially dangerous things don’t exist leaves children unprepared for the real world. I want my kids to understand and respect the consequences of poor choices BEFORE they can load a magazine or manipulate the slide on a gun. No matter how well I secure my guns, roughly half the households in my state have firearms. I can’t just pretend she’ll never get her hands on one.
The bottom line is carrying a gun concealed or not has been labeled dangerous, unacceptable, provocative and subsequently illegal. Anti gun forces got that position on the higher ground a long time ago because of incidents which gave them justification.
Sucks but that’s the reality. You want to be armed, great. But outside the home you have to play by their rules. And every high profile shooting, crime, or event involving firearms makes carrying them around scary to a lot of people. People who vote and don’t like guns.
So if we can get a federal permit that identifies us as a non criminal possessing a firearm that keeps the police from handcuffing us, taking our gun, harassing and even charging us I say let’s have it. We can’t change all those minds out there but we can carve respect for our decision to arm up. The alternative is plain to see all over the world.
Best part of this setup is with a spare mag, a super quick transition from buckshot to slugs.
Along with continuous discussions on firearms and firearm safety, I started leaving unloaded (verified by wife and myself) firearms around the house. I just wanted to take the novelty away from them and that’s exactly what it did. I also had an agreement with them that they could ask to see my firearms at anytime. They were allowed to touch them as long as they could tell me the 4 safety rules and after a dozen times or so, their curiosity had been settled. I then started leaving a rifle in the bathroom, a handgun in their room, ammunition on the floor. I’d put them in places where they would come across them without my wife or I immediately present. I wanted to make sure of their immediate reaction which always ended up with them running to my wife saying that dad left his guns laying around again and I need to go to the bathroom! haha They knew they weren’t to touch them under an circumstances and that they needed to find the nearest adult. That is the process that worked for us and now that they’re a little older and shooting (5 and 7), it’s good to see the healthy respect and attitude they have towards them.
When comparing Country A against Country B, the first item dropped is Cultural Differences. Even in this country, nobody wants to talk about the elephant in the room, blacks killing blacks. Just look at Chicago, Baltimore or Philadelphia. What are the odds that both the killer and victim are from the same cultural group?
Nope, it’s far easier to assign blame to the majority of lawful gun owners.
Prepped with Eddie Eage videos and always allowing to see/handle real guns when requested to demystify and introduce safe handling. First time at range demoed .460 vs watermelon to drive home safety. Started him with 10/22 Charger with red dot & bipod. Too heavy to point quickly into danger, but no stock to hinder and easy to hit targets.
Yup, I just installed a motion detecting video doorbell that covers the only street level access to my home for this very reason. Combine that with the fact that I am never more than 5′ from a loaded firearm, and you have a very good home security setup.
A SIDEARM HAS BEEN EITHER WORN CONCEALED OR CARRIED IN A BOOKSACHEL OR BRIEFCASE SINCE HIGH SCHOOL AND THROUGH COLLEGE AND TO THIS VERY DAY AND THIS “HABIT” WILL CONTINUE. PERIOD.
needless to say, the “incident” on which most of AUstralia’s current gun laws are based…the Port Arthur massacre (which occurred over 20yrs ago in Port Arthur, Tasmania), is, still, highly controversial…..
a vanishingly small n° of AUssies still b’lv “the official story” of the PAM….
with the traditional (white male/”hetero-sexual”) lone-nut-gun-man scenario…
rather, there is, now, a vast array of ‘alternative’ theories all-the-way from an out-and-out-hoax to a partial hoax to a false flag incident utilising government-hired mercenaries…..
(this YouTube is quite informative on the issue);
whether or not this actually translates into legislative action resulting in the repeal of most if not all current Australian gun laws is some-what of a moot point…..
although…the political situation in Australia is highly unstable with the traditional, ‘main-stream’ political parties (who all support the current gun laws) having only a tenuous hold on political power….
(re: the recent Qld state election…where the main-stream parties just barely beat back a major challenge inspired, largely, by disgruntled shooters and ex-shooters)
FOR ONE TO GO UNARMED AT ANY TIME CONSTITUTES ‘ASSUMING THE RISK’ AND THEREBY “STRONGLY INVITING THE ALMOST CERTAIN POTENTIAL OF INVITING INJURY, DISABILITY OR DEATH’ AND THUS IS SIMPLY INSANITY!!!
Don’t over think it with statistics. It won’t work because I’m not surrendering any weapons. Try kicking doors, see how that works. Why would you think we will wait for you to come to our houses if you start kicking doors?
It’s called an armed revolution. My Oath still applies. Not afraid of government thugs or bureaucrats. In facts the bureaucrats become the targets.
A bit late here, aside from the politics which I’m not qualified to judge, Jeremy, the review seems quite honest & goes to discuss what most magazine reviewers are concealing (terrible DA trigger). It’s probably intended for the 1911 (SA) crowd anyway. It’s ALMOST what I want (with a 3.8″ brl.). What about the half-cock feature that NOBODY is discussing? What about poor ballistics in a 3.3″ brl. with most ammo? That ole SIG P239 still sounds good. Thanks Jeremy
@ Justin Russell
Well Justin, I take your entire argument and dismiss it as total garbage. REALLY!
If you said you had actually driven across the USA with your concealed weapon and had actually researched the gun laws of each state of intended travel and obeyed each law, your opinion would have meant something. But you have not done that. Instead you puke out some literary garbage and use New Yorks Times Square as a really REALLY extreme example. Catch a clue Justin, the gun carrying folks of the USA aren’t collectively craving to go to New York City and hang out in a tourist trap like Times Square with fat old men in ugly shorts with selfie-sticks.
I can carry in Las Vegas, but do I go there….well, actually I do, but that’s besides the point. I was in NY also, but I really had no desire whatsoever to go into NY City even though I have a buddy in the 31st floor next door to the Dakota overlooking Central Park. The point is, NY isn’t the big draw for every concealed carrier out there. Millions of people travel interstate highways every day and carry, but trying to obey the laws is realistically unworkable, and that is a cold hard fact, because I HAVE DONE IT Justin.
In my letter from Washington State Rep Cathy McMorris Rodgers:
“I support H.R. 38 because it protects the Second Amendment rights of citizens when they cross state lines. By setting a uniform standard for people with a license or permit to carry a handgun to do the same in other states with similar laws, we are providing certainty to law-abiding gun owners across America.”
Move to Texas….listen to these great people…..and your life will be free…….just sayin’……. 🙂
H.R. 38 shouldn’t be necessary, but, things being as they are, it is.
I never got past the looks of ole Mossberg 464. I like all the 30/30’s and the idea of a tactical, lever, carbine, 30/30 is a good one. I used a model 94 as a home defense gun for near 30 years and I brag on this little carbine with punch. Yes the 94 was a little slow in the house but never undergunned even facing pistol mags. Also if you had to catch the bad guy across the yard, he is good as dead or scared to hell. I’d like to see a few more hone defense applications. Texas lawmen used the 30/30 up to AR and M-16 days, is rural counties you still see a few. I like the 30/30 I just hats tube magazines, good working feature a pain to download which I always did outside.
Because an armed populace will not willingly load themselves into boxcars.
Welcome to rural Indiana.
Awesome.
I’m deaf. Please provide a transcript or sign translator. Thank you.
Does the pope shit in the woods?
They’re only insane if you think they believe what they say.
Police carried .32 cal for years in Europe and it did the job for them. I am 6′-0″ and way over 200 lbs and I hate a full size handgun. A Makarov, a CZ -24, CZ-27, CZ-50/70 are a nice size handguns and they have enough steel so that recoil is NOT a problem. The newer handguns in .380 and even some of the 9s are a great size and are between 6 and 7 inches long. Not exactly pocket pistols, but a nice size that fit in most hands well.
We do not all need to carry .45 and 10mm handguns, what is right for a LEO who could be facing down a monster felon just out of prison or a violent PCP crazed person, may not be right for someone who wants protection from most criminals in the U.S., who may not be comfortable with Dirty Harry’s gun. Suggesting that a woman or even a man should buy one of these hand cannons could just cause someone not to carry it or fire it because of the recoil and/or noise that they may not like
My experience with the SPP (with TP9 top cover; long story short, the previous owner had lost theirs and I got the gun & replacement part for like 700$ all told) is that it really, really wants to be an SBR, and that it’s almost comical that Steyr was set on making it an AOW. While it is very lightweight, the vast majority of what mass there is lies in the moving parts, so it really jostles in the hand when fired. It’s not recoil, per se, but a shifting of the gun’s center of mass way up in that high bore axis above the wrist. Lastly, that wrist has a decent but not ideal hold on the gun, since the lower/rear portion of the palm swell narrows. I find this makes it an ideal grip for holding the gun close-in just in front of the nose with a sharply bent wrist (PDW style) but doesn’t stabilize the forward/backward rocking motion of recoil when held further out. B&T hit it out of the park doing a decent stock-mount for the gun, even if it does remain a bit delicate, as that was what the TMP needed all along.
The other design issues are the crossbolt safety (which B&T have also addressed now) and the trigger system. The original design had a two-stage selector-trigger, and the legacy of that system lives on in the super long, rather unpleasant pull of the current model (there’s a big tension spring to return the trigger that’s far heavier than needed, for instance). The odd crab-like sear arrangement allows the FCG to be very flat and wide to match the profile of the rest of the gun to take up little room, but naturally results in off-axis forces on the pivoting elements and greatly increases the friction of their operation. But, you get a hammer as opposed a striker FCG in the same form factor, and perhaps that’s worth the trade off.
Disassembly is also needlessly bothersome, and I have to wonder if B&T won’t be addressing that in their updated version as well. I think a captive spring assembly would allow you to safely have it’s tail end alone hold the gun together (push in the tail of the spring assembly, tip the top cover up & forward). The guns are not ‘hard’ to suppress so much as they are more picky; since the barrel does not attach to the can, its cross sectional area becomes a Nielson Device or piston driven back ever harder by silencer back pressure. So long as a low-back pressure can is used, like the large volume Rotex, or I suppose the newer OSS-style cans, the cycle energy stays within safe limits and gas is not unduly vented back at the user. The advantage that seems to go unstated with this arrangement is that the silencer does not move in operation, so there is no way to impede the action’s cycle externally (not unimportant for a PDW weapon that can be fired from concealment or in close quarters)
Despite these issues, it needs to be remembered that the only real peer of the gun is the H&K MP7 (holsterable locked-breech PDW) or now the B&T USW to a certain extent (being a stocked handgun, the USW is likely not nearly as optimized for automatic fire)
“Forgive me but I didn’t know deer decoys were a thing.”
Seriously?
They are *very* popular with the ‘Game Warden’ folks, who use them to ‘bait’ hunters who shoot from their vehicles.
A typical tactic is for them to scout rural roads for a spot the wardens can hide while watching their ‘bait’ deer.
They even make advanced dummies that can be remote-control motorized to make the deer to look alive.
If duck hunters can use duck decoys, why not deer hunters where (and if) legal?
Sadly, this is probably just a taste of things to come. Everyone be careful out there.
This is simple, they should have carried concealed.
That would have stopped all this before it started and if they were accosted as Construction workers who are white are in black neighborhoods well there it is.
Heck when I worked a survey crew my Boss carried a High Standard .22 WMR derringer all the time everywhere, stopped a lot of shit before it got bad.
I truly wish I could be there. Those are some fine looking handguns
Don’t guns sales at an FFL require checking against the “No guns for you!” database, which includes people designated mentally unfit, a task the govt has also taken on to itself.
If anyone’s on the hook for “Negligent Entrustment” it’s the feebs.
my response
All I know is Red Dead Redemption is on my top five favorite games of all time list
When I was in high school, this would’ve been 2002, I did a project on the belief that violent video games made people violent. What I found was that of the 5,000 or so studies done at that time only 200 of those indicated any correlation, and around half of those were a positive correlation, i.e. playing violent games reduced a propensity for violence. So, the ultimate conclusion, unless studies done since have had dramatically different results, is that there is little to no correlation between violent media and violent behavior. Of course antigunners never let facts get in the way.
Right now I have a shotgun and pistols(Brazilian). Pretty sure I’m OK for now. An AR is coming sometime in 2018…
My bedside gun is a 92A1 with a light attached.
I have a G19 and p226, but those pistols have other purposes in my house. (Namely, being housed in the two RFID Tactical shelves I bought from SIG.)
This way, I’m never more than a room or two away from grabbing a reliable pistol with 15 or more rounds of +P 9mm to defend myself with.
P.S. Your home defense setup should have a light; in it’s most simple form, it’s mounted on the rail. I want to know what I’m shooting, and the best way to do that: mounting a light.
P.P.S. I am fully aware that to shine a light on something, it needs to be swept my by muzzle. My reply to that, “Don’t be in my house in the dark making unexpected noises, and I won’t have to sweep you with my Beretta.”
Crummy article, alternates between groups of firearms and specific makes/models.
I like streaking. Oh and this ammo could be cool too.
So “shooting range” had diddly squat to do with the incident? The rifle, shooter and firing were not on a range. The victim was not on the range. The same chain of events could have happened in any big box gun store/
Well there is another hotel that ALL Of Shot Show will boycott. Notices just went out today.
Godless or not,
I agree….
Sunday mornings is when I commune with the Universe/God/Great Spirit/Creator.
I just happen to be on the range firing at the same time. Not only am I wondering why I can’t get this .308 round to go exactly where I want it to, but also pondering those life questions of “Are we (humans) alone?” “Will we (humans) kill ourselves off with nuclear weapons?” “Why is there so much sorrow in the world?” “Where was God when X happened?”
I don’t have any answers but it is a time of perfect peaceful contemplation for me and maybe thats all it’s meant to be. A way to bring inner peace to the individual not a congregation.
YMMV
Sorry about the grammar and sentence errors. Fighting with my not so smartphone today. *(and that was MA. GOAL.org)*
“The U.S. is not even in the top ten when one compares international death rates resulting from mass shootings.”
How do we compare to other industrialized nations?
It is sad when the truth becomes a refreshing anomaly.
It has been my experience that the “cyber” talents of the alphabet agencies is greatly exaggerated and largely misrepresented by a mostly ignorant media body.
I’d take the power of weaponized autism over the technical prowess of the feds any day of the week.
If you want a good laugh read some of their leaked procedure and training documentation. It’s eye opening.
Its time for me to join the GOA. I’m already a member of the JPFO and the NRA.