One of the nice things about debating about the cons and cons of gun control: the real world is full of real-world examples of why gun grabbing is beyond foolish. I’ve already connected the dots between gun control and the destruction of press freedom, drawing on the lessons provided by Mexico. Today’s case-in-point hails from the land down under. smh.com.au reports . . .
THE police have launched an audacious effort to get thousands of illegal guns off Sydney’s streets, urging people to be more courageous and simply pick up the phone to tell them where weapons are in order to save lives. The acting NSW Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas [above, right] launched Operation Spartan yesterday to combat a recent ‘spike’ in gun crime amid fears that innocent people would be caught in the crossfire.
The word “audacious” is the tip-off that the Ozzie’s cops are doing their bit to edge Australian society ever closer to a police state. In this case, they’re relying on an anonymous drop-the-dime program for people who hate their neighbors or want to get a rival drug dealer in hot water. I mean, remove guns from ne’er-do-wells. A program based on some extremely odd statistical “evidence” (as usual).
He said most weapons were imported, but most of the illegal guns being used in the shootings had probably been stolen from legitimate sources, either homes or businesses.
There were 589 guns reported stolen in NSW last year. An independent study suggested there could be as many as 500,000 illegal guns nationwide.
I make the number of guns reported stolen last year at roughly .01 percent of the population of illegal guns. And yet New South Wales’ top cop reckons the guns “stolen from legitimate sources” account for “most” of the shootings? Run that by me again?
Police say that in the past 18 months, close to 10,000 firearms have been taken off the streets. However, only some of these were black market weapons.
Putting the info together, only 589 out of 10,000 guns taken off the streets (horrible term that) were traceable to thefts reported in 2011. Where did the rest of the 9,411 confiscated weapons come from? How many were turned in and how many were rooted-out by the boys in blue?
While we’re at it, how many of the remaining 450,000 illegal firearms do the Australian po-po reckon they’ll recover with their new WE ARE SPARTA pogram? I mean program?
I’m thinking Australian criminals aren’t hurting for firearms. More to the point (you knew I was getting there eventually), whenever a government focuses on illegal firearms instead of apprehending and incarcerating felons, it inevitably leaves law-abiding citizens defenseless. Worse, it enables “proactive” policing. Which erodes political freedom.
Mr Kaldas said there had been discussions with the state government about making it an offence for witnesses not to co-operate with a police investigation. ”I’m not sure if legislation can fix that easily, but it’s certainly something we are very open to and would have a look at,” he said. ”I don’t think there is an offence at the moment for people not providing information to the police. That’s something we will look at but I’m not sure that’s going to be enough of a deterrent to actually affect what’s happening here.”
The NSW Police chief doesn’t know if his employers have the right to remain silent? Wow. The gun control-minded Brits have already done away with the right to remain silent. Of course, that could just be a coincidence. But what if it’s not? Because you know what? It’s not.
More gun control = less freedom. Deal with it.