OBEY THE LAW = DEATH SENTENCE ???

Here are some hard statistics.

Not sure exactly when the gun laws were tightened in Australia, but it was after 1996 - here are some comments on violent crime from the Australian Bureau of Statistics ....

Media Release

4510.0 Increase in the number of victims of crime in all offence categories: ABS
EMBARGO: 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME)

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/0/622BA8591ECA32D6CA256BC9000105F8?Open



According to figures released today, the number of crime victims recorded by police in Australia increased between 2000 and 2001 for all offence categories for which data are compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The largest proportional increase in the number of victims was for blackmail/extortion (37%).





While there were increases in all categories, for the specific offence types of murder, manslaughter and driving causing death, the number of victims decreased.

Other findings in Recorded Crime, Australia 2001 include:

A knife was the most common type of weapon used in attempted murder (33%), murder (29%) and robbery (23%).
The proportion of robberies where a weapon was used in 2001 (42%) is similar to the 1993 figure, when this series commenced. The use of firearms has declined as a proportion of all robberies (down from 16% to 6%). In 3.5% of cases, a syringe was used.
There have been large increases in the victimisation rates for armed robbery in Victoria (44%) and New South Wales (20%) between 2000 and 2001, which contrasts with decreases in a number of other states and territories.
Males were more likely to have been a victim in all offence categories, with the exception of sexual assault and kidnapping/abduction.
People aged 15-19 years were over 4 times more likely to have been a victim of sexual assault and over 3 times more likely to be a victim of robbery than the general population.
At least half of the victims of murder, attempted murder, assault and sexual assault knew the offender.
More than 3 in 5 victims of murder and sexual assault were subjected to the offence in a residential location, while a similar proportion of victims of kidnapping/abduction were taken from a street or other community location.

So, sadly, we seem to be becoming more likely to commit violent crimes - yet less likely to use a gun in them - murder went down a wee bit - armed robbery went down a bit in all but our two biggest states....


I will try to get comparative gun homicide rates - but the RATE, which is the important thing - not the NUMBERS, given our tiny population, will be way below yours - but above Britain's.

Thanks

To tie these statistics to gun prohibition is obscene, you might as well tie them to the rising consumption of spaghetti bolognese;

Craven: you fit the profile. Young, unhappy childhood, angry at the world. Join the agency, you'll never walk alone.

wolf,

You know nothing of my childhood or my outlook on the world. ;-)

Wolf - the claim was, I believe, made that the increased control of guns in Oz (we always had FAR tighter controls than the US) had caused violent crime to explode, or somesuch. I have no time to go back and examine the specific claim now, I have to go to work - but I will look at this thread properly tonight.

These figures show that is not so - though violent crime has increased, gun use in robberies has decreased from 16% to 6%, for example.

This, at least, scotches the silly claims made by someone on this thread that gun control leads to out of control gun use by criminals.

Making no claims, there seems a coorollation between gun prohibition and increased crime. This may be because, in the absence of an armed population, the crooks, perpetrators, whatever have the option of choosing a weaker victum. The victum, of course, takes whatever he or she gets.

On the other hand, I've never heard of a "drive by knifing", though I have heard of one instance of a drive by clubbing.

Wolf, I don't begin to follow your logic.

Uh oh, I can't find my spell checker.

You are saying England has a higher crime rate than the US?

Just as a beginning for instance........

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You are saying England has a higher crime rate than the US?"

I have no idea what England's crime rate is, to be honest, though I believe it has also increased. My hypothesis was based on a comparison of Australia's crime rate before and after increased gun control, ceteris paribus.

I don't want to speak for roger (he has a gun and I don't) but I believe the arguments to counter that usually center on the apples and oranges approach. Being that they are vastly different cultures the reasons that there is less violent crime may not be related to guns.

That is the chicken and egg thing I mentioned earlier.

All the gun laws in the world won't amke there be less crime in a poor country than a rich one for e.g. Poverty is a factor that is more significant than gun laws as far as crime is concerned. So cross country comparisons are discounted by most gun nuts in favor of statistics that show little difference between pre law and post law crime levels in the same nation.

Thing is, it takes time for a law to become part of a culture so I reject elements of the pre/post stat arguments.

He he, it's fun to sit on a fence with a gun.

Doh.

Lol! Too small a sample, Roger. What is to say our crime rate would not have gone up anyway?

Also - the most significant stat re whether or not the beastly crims are arming themselves to the teeth with illegal guns, while the average poor citizen is left defenceless and fighting back with water pistols, is the one showing a FALL in crimes committed by criminals using guns!

From 16% to 6%, I believe.

Prior to the gun law change, shop owners and so on etc did not have guns in the workplace, anyway, if you mean they are now defenceless against syringes and such.


As an employee in Oz, the advice given re hold-ups is always to give the smeggers what they want. Sometimes people don't, but it is because they get angry and stubborn - we do not, (and never have), generally try to shoot crims from behind our wee counters.

I'm leery of comparing different cultures, of course. We do like to point out that all Swiss males of military age keep a full automatic and 20 rounds of ammunition at home, and have an admirable crime rate. I could also mention that that military weapon is rather closely controlled and the variance of gun laws from one canton to the next are about as wide as the variance in laws from Maryland in the east to Arizona in the southwest.

I'm hanging with the pre/post statistics, Craven. Long term cultural changes be damned, we are comparing the effects of gun ownership on violent crime within a given culture. No other way to do it if you truly want to compare apples to apples.

That's why I tossed in the ol' ceteris paribus a while back. Who am I to say that all other variables have been held constant. The coincidence is remarkable, however.




I didn't really make that assumption. My thoughts were based on both criminals and victums being equally unarmed as regards firearms, in which case, the criminal has the upper hand. He knows they are unarmed and has only to decide which party is the biggest, strongest, or quickest.

OH! They get angry and stubborn about being held up!? How could they do that? Sounds like the average shopkeeper could stand a good dose of therapy.

They are both effects of a culture, they are not causally relatable. Deterrence does not make a country safer. It's the same argument against the death penalty. The harder a societal system is to get by in, the more criminality you'll have. There is nothing you can do about that, except render the society into a less ambitious competition, work towards a more equitable ensemble of people.

The father of modern political philosophy, de Tocqueville, wrote that the U.S. were heading towards a murderous chaos if the communal life would be neglected for too long.

You need to build strong, multi-racial communities, with as few economic differences as possible. The problem is that such endeavour is labelled as 'trotskist' nowadays -- while it is merely unselfish.

Criminality is not a function of gun presence or absence. It's a bit more complicated than that.

I agree in that comparing different cultures is not apples and apples. The Swiss are a fine example of how a culture can have low levels of crime without the absense of guns. But criminality is affected more by culture than law. Law has a slow effect on culture so I think the slow nature of cultural evolution is relevant.

People point to Japan's crime rate but gun laws are hardly the only factor. there is the police's ability to search residences at will etc etc.

Anywho I just think that at the same time the immediate results of a law in on a culture won't speak much for cause and effect of a law like this. Our crime rate fluctuates and IMO a gun culture is something that a few years of a law won't change.

In comparison with other cultures with guns I think america's culture features guns more prominently. I don't think gun control would have an immediate effect on that, and hence not have a significant short-term effect on crime, but I do think that changing our culture in this respect would.

It's not about guns, I don't think. A mythology has grown up about "they're trying to take everything away from us," when in fact in many respects we are giving away our rights. We don't vote, we don't think for ourselves, Ashcroft is going around the country reviving Patriot Act 2, and we substitute "the right to own a gun" for real strength and courage necessary to stand up against a tendency towards authoritarianism. In fact, as I understand it, we still have the right to own a gun. I know I have the right -- and the obligation to learn how to shoot it, take care of it safely, and have a license to "carry." I can get a rifle or a shotgun tomorrow, if I want, unrestricted. I'm still trying to get at what specific restrictions are getting up OmSig's nose.

No country has got a higher crime rate than the US.

Many countries have a higher crime rate than the US. Developed countries is a different story.