Thoes results are pretty incunclusive, they dont tell much eather way. I want to se definative proof that an anti guns polocy has worked. Cause here in the U.S. CA has the highest crime precentages and the strictist gun laws. Lets also not forget japans has something like a 5 foot pound energy limit on all airguns.valve bouncer said:
2nd Amendment Battle Royal
- Thread starter MikeD
- Start date
That's not my arguement. 1000Oats said home invasions went up 500%. Total crap, not true at all as official Aust Bureau of Staistics figures show.TheMontashu said:
It's clear to me though that gun ownership is only one factor regarding crime-rates.
and untill there is PROOF that gun control works why ban guns?valve bouncer said:
Here's a peer-reviewed journal of Aus. Criminal Justice. I've read this book, and I remember there being some of those stats in it. If you have the time, try and find it.MikeD said:
Australian Quarterly; Autumn97, Vol. 69 Issue 1, p50, 13p, 2 charts
bjanga said:^ I agree MD (with posts 68 and 69).
How much regulation is too much? Personally, I can see good reasons for outlawing guns, but very few reasons for allowing them (except just for the heck of it, which is valid in and of itself).
Are you an illegal?
The US used to have a Eugenics program, look into it.noname said:We need a licensing program for sexual activities!
Mentally inept should pay double!
Published on Tuesday, February 15, 2000 in the Chicago Tribune
Yale Study:
U.S. Eugenics Paralleled Nazi Germany
by David Morgan
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - U.S. doctors who once believed that sterilization could help rid society of mental illness and crime launched a 20th century eugenics movement that in some ways paralleled the policies of Nazi Germany, researchers said on Monday.
A Yale study tracing a once-popular movement aimed at improving society through selective breeding, indicates that state-authorized sterilizations were carried out longer and on a larger scale in the United States than previously believed, beginning with the first state eugenics law in Indiana in 1907.
Despite modern assumptions that American interest in eugenics waned during the 1920s, researchers said sterilization laws had authorized the neutering of more than 40,000 people classed as insane or ``feebleminded'' in 30 states by 1944.
I'll admit that due to his bias, Lott isn't a very credible source of information, but his correlation matrix(s) and regression analysis are irrefutable in "More Guns, Less Crime." The jist: Stricter gun laws as an independant variable on homicide rates, aren't statistically or practically significant at the highest significance level. There are three variables however, that are. Do some research and you will see the light my son.valve bouncer said:
As for using Aus. for a reference,,,,, I ask why not? I use Amsterdam as a reference for liberal drug laws, nevada for liberal prostitution laws, and the Aussies for their gun laws. It makes logical sense.
Explain the murder rates in Japan, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, and Italy, Spain, the Netherlands...there is no first world country with a higher murder rate than the USA. The closest is Finland, and their per capita murder rate is only 66% of the USA's. Finland is also a bit of an outlier, the next closest first world country is France (...maybe South Korea?) and their per capita murder rate is only 40% of the USA.TheMontashu said:
The one thing that comes to mind is that all those countries have restrictive (compared to the US) gun laws. Now, that doesn't mean that gun laws are the reason for the lower murder rates (Americans could be morally degenerate murdering people due to cultural reasons as well) but it does sort of place the burden of proof on the pro-firearms crowd.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_percap
The murders with firearms per capita is also illuminating.
You might want to check out assaults per capita as well.
I know there is a country in the netherlands that has manditory FN assault rifles to be in every home, from what I was told (By some one who trained oakland PDs swat team and did risk managment for governments) that that country has the least murders per capita on earth
Of course even before the Port Arthur massacre which precipitated even tighter gun laws in Australia said:
TheMontashu said:
And I think you will find that everyone with one of those guns has been thru millitary training and disipline.... and the serrial numbers and location of the weapon etc etc are recorded.
Again, even per-capita, the level of gun laws is not a significant predictor of crime rates in 95% of the world. The other 5% are the swiss cause the only other thing that could cause it is poor skiing conditions!Silver said:
The guns per capita is actually higher than the USA. We have MUCH less violent crime.
Also, gun laws are also to restruct ownership to prevent accidents, not just to prevent crime. Almost as many deaths by gun in the US are accidental as they are murders.
Also, gun laws are also to restruct ownership to prevent accidents, not just to prevent crime. Almost as many deaths by gun in the US are accidental as they are murders.
I have more disipline with a guns that you will EVER know.DaveW said:
Boy that's comedy. The slightest mention of a draft, and everyone heads to Canada, but I'm for it too!bjanga said:
Errrrr...... Geography 101? The Netherlands IS a country.TheMontashu said:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nl.html
TheMontashu said:
I feel that those who have been subject to military disipline are far safer to trust with a firearm..... mind you I'm not to sure about american military disipline, as they do have a hell of a reputation for having poor fire control/trigger happy. :hot:
Excerpted from Snopes.com: http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp
In the specific case offered here, context is the most important factor. The piece quoted above leads the reader to believe that much of the Australian citizenry owned handguns until their ownership was made illegal and all firearms owned by "law-abiding citizens" were collected by the government through a buy-back program in 1997. This is not so. Australian citizens do not (and never did) have a constitutional right to own firearms — even before the 1997 buyback program, handgun ownership in Australia was restricted to certain groups, such as those needing weapons for occupational reasons, members of approved sporting clubs, hunters, and collectors. Moreover, the 1997 buyback program did not take away all the guns owned by these groups; only some types of firearms (primarily semi-automatic and pump-action weapons) were banned. And even with the ban in effect, those who can demonstrate a legitimate need to possess prohibited categories of firearms can petition for exemptions from the law.
Given this context, any claims based on statistics (even accurate ones) which posit a cause-and-effect relationship between the gun buyback program and increased crime rates because "criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed" are automatically suspect, since the average Australian citizen didn't own firearms even before the buyback. But beyond that, most of the statistics offered here are misleading and present only "first year results" where long-term trends need to be considered in order to draw valid cause-and-effect conclusions.
For example, the first entry states that "Homicides are up 3.2%." This statistic is misleading because it reflects only the absolute number of homicides rather than the homicide rate. (A country with a rapidly-growing population, for example, might experience a higher number of crimes even while its overall crime rate decreased.) An examination of statistics from the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) reveals that the overall homicide rate in Australia has changed little over the past decade and actually dipped slightly after the 1997 gun buy-back program. (The chart found at this link also demonstrates how easily statistics based on small sample sizes can mislead, as when the homicide rate in Tasmania increased nearly eight-fold in one year based on a single incident in which 35 people were killed.)
Then we have the claim that "In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent." This is another example of how misleading statistics can be when the underlying numbers are not provided: Victoria, a state with a population of over four-and-a-half million people in 1997, experienced 7 firearm-related homicides in 1996 and 19 firearm-related homicides in 1997 (an increase of 171%, not 300%). An additional twelve homicides amongst a population of 4.5 million is not statistically significant, nor does this single-year statistic adequately reflect long-term trends. Moreover, the opening paragraph mixes two very different types of statistics — number of homicides vs. percentage of homicides committed with firearms. In the latter case, it should be noted that the Australia-wide percentage of homicides committed with firearms is now lower than it was before the gun buy-back program, and lower than it has been at any point during the past ten years. (In the former case, the absolute number of firearm homicides in Australia in 1998-99 was the lowest in the past ten years.)
Other claims offered here, such as the statement that "While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months" and "There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly" are even more difficult to evaluate, because they don't offer any figures or standards of measurement at all. Do they deal with absolute numbers, or percentages? Do they reflect all incidents of crime, or only those committed with firearms? How much of an increase constitutes a "dramatic" increase? According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the proportion of firearms used to commit armed robbery has actually declined over the last several years:
1995 - 27.8%
1996 - 25.3%
1997 - 24.1%
1998 - 17.6%
1999 - 15.2%
2000 - 14.0%
The ABS does report that the number of assaults on victims aged 65 and over has increased over the last few years, but hardly in a proportion one would describe as "dramatic":
Number of victims of assault aged 65 and over:
1996 - 1474
1997 - 1662 (12.8% increase from previous year)
1998 - 1663 (0.06% increase from previous year)
1999 - 1793 (7.8% increase from previous year)
The main point to be learned here is that determining the effect of changes in Australia's gun ownership laws and the government's firearm buy-back program on crime rates requires a complex long-term analysis and can't be discerned from the small, mixed grab bag of short-term statistics offered here. And no matter what the outcome of that analysis, the results aren't necessarily applicable to the USA, where laws regarding gun ownership are (and always have been) much different than those in Australia.
In the specific case offered here, context is the most important factor. The piece quoted above leads the reader to believe that much of the Australian citizenry owned handguns until their ownership was made illegal and all firearms owned by "law-abiding citizens" were collected by the government through a buy-back program in 1997. This is not so. Australian citizens do not (and never did) have a constitutional right to own firearms — even before the 1997 buyback program, handgun ownership in Australia was restricted to certain groups, such as those needing weapons for occupational reasons, members of approved sporting clubs, hunters, and collectors. Moreover, the 1997 buyback program did not take away all the guns owned by these groups; only some types of firearms (primarily semi-automatic and pump-action weapons) were banned. And even with the ban in effect, those who can demonstrate a legitimate need to possess prohibited categories of firearms can petition for exemptions from the law.
Given this context, any claims based on statistics (even accurate ones) which posit a cause-and-effect relationship between the gun buyback program and increased crime rates because "criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed" are automatically suspect, since the average Australian citizen didn't own firearms even before the buyback. But beyond that, most of the statistics offered here are misleading and present only "first year results" where long-term trends need to be considered in order to draw valid cause-and-effect conclusions.
For example, the first entry states that "Homicides are up 3.2%." This statistic is misleading because it reflects only the absolute number of homicides rather than the homicide rate. (A country with a rapidly-growing population, for example, might experience a higher number of crimes even while its overall crime rate decreased.) An examination of statistics from the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) reveals that the overall homicide rate in Australia has changed little over the past decade and actually dipped slightly after the 1997 gun buy-back program. (The chart found at this link also demonstrates how easily statistics based on small sample sizes can mislead, as when the homicide rate in Tasmania increased nearly eight-fold in one year based on a single incident in which 35 people were killed.)
Then we have the claim that "In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent." This is another example of how misleading statistics can be when the underlying numbers are not provided: Victoria, a state with a population of over four-and-a-half million people in 1997, experienced 7 firearm-related homicides in 1996 and 19 firearm-related homicides in 1997 (an increase of 171%, not 300%). An additional twelve homicides amongst a population of 4.5 million is not statistically significant, nor does this single-year statistic adequately reflect long-term trends. Moreover, the opening paragraph mixes two very different types of statistics — number of homicides vs. percentage of homicides committed with firearms. In the latter case, it should be noted that the Australia-wide percentage of homicides committed with firearms is now lower than it was before the gun buy-back program, and lower than it has been at any point during the past ten years. (In the former case, the absolute number of firearm homicides in Australia in 1998-99 was the lowest in the past ten years.)
Other claims offered here, such as the statement that "While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months" and "There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly" are even more difficult to evaluate, because they don't offer any figures or standards of measurement at all. Do they deal with absolute numbers, or percentages? Do they reflect all incidents of crime, or only those committed with firearms? How much of an increase constitutes a "dramatic" increase? According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the proportion of firearms used to commit armed robbery has actually declined over the last several years:
1995 - 27.8%
1996 - 25.3%
1997 - 24.1%
1998 - 17.6%
1999 - 15.2%
2000 - 14.0%
The ABS does report that the number of assaults on victims aged 65 and over has increased over the last few years, but hardly in a proportion one would describe as "dramatic":
Number of victims of assault aged 65 and over:
1996 - 1474
1997 - 1662 (12.8% increase from previous year)
1998 - 1663 (0.06% increase from previous year)
1999 - 1793 (7.8% increase from previous year)
The main point to be learned here is that determining the effect of changes in Australia's gun ownership laws and the government's firearm buy-back program on crime rates requires a complex long-term analysis and can't be discerned from the small, mixed grab bag of short-term statistics offered here. And no matter what the outcome of that analysis, the results aren't necessarily applicable to the USA, where laws regarding gun ownership are (and always have been) much different than those in Australia.
Judging by the discipline you exhibit with your typing (which is all we have to go by); that would not mean much.TheMontashu said:
"The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc.Consequently, the figures used in these statistics must be interpreted with great caution. In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic" U.N. surveySilver said:
Check violent crime rates in all of those countries per capita too. Also look into the increase/decreased rates over the past few years.
I'm not talking about crime rates. I'm talking about murder rates.alwaysbroncin19 said:Again, even per-capita, the level of gun laws is not a significant predictor of crime rates in 95% of the world. The other 5% are the swiss cause the only other thing that could cause it is poor skiing conditions!
The levels of assault per capita are higher in New Zealand. Why is the NZ murder rate so much lower per capita?
Just a thought.........
We're discussing the U.S. bill of rights, something that former supreme court cheif justice Hugo Black referred to as absolutes, not to be weighed against other legislative powers but to stand absolutely, and he had good reason to say so.
I have to agree with him, all the sideways discussions of crime etc. obfuscate the issues of inalienable rights, saying that the government should have the power to limit/reduce/remove rights from citizens by fiat puts us right back to the situation from which the colonial Americans fought so hard to extirpate themselves from.
We're discussing the U.S. bill of rights, something that former supreme court cheif justice Hugo Black referred to as absolutes, not to be weighed against other legislative powers but to stand absolutely, and he had good reason to say so.
I have to agree with him, all the sideways discussions of crime etc. obfuscate the issues of inalienable rights, saying that the government should have the power to limit/reduce/remove rights from citizens by fiat puts us right back to the situation from which the colonial Americans fought so hard to extirpate themselves from.
So muder is defined significantly different in Canada or the EU? I wasn't aware of that.noname said:
Moot point. The biggest advocacy point of pro gun lobbyists is that not knowing who is armed and who isn't will incur greater levels of caution in criminals, making them less willing to openly confront their victims. Thus reducing the likelyhood of a violent confrontation.Silver said:
neither was I until I saw it listed on the page.Silver said:
It is entirely possible though.. . . .. .
Look at the various different names giving to conditions of death depending on actions and intentions, they may very well be greatly different from one country to another, as well as how they are catagorized by law enforcement.
That's a moot point? If that's the case, I'm wondering what rises to the level of a serious point...noname said:
Personally, I'd rather be assaulted than murdered. I'm funny that way though.
Or, alternatively, if you don't know if your victim is likely to be armed, you shoot them anyway, just in case.noname said:
It is entirely possible (especially for the assault stats) that they may not be comparable, especially in third world countries with less developed legal systems.noname said:
However, the onus is on you. Show me how murder is defined differently in Canada vs. the US that would account for the difference in murder rates between the two countries.
what if, instead of greater caution, criminals switch to more aggresive tactics (like they already do in places where the certainty of confronting an armed person are high, caracas and bogota for example) like shoot/disable first, commit crime later????noname said:
oh, beaten while posting.fluff said:
I thought you made an excellent point though. But why did it take you 8 minutes to type it?ALEXIS_DH said:
i usually have like 10 ridemonkey windows, click the "post reply" and leave it open while reading other stuff. plus am watching the news too.fluff said:I thought you made an excellent point though. But why did it take you 8 minutes to type it?
THe point I was making is that murder rates are not indicitive of the enfectiveness or lack there of when analizing gun control laws.Silver said:
Trying to simply use murder rates as an indicator is a moot point as it is ineffective and meaningless.
What to have a little fun, take the overall murder rates from all these countries and break them down by demographics. Age, race, income, education, you'd see that by demographic most western nations get a lot closer, especially the gap between the U.S. and Canada.
translation: is the blacks/browns fault.noname said:
So I haven't read the whole thread but I will add my $.02. I thought that the 2nd amendment was a reaction to a specific event. The confiscation of weapons and powder at the Williamsburg Armory. The armory was of course intended to supply the local militia.