Thursday, January 31, 2013

Hey Australia, How's That Gun Ban Working?

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
Young men are arming themselves with illegal guns to fight petty disputes in a trend that is alarming police and has placed Sydney in the midst of another spike in public shootings. 
The acting Police Commissioner, Nick Kaldas, has pleaded with young men to ''think about your family and loved ones and what this means'' after a spate of fatal and drive-by shootings already this year.
Three men have been shot in Sydney since Sunday afternoon, including a 24-year-old father, Joshua George, who died from a single wound to the chest after a disagreement at a party the night before.[...] 
''We are seeing guns used to settle the most trivial matters,'' Mr Kaldas told Fairfax Media. ''Small debts, arguments over women, domestic tensions, road rage and minor property disputes.[...]Dr Weatherburn said that previously gun crimes had mainly been carried out by ''organised crime gangs'' or were ''the classic domestic homicide/sexual jealousy shootings''. 
Now police are worried about the ''idiot factor'' - young men who see guns as the first and only option in petty arguments.[...] 
A dispute between two wives in a supermarket [...] led one husband to shoot the other's home. 
Police said they seized 6000 to 7000 guns a year but access to firearms was still the big issue. 
''The big problem we are facing is the accessibility of weapons,'' Mr Kaldas said. ''Whether it's young men or others in criminal groups, they are getting access to guns and as long as those guns are out there, we are going to see shootings.''

23 comments:

  1. All they've done is create a huge black market for firearms by making them illegal. If you don't address the foundational problems, legislating the symptoms is ludicrous. You can't beat the market.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It would appear that Mr. Kaldas's statement is incorrect. I would appear that access to firearms is not the problem or issue, since apparently a significant portion of Australian Society continues to have little difficulty getting guns.

    Rather, it would appear that the problem is UNEVEN ACCESS to firearms, leading to risk-less use of firearms by those with access.

    Sounds like a familiar argument is being vindicated.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Some Australian states (from memory: Qld, Tasmania, maybe NSW as well) didn't have registration of longarms. (I'm pretty sure that Queensland and Tasmania didn't even have licencing of longarm owners either.)

    So, when the government outlawed them, in those states the government had to rely on the owners voluntarily handing them in, because there was no registration database telling them who owned what.

    So naturally, everyone in those states just buried their semis in their backyard, and the buyback was a huge failure in those states, with hardly any semis being handed in.

    This is why registration is a bad omen. Never allow the government to know how many, or what sort, of firearms you own.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly. The Nazis were able to legally disarm everyone who was not allied with them, including all of the Jews, precisely because of registration and licensing/permit system so that they knew every firearm owner.

      Delete
    2. to satisfy your obsession with Nazis, Nazis, Nazis - why not take away guns from all Americans except jews.

      Delete
    3. Liberty, considering that our gun laws are directly modeled off of Nazi gun laws - among many other current parallels, I wouldn't exactly call it an obsession to point out what happened to the Jews when the would be gun banners are using the exact same arguments.

      Would you feel better if we talked about other nations that did similar things with gun registration that led to confiscation that led to genocide? Because there are plenty of them to choose from, but we didn't translate the Soviet or Cambodian laws to form the basis for the 1968 Gun Control Act like we did the 1938 Nazi law on firearm ownership.

      Delete
    4. so what happened to jews is more important than what happened to Europeans from 1914-1991?

      arent all human lives of same value? or are some humans more important than others?

      soviets murdered far more people than nazis. why not dissect soviet strategy, instead of dancing around gun legalities?

      Whether there is a gun law or not matters little. What matters is how powerful are the hostile elite versus how powerful and alert are the citizens.

      If there were no gun laws in America, but the public was docile, it would be easier to confiscate all guns, compared to a society where there were plenty of gun restrictions, but the citizens were aggressive, alert, and combative.

      of course the best thing is a full restoration of 2nd amendment and tough, alert, aggressive citizens.

      Delete
    5. I believe just about everyone - including myself in the first response - pointing out the Nazi connection to our 1968 gun control act from the 1938 nazi law makes the exact same argument you are about how nation after nation in the last century registered, licensed, and then confiscated firearms from its people leading to genocide. The JPFO has a great chart about this, in fact.

      I have zero problem discussing any of the other nations, but as I pointed out in the initial response, I believe our situation is most similar to the Germans for a number of reasons. We did not translate and then base all of our modern gun laws on Soviet law, for instance. The soviets went from a form of dictator that was not democratic to the communist revolution - I believe the gradual approach after being legally elected via democratic means like the Nazis did is also far closer to our situation.

      I would also suggest, however, that another reason for Nazis being brought up repeatedly is that it is a known evil even in the dimwit public school kids, unlike most of the others like the Soviets. That is a reality, however sad.

      I would have to disagree with you on the public being docile but armed and not a threat. There is a reason that all of the dictators who engage in democide make sure and disarm the people first. I think if people really were alert and combative to the situation that they would not allow themselves to be disarmed in the first place. The govt, local gestapo style police, and DC media elites absolutely cower with fear over the mere idea of regular citizens owning semi auto rifles because not only can they defend themselves against government aggression, but also they can change the govt if properly motivated. A disarmed but informed public ultimately could be at the mercy of the few well armed agents of the state, as things like Tianamenn Square demonstrate. A survivor of that massacre recently said they all wished they would have had assault rifles to fire back at the govt and defend themselves, but were basically helpless without arms.

      Of course the best solution is for the people to be well armed and alert, but that is obviously not the case now. Who knows though, this latest gun banning attempt seems to be waking a lot of people up.

      Delete
    6. without an aggressive, combative, alert citizenry you cannot do anything.

      not sure why you dont get it? its not rocket engineering.

      Delete
  4. Harry Reid and Patrick Leahy!

    BIG Win Today!

    Senate Judiciary chair rejects Dianne Feinstein?s assault weapons ban | Politics Blog | an SFGate.com blog


    http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/01/30/senate-judiciary-chair-rejects-dianne-feinstein%E2%80%99s-assault-weapons-ban/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unfortunately, I believe the Feinstein attacks on rifles and magazines was all a smokescreen to make it seem reasonable for all gun purchases and transactions to be recorded by the government, which is a backdoor method of registration.

      Delete
  5. Ah the gun grabbers will just say this sort of thing is worth it. Just so scary semi-auto rifels are never used to shoot up a school ever again.

    Think of the children!
    Damn the rest of it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the problem is deranged compromised individuals doing acts not even thought of by a reasonable person. Not guns or types of guns. we might as well outlaw hammers, school busses as these can be driven through a school killing as many as a gun. Cars, baseball bats, tire irons, black poweder in general, fertilizer, toilet cleaner, gasoline, hell all fossil fuel, electricity, you add to the list of things a deranged person not in the right mind can use to kill. Hell even in war both sides are killing and both sides believe their side is right? At some point in time the whole human race will learn about free will and accountability. we all are born with free will, but accountability seems to be a selective choice. Most people in general go to the boneyard having never matured... I just see accountability as an example of emotional maturity.

      Delete
  6. Tennessee has the answer!

    "Sen. Mae Beavers and Rep. Sheila Butt introduced a bill Tuesday to amend the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act of 2009 so that it adds bold new protections for Tennessee firearms owners. The original Firearms Freedom Act exempted from federal law and authority firearms that were manufactured, sold, and retained in Tennessee."

    The Beavers-Butt Bill (I'm not kidding) tells the Feds to keep their noses out of Tennessee's business, or in plain english, you don't have a "rats ass" chance of taking OUR guns. Gotta love those Tennesseans, got balls (well, not the senators)! That leaves 49 other states to get with the program. America reborn!

    ReplyDelete
  7. North carolina needs to do the same or imoving to tenn.

    ReplyDelete
  8. READ the ORIGINAL ARTICLE!

    Nice editing! The original article had some pertinent content redacted. For example:

    "While gun crime in the city has fallen in the past 15 years...."

    "'The fact that the homicide rate is coming down is a comfort but...."

    "Most of these shooting incidents aren't resulting in the death of anybody but if they did start aiming we would have a serious problem on our hands.''

    Take a look at some quotes from elsewhere in the same paper....

    "It would be heart-warming to think Sandy Hook could be the turning point on US gun control just as the Port Arthur massacre was in Australia in 1996."

    "Australia has enjoyed the benefits of the gun buyback program that took many weapons out of circulation, along with a ban on private gun sales and harsher licensing rules."

    ReplyDelete
  9. From the looks of it, I think they're making it worse. The blackmarket isn't going to stop selling guns even with the gun ban, it's just there way of life. More people are still going to get some though.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm waiting for the UN to be used to get their guns. I just read where only 1/5th of the guns were ever turned in. They talk about certain gun crimes going down, but never mention home invasion robberies are up (doubled to tripled I think). No gun in the home means the family is not armed; the bad guys love it. So Liberal Politicians in Australia consider that a non-gun related crime now! WOW! Don't you think LACK of a gun, causing a crime shift, is a gun issue? Not to the Left!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I can't wait to see if the UN goes in to get the rest of the guns. I just read where they were only able to get 1/5th of the guns in the buy-backs. I also find it par for the course that they only mention certain gun crime rates going down. Left out is the "crime shift" statistics. They never mention non-gun crimes going UP, like home invasion robberies (which USED to be gun related), which I understand have more then doubled. With no defense gun in the homes of larger cities where these buy-backs are most effective, there is little resistance to the men crashing in the door with their knives, bats and duct tape (hmm, should we outlaw duct tape?). These crimes are reported as NON-gun related crimes and left silent in the gun debate. I would think a LACK of a defense gun in the home, when that used to be a right, would be at the center of the gun debate. Sadly, not to the Left (or those socialists hiding on the Right)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Pretty good since there have been no mass shootings since the ban and homicide has dropped steadily (except in the radical conservative rags where they parrot the already debunked claim that homicide went up.)

    The only other thing conservatives like to try and harp on is that other types of assault went up. Which has nothing to do with guns. The idea that strict gun laws creates a rise in assaults has been disproven by every first world country other than the U.S.

    ReplyDelete
  13. In the same time period the US homicide rate has declined at a greater percentage than Australia...

    ReplyDelete
  14. I also agree this post. I think we should maintain the law of gun. It is very dangerous if you use the gun unconsciously. Most of the USA children makes a mistake by using the misuse of gun.air rifle reviews

    ReplyDelete
  15. without an aggressive, combative, alert citizenry you cannot do anything.
    color

    ReplyDelete