The gun rights puzzle

[SC-Sp00k]

Dear Toad (sounds like im writing a chapter of wind in the willows)

Im not slamming America or Americans. Converting the lot of you into a peaceful race of beings not unlike the Star Trek happy world is beyond poor old me.

Im simply stating it as I see it.  The Gun Buy Back system as ive stated many times above does not solve it all.  It is a step in the right direction.  Yes, Criminals will still get guns.  Gun Control simply makes it harder for them for them to do so.  

Joe Citizen who really wants a gun could also get one on false pretences but the system makes it harder for him to do so.

Your neighbour could make his own. I've a loverly book here to tell him how to do it.  But he will think twice before doing so.

You can have a gun or not have a gun but if someone wants a piece of you in the middle of the night, he's gonna get that piece whether your armed or not.  Contrary to the movies, Assassins and Killers dont make appointments or shoot you at 10 paces whilst daring you to draw.

In your society, you allow these people to have these weapons. In my society we do whatevers possible to keep them from getting them.

I dont agree with those bleeding from the eyes about self protection.  In no BS terms, that arguement holds about as much water as glass tumbler with both ends removed.

While your polishing your gun, so is the other guy. Who meets who in the encounter is relevant only to the Courts and the Coroner.

To Change things in this Country was a long and involved process that met fierce resistance. To Change things in yours would be tantamount to Civil War.  

Would the Washington Sniper have been stopped by National Gun Laws?   Maybe. Who knows.  Perhaps he would have used an alternative method.  Who knows what goes on in the mind of a killer.   Would it have made it harder for him to achieve his goal in the method he employed?  Yes, I think so.

The bottom line is this.

If someone wants to kill you, your dead. It wont matter if your wrapped within the cocoon of a Sherman Tank.  Your guns wont matter unless your in a shootout at the OK Corral and up against the dumbest of killers.

Take away the nations right to bear arms in the fashion that you do and you cease to make it so damn easy for the badguys to do the same.

Its neither easy nor perfect. But im willing to bet its a damn sight better than what you have now.

Put your murder rate per Capita against ours.

An interesting link lies here. It draws interesting references between Australia, the US and Great Britain.  I wont bore you with quotes. If your interested, have a read.

http://www.ntu.edu.au/faculties/lba/schools/Law/apl/blog/stories/liberties/12.htm

The Crime rates you seem hell bent on pushing as an issue you will find are not in regards to Homicide. You boys hold the title belt there.  

[Sabre]

Spook, I believe you believe the buy-back produced a net improvement in your society.  While you have failed to convince me of that, I respect your right to believe that, as I respect your opinion as a police officer. However, two of your statements seem particularly incongruous to me.

Why are firearm offences up? The reasons are to numerous and involved to state here. But it has nothing to do with the failure of the Buy back scheme. Socio-economic and behavioural changes in the population contains the answers.

I like quotes, by the way.  Less chance of me misinterpreting the speaker.  So, fire arms offenses are up since the buy-back.  Your claim that they are due to "The economy, cost of living, welfare supported numbers, drug availability, drought, fire devastation, the list goes on" is based on what?  Statistics?  The assumption, impossible to prove, is that it would be much worse if the buy-back had not occured.  Evidence in my country seems to point to the opposite.

It is more dangerous these days then it was before the buyback scheme. Why? Knives is why. Knives replaced the firearms as the common un-supported Crim sought to regain an element for control. Its more dangerous for me because I have to get up close to them.

So knives are more dangerous than guns?  How does this relate to the increase in fire arm offenses you mention above?

Finally, you fail to address seriously the idea that an armed citizenry is a deterent to tyranny.  It's all well to say, "It can't happen here."  I like to think it can't happen in the USA, either.  The difference is, my own believe is supported in my own mind by twin pillers.  The first is that our government's checks and balances provide a degree of protection against that.  The second piller is that my own goverment understands that the people have the means to resist any efforts to scrap the constitution.

I am not a gun-toting, male-ego-driven, fear-mongering John Wayne type.  Neither are most responsible gun owners in this country.  I respectfully submit that it is you, not I, that have fallen for Hollywood's distorted view of life in America.  You see, I live here, and understand my own society.  That's because I am my society, or at least a microcosm of it.  Not the fringe, mind you...more the mainstream.

By the way, I do not now own a gun (though I've got a nasty-sharp sabre I keep close at hand;)).  By I will defend the right of law-abiding citizens to own them if they want to, just as I defend the right of those same citizens to disagree with me.  I dedicated the last 20 years of my life to defending those rights, as an Air Force officer.  I will continue to defend it by making sure no b*st*rd of a politician tries to undermine those rights, by use of my franchise to vote.

[Toad]

Getting late here, so I'll keep this short.

Originally posted by SC-Sp00k
In your society, you allow these people to have these weapons. In my society we do whatevers possible to keep them from getting them.

[/b]

Not exactly. There are some checks and attempts here to restrict firearm purchases.

However, in YOUR society you simply banned most guns and confiscated the "illegal" ones.

Your solution denies everyone a gun in the hope of preventing the "bad apples" from getting firearms.

Our solution attempts to separate the "bad apples" at the time of purchase and deny THEM the gun.

As you point out neither system is perfect. Criminals still have access to guns in both societies. And, IMO, your stats (even the ones in your link) don't show that you're system is any better than ours, really.

Would the Washington Sniper have been stopped by National Gun Laws?   Maybe. Who knows.

[/b]

Exactly. Maybe. Maybe not. Australia is willing to restrict/deny the lawful use of guns by everyone in the off chance it would have stopped one guy.

Since we're swapping articles (I did read yours. btw. Some of the "Australianese" was hard to decipher.) Here's another way to look at the DC incident.

]Relative risks and snipers, or, how I learned to stop worrying and live my life

"So you are only slightly more likely to be shot by the sniper than hit by lightning. You are twice as likely to be hit by a car while walking down the street than being shot by the sniper. You are more than ten times as likely to trip and fall at home than being shot by the sniper. You are 35 times more likely to die in a car crash while driving than being shot by the sniper.

When you go out of the house, do you worry about dying from driving, being hit by a car, tripping over and falling to your death, or being hit by lightning?"

And that's with a known threat in just one metropolitan area.

Do you restrict all the good things that lawful use of firearms brings to so many people on this remote chance?

Or do you go after the criminals instead?

I don't worry about this stuff. The odds are simply too remote.

BTW, you seem to shrug off the restrictions and denials of the opportunity to use firearms lawfully that you've forced on your citizenry.

As I mentioned, one guy screws up, the entire population gets the hammer. I'm not in favor of that.
 
You folks have chosen that course. The result? (From your link)

"between 1989 and 1998, the homicide rate (which includes both murder and manslaughter) as measured by the National Homicide Monitoring Program remained relatively stable, fluctuating between 1.7 and 2.0 per 100 000 population (around 300 homicides in total each year)"

So basically, NOTHING has changed in the homicide/manslaughter totals. Still ~300 a year before and after the ban.

Yet MUCH has changed in the lives of the everyday common Australian citizen that used to use guns lawfully. And none of it made his life any more pleasurable or convenient.

Again, your gain for restricting the lawful citizen was...... NOTHING.

You probably need more restrictions or something.  

[SC-Sp00k]

Im finding it hard to understand your justifications Toad.

For example.

Your quote a crime rate that hasnt changed before or after the Ban. Surely that tells you something?  Crime doesnt go down. It only ever goes up.  It can fluctuate but the economy creates desperate people and nobody in the lower class pay bracket seems to be getting richer these days.  Instead of allowing the crime rate to increase, it keeps it at bay at a stable level. If we were talking about Drink Drivers we would all be applauding that result.  Seems like a big winner to me.

You state Our solution attempts to separate the "bad apples" at the time of purchase and deny THEM the gun.

I go back to my original statements that your average jo smo is more likely to be the one attempting to kill you. Serial Killers are by and large a rare breed in most societies.  Burglars burgle, Rapists rape, Drunks assault, killers kill.  Now every now and again one os going to deviate and by foresight of consequence, accident or deliberation move into the genre of Murder but on the whole, they tend to stick to their Methods of Operandi.

Again, its not about restricting the lawful citizen. Its about restricting everyone.  A lawful citizen is only lawful until engaged in criminal activity.  Who here knows good people who have come to grief with the law?  I do.  Perhaps not to the extent of Murder but its not outside the realm of possibility either.  Many lawful citizens commit Murder. You cant stop them in your society before they commit the offence.  In ours, there is a design to try and do just that.  Which is essentially my point in this debate.

Sabre, I still see firearms raising their ugly heads in jobs that I attend today despite the buy back scheme.  Firearms are used by ethnic gangs in heavily populated areas. By drunken farmers in disputes and domestic and Armed Robbery incidents. There are other groups and incidents also. We havent got them all by a long shot.

The Buy Back scheme will not wipe out Firearm offences.  If the criminals and Gun owners, all said, "Hell yes, lets do this" then that would be possible . You and I know, tho that, that is a pipe dream.

10-15 years ago, people used to fight in bars with their fists. Apart from serious assaults, you were likely to fracture a cheekbone and maybe suffer concussion.  Nowadays, its knives and guns.  Particularly in the Cities.  Sydney is a classic example.
Asian crime gangs. Lebonese Crime Gangs introduced the knife culture.  Like all threats, when faced with one you respond with something bigger.  Guns became more frequent.  Hence the need to gain control.

Now crime stats are a wonderful thing to interpret but rarely are they on the money.  Example.  If a job is reported as a Burglary, it goes on the system as a Burglary. The job may not be in fact a Burglary at all, but a Theft.  9 times out of 10, the Police Officer wont be bothered changing it as all thats important to them is the investigation and prosecution of the offender/s.  The Stats will report the job as a Burglary because thats what it went down on the system as, despite it never being or resembling one.

Many gun incidents are the same.  I cant count the number of jobs ive attended over the years where someone has been sighted with a gun in the suburbs only to find out its a kid with a toy or someone carrying a broom etc.  The Stats still report it as a gun job.

Murders/Homocides are a little different. Everyone dots the i's and crosses the t's with them.  Police Officers are unlikely not to change the status of a job if its incorrect because the big ones always bring scrutiny from all corners.

Now I may have incorrectly tried to explain this earlier on...

Anyone with a Legitimate purpose for owning a gun, ie; farmers, sporting shooters, occupational needs etc can still buy a gun in this country.  Theres still plenty of the buggers about. They simply cant buy any gun they want without giving good reason and showing due cause.

I cant find arguement with that, even to use the US citizens need or desire to own a gun for home defence other than to say, its a bloody sensible idea.  Show due cause and lawful excuse and you get one.  Otherwise you dont.  Pretty basic methodology.

[Toad]

Originally posted by SC-Sp00k
Im finding it hard to understand your justifications Toad.

[/b]

Don't worry, that's a mutual problem here.

Your quote a crime rate that hasnt changed before or after the Ban. Surely that tells you something?  Crime doesnt go down. It only ever goes up.

[/b]

Sorry, Spook. You're just plain wrong. Crime rates in the US have been dropping across the board over the last 10-15 years. It's just this last year that has seen a small upward spike. This is pretty well documented in our media if you care to look. Or from your own posted link, if you wish:

The United States has the highest homicide rate of 6.8 per 100 000 population. The US rate has been declining since 1994

Declining without using a gun buy back or ban; declining (for whatever combination of reasons) using just OUR system of restricting some buyers.

How could this be possible without a gun ban, eh? Obviously, there's a whole lot more to it than just the guns.

Further, your Australian crime rates had been dropping as well prior to Port Arthur. Again I quote from YOUR link:

In 1995-96 the proportion of homicides committed with a firearm was 21 per cent, a figure much lower than that which prevailed twenty years ago (the proportion then was around 40 per cent). The proportion has continued at that rate ever since. Thus, the post-Port Arthur gun laws were clearly not the sole cause of falling gun homicides

So, let's look at it.

US crime rates declined with NO buy-back/ban.

Australian crimes rates WERE declining up until Port Arthur and the ban but have STAYED THE SAME (unlike the US which continued to decline slightly) ever since the buy-back/ban.

So what did you folks accomplish with your ban?

Nothing that I can see documented.  You made a nice "feelgood" move that had essentially no effect except to put your lawful hunters and shooters through a lot of pointless, unnecessary BS.

 

Spook:  Again, its not about restricting the lawful citizen. Its about restricting everyone.  A lawful citizen is only lawful until engaged in criminal activity.

[/b]

Jeez, that last line chillingly reminds me of the "guilty until proven innocent" approach that our Founders were obviously so against. Our whole jurisprudence system is based on the assumption that one is innocent until proven guilty.

It's not "if engaged in criminal activity" it's "until".

If that' the atttude of Australian government.. whew. I'm REALLY glad I live here in the US now!

And perhaps that's the big difference. I think we're (US) focused on allowing people rights until and IF they prove themselves unworthy of exercising those rights.

Some governments, notably England and Australia, have taken the view that no one is worthy of exercising some rights.
 

Spook:  Anyone with a Legitimate purpose for owning a gun, ie; farmers, sporting shooters, occupational needs etc can still buy a gun in this country.  

[/b]

If I read your gun rights as clipped and posted above, that's simply a bit of misdirection. Your government decides "legitimate purpose" and even describes the firearms that can be used. Pump shotguns prohibited? That's the mainstay of the US hunter; inexpensive and extremely reliable. It's most certainly a legitimate gun for hunting. Yet it's prohibited in you country. I'd view that as a typical government overreaction.

And while you're citizens can buy a gun, they're very restricted on how/when they can use it, how/when they can store it, how much ammunition they can have on hand, etc.? are they not?

In short, Australia, like England, has made it cumbersome and difficult to own and use whatever firearms have been left as "available" to the citizenry.

And again, to what end? Previously declining crime rates in both of those countries have either stabilized or increased. No gain for all the BS.

Spook: Show due cause and lawful excuse and you get one.  Otherwise you dont.  Pretty basic methodology.

One that doesn't work, apparently. We've had declining rates without any bans.

You've had declining rates until the ban and then they stabilized.

And that's from YOUR link.

Bottom line is this and you can't get around it:

, the post-Port Arthur gun laws were clearly not the sole cause of falling gun homicides

[/b]

In fact, none of the scientists/stats can show that the post-Port Arthur gun laws had anything at all to do with declining rates since we, the worst of the worst, had declining rates WITHOUT any "post-Port Arthur (type) gun laws".

So, simply put, your buy back did NOTHING. And that's why I'm biased against that solution. It hasn't worked for you.

It's simply a "feelgood" measure by any objective assessment of the data.

And that's where we differ. I'm sure you don't agree.

I wonder what would have happened to Australia's crime rate had all that money, time and effort been poured into the police force instead of searching for and buying up some old farmer's bolt-action Enfield. I'll wager it would have continued to decline rather than stabilized.

[Fatty]

So are you guys going to outlaw knives too Spook?  Sounds like you need to.  Not all of them of course, you could apply for a knife license, such as a professional chef.