BS: Gun control in OZ

Subject: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: kendall
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 10:29 PM

A friend of mine sent me something on the crime rate in Australia. It claims that since the government confiscated thousands of guns,At a cost of $78000.00, the homicide rate is up 3.2 %, assault up 8.6%, robberies up 44% and in Victoria, the homicide rate is up 300%.
It is signed, Ed Chenel, a cop in Australia.
It sounds like the NRA and its lie factory at work again.
Comments FROM AUSTRALIA would be appreciated.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: beardedbruce
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 10:34 PM

kendall,

To assume it is lies just because you don't want to believe it is ... somewhat bigoted.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 10:36 PM

http://www.chopperread.com/Index.htm


chop chop bang bang !

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: freda underhill
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 10:52 PM

The author of this chain letter was a crafty wordsmith who manipulated the statistics to make precisely the point he wanted to. The thing about statistics is that they only show rate of incident - they don't show cause and effect. If you look at the Australian Institute of Criminology's website, you will see no such correlation.

Any slight (that is maybe 6% not 300%) rise in crime would be due to a similar rise in population. We have a totally different culture in australia. we never had a proliferation of gun ownership in the first place. The two countries are not comparable, and my guess is that Ed Chenel is a made up internet name.

In Australia the major contributing factor to crime is drug use.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: freda underhill
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 11:06 PM

this link here lies, damned lied and statistics discusses how the american gun lobby is inventing false statistics to support thier own views.

here are some excerpts:

..an article in today's Australian by John Lott Jnr titled Tough gun laws don't reduce crime. .. Lott was an employee of the arch-conservative American Enterprise Institute. In today's Australian article, Lott also appears to play fast and loose with Australian crime statistics. He states:

    "In the four years after the UK banned handguns in 1996, gun crime rose by 40 per cent. Similarly, since Australia's 1996 laws banning many guns, armed robberies rose by 51 per cent, unarmed robberies by 37 per cent, assaults by 24 per cent and kidnappings by 43 per cent. Although murders fell by 3 per cent, manslaughter rose by 16 per cent." Lott's purported Australian figures are grossly misleading, if not downright false. In fact, ABS [Australian Bureau of statistics] figures show that between 1993 and 2001:

    * while the number of victims of murder has increased slightly from 296 to 306, as a rate per 100,000 population there has been a slight decrease from 1.7 to 1.6 victims;
    * there has been an 11% decrease in murders where a weapon was used over this period, while during the same period there has been a 19% increase in attempted murders where a weapon was used.
    * while the proportion of robberies where a weapon was used in 1993 and 2001 was similar (42%), the use of firearms has declined both in actual numbers (from 1,983 down to 1,686) and as a proportion of all robberies (from 16% to 6%);
    * while the proportion of robberies where a weapon was used in 1993 and 2001 was similar (42%), the use of firearms has declined both in actual numbers (from 1,983 down to 1,686) and as a proportion of all robberies (from 16% to 6%).

Note that Lott concedes the falling murder rate in Australia, but tries to give the impression that it is more than negated by a much higher manslaughter rate. However, Jenny Mouzos of the Australian Institute of Criminology in a paper titled Changing Patterns in Homicide observes that, 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). That remains the case up to the present (see Homicidal Encounters: A Study of Homicide in Australia 1989-1999; Homicide in Australia 1999-2000; Homicide in Australia: 2000-2001 National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) Annual Report - all by Mouzos).

Thus, Lott presents a totally misleading picture, and indeed a completely false one on robbery figures. He also conveniently fails to mention several facts that most people would probably find rather relevant to the gun control issue:

    * In the decade to 1996, forty-six per cent of firearms incidents involved a weapon that is (now) prohibited or restricted as a result of the initiatives following the Port Arthur tragedy of 1996. These incidents accounted for 55 per cent of the victims of firearm homicide (see Firearms Homicide in Australia by Carlos Carcach and P N Grabosky).
    * 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; they were merely part of an ongoing process of legal and social reform, which will hopefully continue with further sensible restrictions on handguns.
    * The United States has the highest homicide rate of 6.8 per 100 000 population. The US rate has been declining since 1994, but in comparison to Australia it is still three times higher (and 3.5 times the UK rate).
    * Between July 1998 and June 1999 there were 64 firearm-related homicides recorded in Australia. This equates to 3 firearm homicides per one million persons (Mouzos 2000a). By comparison, the United States recorded 10,973 known firearm homicides in 1998 or 41 per one million population (Fox & Zawitz 2001).

Mr. Lott is not the only one playing fast and loose with statistics on gun-related crime. Our very own ozplogger Zem argues that:

    "Anti-gun lobbyists are pushing hard for further restrictions and buybacks, despite NSW's 400% increase in shootings since federal restrictions were imposed in 1996. Nor have they been paying attention to the experience in England, where "gold standard" handgun control laws have seen a dramatic increase in violent crime".

Now, a 400% increase in shootings also looks like a pretty spectacular figure, doesn't it? maybe it proves that Howard's gun laws haven't worked as well as we had hoped, at least in lawless New South Wales. To find the answer, I looked at a May 2001 NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research by Jacqueline Fitzgerald, Suzanne Briscoe and Don Weatherburn called Firearms and Violent Crime in New South Wales . The report summarises the NSW situation as follows:

    *       Murders involving firearms have declined over the last five years.
    *       Robberies involving firearms have declined over the last three years (but rose slightly in the 3 years before that)
    *       'Shoot with intent' incidents have risen over the last five years.
    *       'Shoot with intent' incidents involving handguns have risen over the last five years.
    *       About half of all 'shoot with intent' offences involving handguns and other firearms occur in a public place.
    *       The increase in firearm offences has been most pronounced in areas of Sydney where drug trafficking is a problem.
    *       Young males aged 18-19 are much more prone to involvement in shooting incidents than older males.
    *       The prevalence of firearm offences, in general, and handgun offences, in particular, remains low.

How, then, does Zem make a claim of a 400% increase in shootings (which I suspect he got from the Sporting Shooters Association)? Fitzgerald et al report:

    "In 1995 a handgun was implicated in nine 'shoot with intent' incidents recorded by the police. Every year since 1995 the number of 'shoot with intent' offences involving handguns has risen, peaking at 42 offences in 2000. The State-wide increase in handgun shootings has been particularly pronounced in the Canterbury-Bankstown and Fairfield-Liverpool Statistical Subdivisions."

Thus, although both murders and robberies involving firearms have fallen (in NSW as in the rest of Australia), the rate for just one particular type of firearm offence ( 'shoot with intent') has increased in NSW by almost 400% (as Zem claimed). However, as Fitzgerald et al found, this is almost entirely due to a very specific and very local factor: the growth of youth drug gangs around Canterbury-Bankstown-Lakemba (predominantly Lebanese gangs) and Fairfield-Liverpool- Cabramatta (predominantly Vietnamese gangs). The phenomenon appears to have no broader geographical significance, and in no way establishes the failure of John Howard's gun laws.

Lastly, let's return to the US comparison. After all it seems to be the US model that Zem, Alex Robson and John Lott Jnr all think Australia should emulate. As Fitzgerald et al observe:

    "Even robberies involving firearms are much less prevalent in NSW than they are in the United States. This is despite NSW having the highest per capita robbery rate in Australia. As we saw earlier, last year there were 655 robberies involving firearms in NSW. Sixty-seven per cent (438) of these incidents involved a handgun. On a per capita basis this gives an annual firearm robbery rate in NSW of 10.1 incidents per 100,000 population and a handgun robbery rate of 6.8 incidents per 100,000 population. The rates of 'shoot with intent' incidents are even lower than the rates for robbery with a firearm incidents, being 1.6 per 100,000 population in the case of 'shoot with intent' incidents involving any kind of firearm and 0.7 per 100,000 population in the case of 'shoot with intent' incidents involving a handgun.

    For comparison, the rate of firearm robbery in the United States is 58.7 crimes per 100,000 population (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2000) ..."

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 11:12 PM

that was boring

I want a gun

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: Peace
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 11:13 PM

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/australiaguns.html

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: JennyO
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 11:21 PM

What freda said is right.

I think your take on it would be pretty much on the mark, Kendall. This is a chain letter that has been around for years on the internet, apparently started by someone or some group with an agenda. It's old news, and is a perfect example of how statistics can be skewed to suit anyone's purposes. The quote "There are three kind of lies, Lies, Damn Lies, And statistics." comes to mind.

This article on Snopes is worth reading. One thing is that particularly in the urban areas, most of us didn't carry guns in the first place, so I agree with this paragraph in Snopes:

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.

The 300% figure is totally misleading:

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.)

We have a pretty militant gun lobby group here in Australia too. There's a song by Maurie Mulheron to the tune of "I'm a rambler, I'm a gambler" that goes

Chorus

I'm a rambo, I'm a rambo, I'm a long way from sane
And if I don't like you then snap goes my brain
I've a personal arsenal down in the shed
Look sideways at me mate, you'll find yourself dead.

Verse 1

Owning a gun is my god-given right
If I see something moving I shoot it on sight
I have a big chainsaw for things that stand still
For I believe in freedom, the freedom to kill.

Anyone got the rest of the words?

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: Peace
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 11:29 PM

Chicago Indymedia: newswire
... 221056 Federal Communications Commission Chief Commissioner Michael ... of Gun Control in Australia, a Warning ... by Ed Chenel (No verified email address), Current ...
chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/ /index.php?limit_start=9890 - 42k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages

PLESAE NOTE the "(No verified e-mail address)"

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 01:41 AM

ahem, JennyO, our talented friend John Dengate wrote The Gun Lobby Song

& Maurie sings it on The Rattlers' CD 'Comradeship'

intro by Maurie
In the wake of the Port Arthur massacre most Australian focused like never before on the need to restrict access to guns. This song is about the few who didn't focus. I'm reminded about John Doyle's short psychological test for gun ownership.
Q: do you wish to own a gun?
A: Yes.
Test result: unsuitable applicant.

.....................

Chorus

I'm a Rambo, I'm a Rambo,
I'm a long way from sane,
And if I don't like you then snap goes my brain
I've a personal arsenal down in the shed
Look sideways at me mate,
You'll find yourself dead.

Owning a gun is my God given right
If I see something move then I shoot it on sight
I have a big chainsaw for things that stand still
For I believe in freedom, the freedom to kill.

Chorus

I write off to gun shops and order by mail
Or travel to Queensland where guns are for sale
From vast outback stations to 10 acre farms
I bellow my slogan "The right to bear arms"

Chorus

I've high powered rifles and ammo in tons
I vote for One Nation because they love guns
Kangaroos, beer bottles, road signs and cans
I blast them to pieces to prove I'm a man

Chorus.
....................

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: hilda fish
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 05:44 AM

Thanks both Freda Underhill and JennyO for all their stuff. Boring as GUEST thinks it is, it makes the point that we are not America, or England for that matter, but more importantly, that its amazing how much credibility a random bit of the universe has compared with a very easy check of facts through Criminology Dept or Aust Bureau of Stats (go Sandra yay!!!) Interesting aside - I was raised with guns and as a child it was our habit to carry around a .22 and if we were out in pig country, a 303. I was very familiar with guns. Ås an adult I had some beautiful ones - I think particularly of a beautiful Brazilian .22 10 automatic. That was a gorgeous gun. We never used to have to do anything but register the 22's in the local cop shop and everyone seemed to have a 303, particularly in the bush (have to say, both experience wise, and stats wise, very rarely were any of these used to shoot people). In the city I had my guns in the roof (4 of 'em) all cleaned and unpinned. Many of my friends were quite shocked to discover that I had guns. With the discussion around guns I decided to give them in. The reasons were, the most suicides were done by teenager boys/young men who found guns in the house - the murder weapon most used in domestic murders was through a gun in the home - armed robberies were usually done using weapons that had been found while doing a home break-in. My guns were at great risk of being used in a way that I never wanted them to be, and like my fellow Australians (over 90% despite the gun lobby) I handed them in to get crushed up and made useless. It was really hard with that .22 and worse when I found out later I didn't have to hand that one in - legally I could have kept it. Guns of course continue to be an issue throughout the world, not just here, but in every way, statistically, socially, crimewise, and so on, we have less relationship with them than the United States. This is not to say that we are a 'better' country but that our culture and history ensured that our gun relationship was based in other things. So many of us who had guns (a very minimal part of the population) have handed in our weapons that it is indeed extremely rare to find a gun anywhere legally in Åustralia. One of my brothers has a number of pistols for a number of reasons (all of them not being able to stand up to too much scrutiny in my opinion) and he has to have them underground locked in a box which is locked in a room whose access is locked and that access locked. Despite all this fairly useless stuff I am writing (rambling on I believe it is called) this is a timely reminder about guns and society mainly being that the point of guns is to kill whether it is owned by one person who in the name of an army and a country.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: kendall
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 07:35 AM

Brearded Bruce, I suspect it is a lie bevause I KNOW the president of the NRA is a liar. I caught him at it, wrote to him and he never answered.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: JennyO
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 08:08 AM

Ah yes Sandra - I realised later it was Mr Dengate who wrote that song - you'd think I'd know my Dengate on sight by now! Maurie Mulheron's version was the first one I ever heard, and that's the one I usually have running through my head. Just a touch of "CRAFT" disease going on :-)

Anyway, thanks for the rest of the words. I have some Dengate songs in a book, but not that one. Did you get the words from one of his songbooks? If so, which book?

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 08:28 AM

I know Kerry was a liar, too, but you all wanted me to vote for him...

So, the assumption will now be that anyone who has ever lied cannot ever tell the truth?

Or perhaps the actual facts can be discussed, and truth determined from those facts, as seems to be happening here.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 08:38 AM

freda-

You forgot the quotes in your first post to this thread-

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/australiaguns.html as posted by brucie.

Claim One:
* Homicides are up 3.2%
* Assaults are up 8.6%
* Armed robberies are up 44%
Response:
These figures compare 1996 with 1997 figures and were correct at that time.
(Data source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Recorded Crime 1997, Table 1.1, p 8).

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: kendall
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 09:12 AM

I hate liars. If your case is so weak that you must make up lies to shore it up, you are pathetic.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 09:14 AM

Well, I SAID Kerry was pathetic, but you did not agree at the time...

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: kendall
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 04:26 PM

Kerry was a posturing asshole, one notch above Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 06:31 PM

We differ only in the relative placement of the two...

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: Peace
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 06:42 PM

When you go into detail, would one of you message me? Thanks.

BM

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: kendall
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 07:19 PM

This thread is not about Bush or Kerry, it is a requeast for information from AUSTRALIA.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: Wolfgang
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 04:53 AM

Not much new in this thread (and I think we had this already once): Organisations that are advocats of a particular cause are never to be trusted when they quote numbers, so Kendall's mistrust is justified. The idea is to quote selectively from a statistic in a far away country and hope nobody does the hard work of really looking closely at the numbers. Freda has done a thorough job regarding Australia. I'll make a more general remark:

If you have a large number of statistics to choose from (Australia is just one of many countries) and you are fairly free in your choice of starting point and end point (so many different years to look at and you can compare one year, two yeras, three years... periods of time), it would be a statistical wonder if you could not find a comparison period in one of the countries of the earth corroborating what you had in mind. These statistics snoopers start with the wanted result and then look for a fitting statistic. These selected stories are not much better than personal experiences ("my uncle Dave gave away his gun and one month later...").

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: GUEST,foolestroupe - "I come fru da window!"
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 07:01 AM

I was chatting with Kendall when the chat server hung on me the other day. I was about to tell him that we Aussies have never had a similar obsession with guns. Rural areas have a few more, but there has never been a great desire for every Aussie kid to own a Daisy Air gun - of all the kids I knew in Primary & Secondary School, only a couple ever had one - never known of a girl with one. I never had one, even though I would have liked one - my relatives and parents had been in the Military during WW I & II.

My mother went to the USA to see her dying sister who had been a war-bride. She was staying in her house, and there was talk of a prowler. Mum was offered a handgun, which she refused. She said that it was most likely a young boy, harmless. A few weeks later they found him and she was right. Some trigger happy scared nutter could have shot him.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: nager
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 04:40 PM

Most people here don't give a toss about having the `right' to own a gun.
Ninety per cent of people I know wouldn't want one.
I don't know what statistics (above) are correct but I do know that whenever they are compiled by a government bureau there are always people falling over themselves to put their spin or interpretation on them.
As Freda correctly said much earlier in this thread, in Australia the major contributing factor to crime is drug use.
The major cause of death and injury here is many people's total misuse of the motor vehicle.
For criminal it is to drive dangerously fast, with drugs and alcohol in the blood stream and cause horrific accidents involving innocent people.
The amount of deaths and injury caused by crimes associated with guns, is way down the list.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 05:01 AM

THE AVERAGE AUSTRALIAN WOULD NOT GIVE TWO HOOTS
FOR A GUN. THEY WOULD RATHER BE OUT PLAYING A
REAL SPORT

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: GUEST,John O'Lennaine
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 05:44 AM

The vast majority of gun deaths in Australia involve criminals killing other criminals.

All of the guns handed in during the amnesty would have been surrendered by non-criminals.

If there was a discernable rise in gun crime following the amnesty I suspect it was purely coincidental.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: freda underhill
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 05:46 AM

when are you going to join mudcat john o'lennaine?

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: Peace
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 05:52 AM

Good site, IMO.

Canada stats. FYI.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 09:01 AM

"When guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns"...

The Australian case, so it was claimed, proves it...

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: GUEST,John O'Lennaine
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 03:52 AM

freda -
I actually joined in 2001 (or thereabouts), but forgot my password after not visiting for some time.
The device which emails my forgotten password to me seems to be malfunctioning, and I haven't followed it up because I no longer relate to the username I chose at that time.
So there you have it. A long story made even longer.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 06:54 AM

other folks have changed their user names. There must be info in the FAQ

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 10:36 AM

brucie: if you apply the "good riddance factor" to those crime statistics what happens? If drug dealer "A" kills a biker with a tattoo of satan on his arm at the back of a bar in Toronto aka victim "B", is it such a great loss to society? The vast majority of gun crimes in Canada are gang related..

Assigning moral culpability to an inanimate object is ludicrous. There are more murders with knives golf clubs and baseball bats that draw less media and political attention...

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 10:50 AM

Correlating gun ownership with reduction in crime is like correlating peaceful coexistence with nuclear proliferation.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: kendall
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 12:30 PM

Balling for chastity is a great idea.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control in OZ
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 12:40 PM

I guess we are not in Kansas anymore, Toto?