Australia's ahead of the U.S.,,,,

[keyhole]

The carrying of pocket knives is illegal. And so it goes......
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


WHAT? Everyone knows that a man aint' dressed if he aint' carrying a knife.
Just goes to show how things will progress, once the sheepole let things go.

 

[1911Tuner]

re: Aussies, et al

Radagast! Yeehaa! Let the protests spread!

Amen freewheeling! It's never been about crime. It's always been about
control and subjugation. They know that as long as the populace is
armed, they hold the option of drawin' a line and sayin': "ENOUGH!"
Without that, the line creeps up all the way to the foot of our beds.

Keyhole...In my neck of the woods, a man ain't properly dressed unless
he's got his pistol on his belt. This here is one peaceful little town.


A few years back, a snotty little city gangsta decided he'd stop and rob the
Shell station. Fred reached under the desk and leveled a sawed-off double shotgun at his belly and said: "Up to you son. What's it gonna be?"
The banger dropped a nice little Baby Browning and ran with one hand
holdin' his pants up. (Probably 'cause the seat of'em was a pound or two heavier than when he walked in.) When the local cops showed up, they unloaded the little Colt, handed it to Fred and told him he'd earned it.
(True story)

Ain't that America?

 

[freewheeling]

WHAT? Everyone knows that a man aint' dressed if he aint' carrying a knife.
Just goes to show how things will progress, once the sheepole let things go.

I really do not like this notion of "sheeple." It smacks of the very same bourgeoisophobia that obsesses the intellectual left, only in a different guise. The fact that you haven't figured out the political cultural formula required to turn things around doesn't mean any of these folks are any less human than you or I. In fact, they're damned successful, and I can tell you that most of them despise elitism as much as anyone. So it might be a decent idea to start cultivating them as political allies, finding out their interests and commitments, etc. What's the equivalent of NASCAR in Oz?

 

[Radagast]

Tuner, that is a nice story.

Freewheelin, the equivalent of Nascar is Auscar, but it pretty much died. We have 'Group A' instead. Basically sort of stock car bodies made from fibreglass and Kevlar on a tube steel chassis with a massive V8 engine in them.
Personally I prefer Group C. Spend $5000 on a second hand V8 sedan, put slicks on it and go racing.
We also have super tourers, basically European rules for two liters class sedans, and truck racing.

On the term sheeple, I use it because it is the best explanation for a mindset brought up to not understand danger or take personal responsibility for the safety of self or fellows. It is accurate and gets the concept across well. It dosn't mean that they are not intelligent or couldn't be educated, which I try to do, it simply means they at this time they act like sheep. Lambert thought he was a sheep.

Ken

 

[freewheeling]

A person purporting to be an Australian recently posted the following to me on another forum.

I notice that early on in this discussion you claimed that police were visiting licenced gun owners to check whether their guns were stored as required 'under the Act.' I think you will find that these visits were being made to security firms as they had been the source of illicate guns that had been stolen by criminals during break ins.

So is this true? These inspections were merely of security firms? Is that true?

 

[freewheeling]

Also, I can't find any evidence of either a soaring murder rate in Australia or a soaring home invasion rate. If people have evidence to the contrary I'd like to see it, but basically it looks like the murder rate has been pretty flat for a very long time (almost a century) and there really isn't a "home invasion" statistic, to begin with. There's a category of "unlawful entry, with intent" which also has a rather flat trend line. Assaults have been increasing though, and these make up the vast majority of violent crime in Australia.

I mention this because I've repeated some of these erroneous contentions, and don't think it does the cause much good. I'd rather state a modest case, than a hyperbolic one that only undermines the case when it's uncovered later.

Furthermore, I don't think crime has a lot to do with guns in the first place, and the data in Australia seems to support that contention. The cause of crime is probably an increase in the criminally minded, and that in turn is a result of family dissolution. Defensive gun use adds a cost to predation, so will tend to hold a lid on crime. But the causes are elsewhere.

So, given that theory and assuming there has been no trend of increasing family dissolution you could probably expect a gun ban to have little effect on the crime rate. It may increase slightly, as criminals realize there are no armed citizens so one of the major costs of predation has declined. But the rise in crime would certainly not be as much as 500%, as some have claimed. The rate of assaults is up about 30% since 1996.

So if I'm missing something in the data, what is it?

 

[bukijin]

sigh...guess I should weigh into this discussion also.

No - the checks are not of security firms only. In my state of NSW (each state has its own laws, but in the area of firearms, they are all very similar) police officers are auditing every (licensed) gun owner to check that storage requirements are being met and that gun registration papers match the guns that we own. This isn't a spot check, but rather by appointment. I have an appointment next week - no problem because I am fully compliant with the law. IMO, the difference between a criminal and a law abiding citizen is that law abiding citizens obey laws that we don't agree with.

Australia is not the USA - our law, culture, physical environment and history make Australia quite a different society than the USA. We do have a long tradition and history of rifle ownership and use but handguns have never been numerous here. Historically firearms have been used here against animals rather than humans. (no war of independence, civil war or invasion - nor is one likely in the future) Of course our constitution is very different from that of the USA.

Regarding crime rates, most people would say that our socialist-style democracy with cheap health care, good social security and cheap universities etc. addresses the causes of crime. Of course the large amount of money spent on repossessing our firearms in two seperate 'buy-backs' over the last several years should have been used in a constructive way. (education in prisons, drug rehab programs ?) To me, crimes involving guns have never been a significant problem (and I mean no disrespect to the families of people murdered in a few hideous massacres here). I contend that good people outnumber criminals by (at least) a hundred to one, so more gun ownership would make this society safer rather than more dangerous.

 

[Radagast]

Freewheeling, the inspection of storage arrangements in NSW is an ongoing and continuous program for all shooters. I was inspected two weeks ago, my local gun shop has sold an average of 6 safes a week for the last three months as people get the word.

On the murder rate, correct, it has remained basically static for the the last 20 years.

Home invasions are up, shoot to wound is up too, especially among the lebanese Muslim criminal milieu. I'll see if I can find the relevant stats and post them tomorrow.


Ken

 

[Radagast]

Hmmm... this is becoming harder to document than I thought.

http://www.aic.gov.au/stats/robbery/

shows armed robbery increased 50% from 1996 to 1997, I'll see if I can find some more stats.

Ken

 

[Radagast]

http://www.ssaa.org.au/graph/VictimsArmedRobbery19932001.jpg

Stats for armed robbery. Interesting scale pre 1996 and post 1996.

Note the 2002 figures (not on the graph) show a 30% drop. As the lastest gun confiscation had not started for the 2001/2002 financial year, so I'm at a loss at to why this has occurred.

http://www.ssaa.org.au/graph/VictimsAttemptedMurder19932001.jpg

The attempted murder graph was trending down prior to 1996, it is now trending up. Note that modern medicine plays a major part in survival rates, to this should bve combined with the murder stats to get an real idea of the crime rate.

No luck on the armed robbery in the home stats. I've posted a request for info on the Aussie forum. I'll pass on what ever I get back .

Ken

 

[freewheeling]

bukijin:

Thanks for clearing that up. A point about the general tone of your response, though. The murder rate in Australia is actually pretty high. About half the murder rate of NYC, for instance. I'm not sure how it compares to the murder rate per capita for the US as a whole, but my guess is that it's higher (though with a much smaller and far more urban population).

And on another point:

Regarding crime rates, most people would say that our socialist-style democracy with cheap health care, good social security and cheap universities etc. addresses the causes of crime.

Having an extensive welfare support system essentially does the same thing that defensive gun ownership will do (although using a different mehanism). It holds a lid on the crime rate. The cause of crime, however, lies in family dissolution which has been increasing throughout the developed world for some time. Since the 1960s actually. Frank Fukuyama calls it "the great disruption." Ironically the birth of Australia corresponds to an earlier "great disruption," where the crime rate in England soared as a result of similar social pressures. These periods seem to come in recurring waves.

 

[freewheeling]

Ken:

The attempted murder graph was trending down prior to 1996, it is now trending up. Note that modern medicine plays a major part in survival rates, to this should bve combined with the murder stats to get an real idea of the crime rate.

It's not terribly obvious, possibly due to the scale, but it looks to me like a classic (although modest) plateau effect. A sudden drop in the murder rate of 30% suggests another mechanism is at work, but I have no idea what it might be. Assaults continue to trend upward though, so overall violent crime is still climbing.