Slashdot Mirror

I really hate the intellectual dishonesty on both sides of this issue.

Here in Australia guns were effectivly banned a decade ago...we have the harshest gun laws in the western world.

Homicide rates are declining at exactly the same rate as they were before laws were enacted...
http://www.aic.gov.au/research/homicide/homicideRate2.png
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/12/13/gr_guns_narrowweb__300x362,0.jpg

Pro and anti gun groups estimated between 2-7 million guns in the country before the ban.

~700,000 guns were handed in.

If you dont respect the law, why would you follow that particular one?

The vast vast majority of guncrime here is, and always was, suicide.

Last year alone...

# Accident 40
# Suicide 193
# Homicide 54
# Legal etc. 3

The Australian Bureau of statistics says that suicide by firearm has halved! Rejoice!

Oops suicide by hanging has now doubled...

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/95553f4ed9b60a374a2568030012e707/161eb35db8be9152ca256f6a00733990/Body/0.75F0!OpenElement&FieldElemFormat=gif

Oh Well, No matter! As long as a gun wasn't involved then that's not our problem.

On the other hand mass shootings have become non-existant.

One side says gun deaths have gone down, yay! Except those people are still dying...they're just hanging themselves or being bludgeoned or stabbed to death.

The other side says that it makes no difference, that gun crime will continue as criminals keep their guns. Yes, this is true. On the other hand your average mass shooter doesn't have a criminal mindset or connections, and wouldn't know where to get a gun if they wanted one.

So from our real world data...gun bans reduce mass shootings, no doubt. They have no effect on homicide or suicide rates.

Then again in this country guns have never been anywhere near the top of the list of ways to kill someone. Knives and hands and feet hold that priviledge. 33% for knives, 18% for hands and 14% for guns (down 1% since the new gun laws a decade ago).

You've got more chance of being stabbed or bashed to death outside the bar than being shot.

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/rpp/77/rpp77.pdf

Don't be fooled...by either side.

The linked article includes this statement:

"Twenty-six percent of English citizens -- roughly one-quarter of the population -- have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized."

I cannot speak for the UK, but I live in Australia and I can tell you that the 30% figure is utter crap - unless it includes getting wedgies in the school yard.

As for the gun lobby myth that violent crime exploded in Australia after gun controls were introduced, check out this bar chart of homicide rates for the period 1989 - 2000. The homicide rate is pretty much constant before and after gun control laws were introduced in 1996 (you can see when the laws were introduced because of the large spike in the homicide rate in Tasmania in 1996, due to the Port Arthur massacre. The gun control laws were introduced immediately after the massacre).

Maybe you will try to claim that the rates went up after 2000, however these figures show that it remained constant until 2004, the latest normalised figures I could find.

You should try getting your information from somewhere that doesn't have ads for books about the duty of self armament on its front page. Gun control laws may not have done much to reduce crime in Australia, but they certainly haven't done anything to increase it, despite a great deal of misinformation from the US gun lobby to the contrary.

Though it's interesting that the authors of this report find that Rwanda's prison population isn't worth including in the rankings, presumably because so many people are being held for suspicion of genocide. But they're still being held, aren't they?

I agree objects do not have intent, however human artifacts are always created with one or more intentions, in the case of guns it is obvious one of those intentions is to safely and efficiently kill or maim other people.

Speaking of intent, here in Australia you must sit a test to gain a license for a gun that must be registered. You must state a purpose for owning a gun, "self defense" is not a valid purpose, in the eyes of the law you intend to shoot someone regardless of the morals/legality of any particular situation. It is regarded as a sign of "fear" and trying to work out if that fear is justified just bogs everything down in an endless "what if" argument.

Sports such as hunting and pistol shooting are well catered for, I have participated in both activities with no intention of killing anything other than wild rabbits (rabbits are introduced vermin in this country). Handguns must be stored in a registered and regularly inspected armoury (usually at a gun club). Magazines for shotguns and rifles are illegal but you can store the single/double barrel variety at home. From most Australian's point of view, "African style" anarchy is what you eventually get without effective gun control. I realise the US has a different outlook, that's your perogative and your's alone, I am simply relating experiences from the land down under where I have seen gun control evolve over the last 4-5 decades, if polls are to be belived my personal opinion on our gun laws is a good match for 80+% of Australians.

"Thank god I own a gun, why just last night a roving band of coked up kids veered clear of me. I think it must have been the shiny gleam of my big NRA belt buckle that tipped them off."

Australia has had these laws for ~20yrs now, when the law and associated buy-back program was proposed there was an influx of "NRA belt buckle's" attempting to derail the process. There was considerable public outrage at "arms dealers" attempting to influence our internal affairs, the "belt buckle's" worked out that the public had been "tipped off", packed up their marketing material and slunk out of the country.

The intent of these laws is harm minimization based on epedemilogical research showing (among other things) that a gunshot wound is five times as leathal as a stab wound and far easier to inflict. The event that focused political attention was a heinous crime by a young but deranged individual with a high powered semi-auto who went human hunting and bagged 30-40 of them. None of this has made a significant difference to the overall crime rate (although handguns have never been popular with Aussies anyway), however it has made a significant impact on public health, and just maybe, a greater proportion of a very tiny number of deranged individuals are forced to reload after each shot.

Yeh it's about 3 times our murder rate. Looks far lower when it's a percentage. Wonder if firearm laws make a difference. We don't have the second ammendment like you and firearms laws became strict after the Port Arthur Massacre. So theres no legal ownership of semi-automatic or automatic weapons i think. Farmers and sports shooters can register shotguns and rifles though.

It's interesting to note that hand guns are the weapon of choice for murder in America. Whereas in Australia only 16% of murders are commited with firearms. Australians tend to use knives as the weapon of choice followed by physical force.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/weapons.htm

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/facts/2005/02_s electedCrimeProfiles.html#homicide

Why don't you guys use real statistics and not something the NRA made up. This stuff is an urban myth. Also realise the situation in Australia is different. In Oz 60% of homicides happen in the home, in the US most happen in the street.

Well, if the overall aim is to preserve human life - then I don't see gun ownership beyond the practical purposes as benefiting society.

But you raise a valid point. So I'll spend a few minutes looking this up.

Ok.

There's this report that says there were 308 homocide victims in 2003-2004. And this report shows the trends since 1915. The caption reads: The percentage of homicides committed with a firearm continued a declining trend since 1969. In 2002, just under 16% of homicides involved firearms. The figure was similar in 2001, down from a high of 44% in 1968.

Now, given that we had 20,008,700 people in December 2003 that means your chance of being a victim of homicide in Australia during that time (ignoring demographic issues obviously) roughly one in 66,304, or about 0.0015082%.

According to an FBI crime stats report there were 16,204 murders in 2002. The report says that's a rate of 5.6 per 100,000 - a percentage of 0.0056%. That's about 3.7 times our rate here - not catastrophic, and I do apologise for the sensationalist quip about "not even a fraction". But at least significant.

The report also says roughly 2/3rds were committed using firearms. In Australia it was "just under 16%".

The real question is: can you meaningfully compare these two sets of statistics? Does one country's crime rate really compare when you're talking about different cultures? More importantly, if you had the situation with gun restrictions here over there in America, would there be less murder victims or would the killers just use alternative means?

I don't pretend to know for sure the answers to these questions, but I'm leaning to the "in theory, if you didn't have so many goddamn guns there might be less successful murders".

I say "in theory" because it seems that change is impossible. Gun culture seems to be deeply entrenched - I doubt any politician would commit political suicide by attempting such a thing.

Speaking of political suicide, I saw a documentary about Falcone et. al. recently trying to clear out the mafia in Italy in the 80s/90s. That was literally political suicide; along with his colleagues he was asassinated.

Mafioso - terrorists you can trust.

Anyway, our murder rate here is less but not shockingly less, I suppose. But it is at least a counter-argument that you need personal gun ownership to be safe from violent killers.

Well, if the overall aim is to preserve human life - then I don't see gun ownership beyond the practical purposes as benefiting society.

But you raise a valid point. So I'll spend a few minutes looking this up.

Ok.

There's this report that says there were 308 homocide victims in 2003-2004. And this report shows the trends since 1915. The caption reads: The percentage of homicides committed with a firearm continued a declining trend since 1969. In 2002, just under 16% of homicides involved firearms. The figure was similar in 2001, down from a high of 44% in 1968.

Now, given that we had 20,008,700 people in December 2003 that means your chance of being a victim of homicide in Australia during that time (ignoring demographic issues obviously) roughly one in 66,304, or about 0.0015082%.

According to an FBI crime stats report there were 16,204 murders in 2002. The report says that's a rate of 5.6 per 100,000 - a percentage of 0.0056%. That's about 3.7 times our rate here - not catastrophic, and I do apologise for the sensationalist quip about "not even a fraction". But at least significant.

The report also says roughly 2/3rds were committed using firearms. In Australia it was "just under 16%".

The real question is: can you meaningfully compare these two sets of statistics? Does one country's crime rate really compare when you're talking about different cultures? More importantly, if you had the situation with gun restrictions here over there in America, would there be less murder victims or would the killers just use alternative means?

I don't pretend to know for sure the answers to these questions, but I'm leaning to the "in theory, if you didn't have so many goddamn guns there might be less successful murders".

I say "in theory" because it seems that change is impossible. Gun culture seems to be deeply entrenched - I doubt any politician would commit political suicide by attempting such a thing.

Speaking of political suicide, I saw a documentary about Falcone et. al. recently trying to clear out the mafia in Italy in the 80s/90s. That was literally political suicide; along with his colleagues he was asassinated.

Mafioso - terrorists you can trust.

Anyway, our murder rate here is less but not shockingly less, I suppose. But it is at least a counter-argument that you need personal gun ownership to be safe from violent killers.

I also know quite a few people who would never hand over their weapons no matter what laws the government passed. All from the old school, people who were alive and saw what 'civilised' governments will do to their citizens under the guise of 'national security', it seems the younger generation was never taught. Do you actually think that any future government will voluntarily repeal the last 40 years and layers and layers of legislation, regulations and expansion?

Okay, all very good thoughts and I respect that.

The original purpose of my post was to point out the incorrect notion that "Australia has no guns". Australia _DOES_ have guns (though restricted).

But I do take issue when what you think is good for your culture in your own country, is good for us too.

I strongly believe in my mind that unrestricted, unregulated free-for-all gun ownership would do far more harm than good in Australia.

Does comitting a crime entitle you to death? Do you feel qualified to sentence someone to death?

I know that throwing statistics around is distasteful, but nonetheless I invite you to look at this pretty graph presented in absolute numbers and tell me that we need more guns.

We have (or at least had) a very different culture here. I don't even know a friend of a friend of a friend who was a victim of a crime that involved guns. I don't know anyone through any vague acquaintency that was shot or murdered in some way via guns. I know one person involved in a shooting accident: he lost a finger. For the record, I grew up on a farm. I went shooting, with my friends too. We had a great time (in a sick kind of way) when I was about 14, shooting pest animals like kangaroos and feral pigs. When a shooting death occurs, it stays in the TV/papers for weeks.

We don't want to have to sleep with guns under our pillows. So whilst we can still have robbers lifting our loungeroom hifi system or ripping out our Sony head-units from the carpark, we at least don't have to fear the criminal will point a gun at us and kill us in an instant. I know people who have been involved in gang fights; knives were brandished, but no guns. Do criminals end up with guns? Yes. Do many petty crims use, or have ever used firearms? No.

I did not intend to say that your gun culture was "wrong", just that overall, for the values that we hold in our society (mostly the same as yours I guess but from a different point of view) it doesn't work here. Again, I was trying to justify our own gun restrictions, not demonise the American Way (tm).

Can you not at least acknowledge that in our case, not yours, that there is a possibility that more guns will only degrade our society and our standard of living?

I'm a little skeptical that should you need to overthrow a tyrannical government, that laws restricting the use of automatic weapons are going to be a significant obstical. You'll need a better plan than "buy big guns".

Thanks for the input. Australia gets called "the lucky country" (or perhaps that's what we call ourselves, who knows) because we were founded in peace. So for this reason I suppose I just can't grasp the "gun religion" culture the US has, formed out of the (comparitively) violent history you guys have had. Likewise, I would appreciate that USians stopped believing this adopting this attitude towards guns everywhere else in the world is going to make it a better place.

I respect your views. My original post was to clear up the fallacy of "Australia has no guns". We do have guns. They're restricted, and quite reasonable (to us).

They would come to collect innocent bodies and take a statement. I'd prefer they come to collect the criminal's body if it had to come to that.

See, that's the thing. It just isn't necessary here. Check out these stats: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi066.html (it's a pretty graph).

You'll notice those numbers are presented in absolute figures, and that it hovers around less than 100 per year homicide deaths by guns. That's sweet bugger-all compared to the 12,000 or so you guys have every year.

I don't want to say what's good for you, but I know in my own mind that free-for-all unrestricted, unregulated gun ownership in Australia would do more harm than good for us.

Cheers

a) I don't recall claiming anything one way or another that the "new" gun laws (after our own Port Arthur massacre) were meant to affect crime stats in any way.
b) The only "new" thing about the "new, tougher gun laws" were mainly just that the government decided they'd rather the public didn't own automatic weapons at all. Apart from the government turning existing recommended firearm/ammunition storage safety requirements into laws, and exposing gun owners to audits to ensure compliance, I really don't think much changed at all. NB: My parents are gun owners, not me.
c) From (b), and the fact presented in (a), it's hardly surprising that crime stats haven't changed.

So what's the conclusion?

Very simple: as a society, we believe there is zero benefit to owning these types of weapons. Conversely, there is much to lose.

This has nothing to do with crime, and everything to do with culture.

It is such an alien, amazing, surreal thing to entertain the thought of trying to asassinate members of government with firearms as a means to make the world a better place.

If it ever got so bad that this was necessary, you're going to need more of a plan than just buying big guns.

And here's what you said:

Not being murdered is not a privelage. Not being raped is not a privelage. You call America's culture scary? I think that a culture where being victimized is a safe bet is probably a heluva lot scarier.

The simple fact of the matter is, I don't know anybody who lives in fear. Perhaps that just means I don't know anybody. I've lived in three different towns, and I'm currently in a mostly Asian area of a capital city (Brisbane). At all times of my life I've been able to leave the house unlocked while I sleep. In fact, sometimes I go out and I don't even bother locking up then either.

To think that sleeping with a gun under your pillow is your definition of "safety" and "freedom", is surreal to me.

Furthermore, I have no idea what relevance any of those statistics are supposed to have with gun ownership. Can you please explain the link between sexual assault and guns? What constitutes "attempted murder"? How in the bloody hell is "Kidnapping" supposed to be reduced by gun laws?

As you know, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Also, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology, in "Report #46: Homicide in Australia, 2001-2002", published in April 2003, homicides jumped another 20% in FY2001-02.

Yes, Let's see what the Australian Institute of Criminology has to say about gun deaths: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi066.html . It has a nice pretty graph, please have a look and tell me there isn't a downward trend. Also note that it's presented in absolute numbers, and if it compensated for population growth by using per capita numbers it'd be a lot steeper downward slope. 77% of all firearm deaths are suicides.

Alright, howabout this: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi062.html .

Tidbits:

Between 2001 and 2002, the proportion of murders, attempted murders, kidnapping/abductions and robberies that involved a weapon decreased. In 2002, attempted murder was the offence most likely to involve either a firearm (22 per cent) or knife (35 per cent) whereas sexual assault was the offence least likely to involve a weapon.

Try and go to the source for your facts; you might find the "filtering" you've encountered has skewed or contextless numbers.

Now, let's get down to the real issue: Was the withdrawal of automatic weapons from the public aimed at reducing crime? No. It was to win votes for the government of the day, in response to Por

a) I don't recall claiming anything one way or another that the "new" gun laws (after our own Port Arthur massacre) were meant to affect crime stats in any way.
b) The only "new" thing about the "new, tougher gun laws" were mainly just that the government decided they'd rather the public didn't own automatic weapons at all. Apart from the government turning existing recommended firearm/ammunition storage safety requirements into laws, and exposing gun owners to audits to ensure compliance, I really don't think much changed at all. NB: My parents are gun owners, not me.
c) From (b), and the fact presented in (a), it's hardly surprising that crime stats haven't changed.

So what's the conclusion?

Very simple: as a society, we believe there is zero benefit to owning these types of weapons. Conversely, there is much to lose.

This has nothing to do with crime, and everything to do with culture.

It is such an alien, amazing, surreal thing to entertain the thought of trying to asassinate members of government with firearms as a means to make the world a better place.

If it ever got so bad that this was necessary, you're going to need more of a plan than just buying big guns.

And here's what you said:

Not being murdered is not a privelage. Not being raped is not a privelage. You call America's culture scary? I think that a culture where being victimized is a safe bet is probably a heluva lot scarier.

The simple fact of the matter is, I don't know anybody who lives in fear. Perhaps that just means I don't know anybody. I've lived in three different towns, and I'm currently in a mostly Asian area of a capital city (Brisbane). At all times of my life I've been able to leave the house unlocked while I sleep. In fact, sometimes I go out and I don't even bother locking up then either.

To think that sleeping with a gun under your pillow is your definition of "safety" and "freedom", is surreal to me.

Furthermore, I have no idea what relevance any of those statistics are supposed to have with gun ownership. Can you please explain the link between sexual assault and guns? What constitutes "attempted murder"? How in the bloody hell is "Kidnapping" supposed to be reduced by gun laws?

As you know, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Also, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology, in "Report #46: Homicide in Australia, 2001-2002", published in April 2003, homicides jumped another 20% in FY2001-02.

Yes, Let's see what the Australian Institute of Criminology has to say about gun deaths: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi066.html . It has a nice pretty graph, please have a look and tell me there isn't a downward trend. Also note that it's presented in absolute numbers, and if it compensated for population growth by using per capita numbers it'd be a lot steeper downward slope. 77% of all firearm deaths are suicides.

Alright, howabout this: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi062.html .

Tidbits:

Between 2001 and 2002, the proportion of murders, attempted murders, kidnapping/abductions and robberies that involved a weapon decreased. In 2002, attempted murder was the offence most likely to involve either a firearm (22 per cent) or knife (35 per cent) whereas sexual assault was the offence least likely to involve a weapon.

Try and go to the source for your facts; you might find the "filtering" you've encountered has skewed or contextless numbers.

Now, let's get down to the real issue: Was the withdrawal of automatic weapons from the public aimed at reducing crime? No. It was to win votes for the government of the day, in response to Por

Interesting that Australia's top criminologists say "The weapons/methods used in the commission of homicide have remained relatively unchanged over the years." - essentially, they say the gun control laws don't make a bit of difference, criminals still kill in the same proportions with whatever is available, be it a gun, knife, or hand. This dovetails quite nicely with the theory that individuals hold the primary responsibility to protect themselves from vermin (old US values) and the theory that individuals are weak and puny and need a big gov't to protect them (new US values, and most of the rest of the world). Politicians everywhere are in the business of grabbing and holding power, using whatever crisis du jour is available. Bush used our very real terrorist problem to invade Iraq and force the Patriot Act on the country - the only question now is, is the damage too far gone to ever be repaired? ref: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/rpp/66/02_summa ry.html#4a

Here in Australia, the police regularly go online, pretend to be 15 then bust people and send them to jail for trying to hook up with underaged people - they have special laws for such things http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi2/tandi301 t.html/. It is usually accompanied by a whole heap of stuff being released to the press identifying the freak/pervert.

FYI, Australia now has insanely high crime rates.

Not insanely http://www.aic.gov.au/stats/. Crime is everywhere anyway, there are jails in every country.

Since firearm crimes are usually the most serious, it is natural to focus on them.

The homicide rate in Australia was 1.91 per 100,000 people in 1996, and 1.7 per 100,000 in 2003. Firearms accounted for 16% of homicides in 2002-2003, making the firearm homicide rate 0.27 per 100,000.

(source: AIC)

2003 USA rate for homicide was 5.7 per 100,000. 66.9% of those were committed with a firearm, thus 3.8 per 100,000 people in the USA were killed with a firearm in 2003.

(Source: FBI )

3.8 / 0.27 =~ 14

The USA firearm homicide rate is 14 times higher than the Australian firearm homicide rate. (And over twice the overall Australian homicide rate) Nothing to be proud of.

In the 14-year period from 1989-90 to 2002-03 the DPP prosecuted 143 copyright cases and 138 trademarks cases (Smith & Urbas 2003). The DPP prosecutes copyright offences summarily, as allowed by the case of Ly v Jenkins [2001] FCA 1640 [note from mlyle: this does not include cases prosecuted by territory prosecutors].

Case study: Tran, Ng & Le

Tran and Ng were students at the University of Technology, Sydney, who developed a free music download site using MP3 technology. Le subsequently assisted in making copyrighted material available on the site. The site was said to have received some seven million hits. The matter was first investigated by MIPI and a brief was handed to the AFP before charges were prosecuted by the DPP in the Central Local Court in Sydney in December 2003. As no money or trade was involved, the charges were brought under s132(2)(b) for knowingly distributing copyrighted work, to an extent that affects prejudicially the owner of copyright, for a purpose other than trade. Ng and Le were sentenced to perform 200 hours community service. Tran was assessed as unsuitable for a community service order and was fined $5000. Tran and Ng each faced an additional charge reflecting their longer-term involvement and were convicted and received prison sentences of 18 months, suspended for three years.

An application on behalf of MIPI to be represented in the hearing was refused. MIPI advocated a full-time custodial penalty. It also sought an order for costs, which the DPP declined to put to the court. MIPI had estimated the loss caused to copyright holders by the defendants to be in the vicinity of $200million, whereas the AFP gave an estimated loss of $60million. On this point, the court found that the loss suffered was 'substantial' but could not be quantified with precision.

... and it is only illegal to attempt suicide in one jurisdiction (of reltively small population - around 200 000)

from http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/ti52.pdf

"In all jurisdictions, suicide is no longer a crime and, except in the Northern Territory, the crime of attempted suicide has also been abolished. It is, however, still an offence for a person to assist another person to commit suicide or to attempt to commit suicide"

Ok, AK47s, 20yrs and anarchy are bit over the top.

What I am trying to say ( as I did to someone else on ) is that the "CCW theory" and other nonsense gun theories are deliberate FUD. They select only the facts that support the message of nameless vested intrests .

I am 45 and I live, work and can still shoot as many ferral pigs as I want in Australia. We were fourtunate enough to wake up to the FUD in 1989 when common sense gun control was started in Australia. The restrictions were eased in over several years using a buy-back scheme and an amnesty. The laws came in to full effect in 1997, thats why I chose the 1998 fact link above. It was a mainly bi-partisan response at both state and federal levels to the massive and sustained public outrage over The Senseless Port Arthur Massacare .

I invite you to look at our governments stats and pretty graphs on the subject

"many will still commit the crimes"-Sadly yes.

Firearm control has been more strict since the late 90s, so percentage using firearms has dropped down and "other weapon" has increased, but 300-350 homicides a year ain't too bad I think.

Firearm control has been more strict since the late 90s, so percentage using firearms has dropped down and "other weapon" has increased, but 300-350 homicides a year ain't too bad I think.

I suppose the same kind of thing happened to British, French, Russian and Chinese troops in similar circumstances

He's just expressing himself.

Ask yourself, once you realized this would it still bother you enough to shoot someone?

These people are just that -- barely people. If they can't take a little yelling without murdering then they couldn't stand 10 minutes in a bar yet alone a lame-o cybercafé. Yet, I don't see police detailing bars.

I'm not an Aussie and somewhat dated, but..

Australian Institute of Criminology

[PDF]

Studies of Public Drinking

The relationship between alcohol use, tax revenue, and the cost of the public health system, have led to the increased interest of many governments in general drinking surveys. These outline the amounts and type of alcohol consumed by different socio-demographic groups, and sometimes detail locations (Single & Storm 1985). But it is the slower growing number of observational studies of drinking, bar rooms and pubs which can provide greater detail on the effects of situational variables on drinking...

..These findings suggest the interesting possibility of minimising the levels of aggression and violent incidents within public drinking contexts by encouraging practical changes to the drinking environment. These would include improving the design and appearance of bar rooms, as well as staff training, behaviour and attitudes to customers.

Emphasis mine. If people won't go to cc's because cops then we should look at a different solution otherwise they'll just become extinct.

He's just expressing himself.

Ask yourself, once you realized this would it still bother you enough to shoot someone?

These people are just that -- barely people. If they can't take a little yelling without murdering then they couldn't stand 10 minutes in a bar yet alone a lame-o cybercafé. Yet, I don't see police detailing bars.

I'm not an Aussie and somewhat dated, but..

Australian Institute of Criminology

[PDF]

Studies of Public Drinking

The relationship between alcohol use, tax revenue, and the cost of the public health system, have led to the increased interest of many governments in general drinking surveys. These outline the amounts and type of alcohol consumed by different socio-demographic groups, and sometimes detail locations (Single & Storm 1985). But it is the slower growing number of observational studies of drinking, bar rooms and pubs which can provide greater detail on the effects of situational variables on drinking...

..These findings suggest the interesting possibility of minimising the levels of aggression and violent incidents within public drinking contexts by encouraging practical changes to the drinking environment. These would include improving the design and appearance of bar rooms, as well as staff training, behaviour and attitudes to customers.

Emphasis mine. If people won't go to cc's because cops then we should look at a different solution otherwise they'll just become extinct.

Fact is: Since pictures of abused childs are aviable on the web, the number of childs killed in abuses has dropped remarkably in Germany. From 40 per year in the Eighties down to six last year. That's 34 children rescued.

Although it can be difficult to isolate all the separate trends that can influence the outcome of such statistics, the conclusion that the availibility of child porn on the internet actually reduced the number of child sexual homicides is believable.

In the US, we banned alcohol and violent crime doubled. We cracked down on illegal drugs and violent crime increased again. Studies in many countries have shown no increase in rape after removing censorship, including Denmark, Sweden, and West Germany. In the US (where censorship is still a grey area), rape has increased over the last 40 years but said increases track the increases in non-sexual violent crimes very accurately.

The aggregate data on rape and other violent or sexual offences from four countres where pornography, including aggressive varieties, has become widely and easiliy available duringthe period we have dealt with would seem to exclude, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this availibility has had any detrimental effects in teh form of increased sexual violence.

Advocates of the link between pornography and violence usually cite the highly biased Meese Commision report which conflicted with the results of the 1970 commission which had funded eighty independant studies of porn.

If people do not have healthy outlets for their sexuality and keep it pent up until they lose control, socially harmful behavior is the likely result. Often when we hear about people actually sexually abusing children it is the most repressed people (who contribute to other's repression) like televangelists or catholic priests, people incapable of moderation.

"Fantasies have no morality; Actions do."

People have all kinds of sexual interests and for any given sexual interest there seem to be many people who are able to fulfil their interest in a healthy way and there are a few bad apples that may harm other people. Some people who fantasize about blondes may harm blondes. Some people who fantasize about women with big breasts may harm people with big breasts. This does not mean that all people who fantasize about blonds or big breasted women are criminals or that there is anything inherently wrong with those fantasies. Lots of people fantasize about killing their bosses, that doesn't make them murderers.

I don't care if people fantasize about sex with children as long as the actions are merely autoerotic or involve only consenting adults (i.e. age players). There are safe outlets for virtually any fantasy. I am not in favor of paid distribution of pornographic materials produced by exploiting actual children. But in 1996, the US banned "synthetic" child porn - i.e. images which no child was harmed to produce. It occurs to me that the availibilty of child porn on the net may actually serve to undercut the market for new pornography created by exploiting children.

People have an incredibly wide range of sexual fantasies and there is almost always a way to excercise them without harm, even those activities that are quite disturbing to people who lack open minds. When kids play, their play often includes superficial resemblences to harmful activities (think of "cops and robbers" and "cowboys and indians"). When consenting adults play, their play also can have superficial resemblances to harmful activities (rape, slavery, abuse, assault, pirates, etc.). These forms of play do not condone or encourage these harmful activities and may even be a form of cathartic refuge from the many forms of harm which trouble us.

Since I don't share their interest and no-one has admitted an inter

Reading Playboy makes you a rapist

This website at the Australian Institute of Criminology has quite a variety of criminal statistics for all Australian states, and some overseas countries like USA, Canada and NZ.

This report is from the Australian government. As reliable a source as you will find on the 'net, I think.

Perhaps this is not conclusive proof, but it's enough evidence for the Australian government to propose an extension to ban most types of hand guns.

<opinion>I don't really see what the discussion is about. There is no need for automatic weapons or hand guns in the hands of civilians in modern society. The only place where firearms are warranted is in the hands of farmers (for destroying livestock), miltiary and law enforcement.</opinion>

why yes:

Compare Missori to Victoria. They are both about the same size and have about the same population.

Now we can find that in 1996 there were 433 murders in Missouri and 67 in Victoria for a ratio of about 6.5 to 1 favoring Australia. How ever theft is just about the other way around (so many categorys) and Victroia has a few more bashings than Missouri has assults. Rapes in Missouri tend to be in the 1500s but 323 for Victoria in 2000. So depending on what crime your going to be a victim of, you may want to consider relocating.
The rest of Australia has rates much like Victoria and Missouri has typical crime rate for the midwest which tends to be lower than the east coast.

Do you read every piece of chain-e-mail you get?

Try this link. These are people who have done their research and may even know what they're talking about.

You believe that?! Lemme guess -- you were born yesterday. What did happen is that the NRA so fraudulently misused Australian crime statistics, that the Federal Attorney-General was led to make an official complaint.

Should you wish to get your information from a more^H^H^H^H reputable source, try the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics for NSW (which includes Australia's most "crime-ridden city," Sydney {Shock! Horror!!}). More generally check out the Australian Institute of Criminology. [It] is scary... shit just how gullible some people are.