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>we can see it working in every other first world nation
If your definition of success is eliminating all gun murder then you're correct.
If your definition of success is reducing murder as a whole then you're dead wrong.

Australia is probably the clearest case of knee jerk gun banning. They instituted a full ban and buyback of basically all arms after a few mass killings. What did this do to their overall murder rate? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The ban was in 1996. See this graph. Over the next several years the firearms suicide rate would half, and the rate for hanging would double. The rate for gun murder went to nearly zero, but the rates for other murder filled the gap. The murder rate did go down, but only proportionally with every other industrialized western nation. In the end, Australians have one less nice thing and there's nothing to show for it. It's simply safety theater.

Guns do not lead to murder. People wanting to kill each other leads to murder. You are attacking a symptom, not a cause. Pay closer attention to why people want to kill each other, not how they go about it.

The overall homicide rate seems to have dropped off after 2002, before which it seemed to be rising. The gun ban was in 1996 from what I can find out, although presumably it wasn't instantaneous and the affects would have taken a few years to filter through.

It at least appears that the gun ban had an affect, although not a dramatic one, on homicides in Australia.

The 1996 buyback scheme got rid of 640,000 guns. The 2003 buyback scheme got rid of 70,000 guns. (Source.) Certainly something decreased the homicide rate in 2003 - but if it was the gun buyback, why wasn't there an effect 9 times greater in 1996?

Note also that there was a drop in robbery in 2003, including specifically unarmed robbery. (The stats again.) I can imagine that some change in policing or crime reporting could reduce crime statistics across the board, more easily than I can imagine than a small gun buyback would decrease the rate of unarmed robbery.

That's one possibility. Another possibility is that, if your coworker would instead have been killed with a knife or other non-gun weapon.

How do we distinguish between these possibilities? Fortunately, we have an easy case study available in Australia, which abruptly decreased its level of gun ownership with a buyback scheme in 1996/97, in response to a mass shooting in Port Arthur. If guns are an enabler of homicide, we would expect homicide rates in Australia to have fallen at this point; if guns make little difference, and murderers are equally effective with other weapons, we would expect homicide rates in Australia to remain constant.

The data are here. In 1996, the last year before the buyback scheme, the total number of homicides was 354; in the next few years, it was 364, 334, 385. That doesn't look like a decrease. (Nor does it look like an increase: statistically, we would expect homicides to follow a Poisson distribution, with variation of +/- sqrt(354) = +/- 19 or so, which is about the scale of the observed variation.)

So, simply put: the evidence suggests that you are wrong. Reducing gun ownership, in a particular culture, does not seem to have any effect on the homicide rate.

Disclaimer: I'm Australian, but I've never owned, fired, nor even touched a gun. I held fairly strong anti-gun beliefs until I looked up the above statistics while writing a response in an internet argument, and realised that my beliefs were contradicted by reality.

United Kingdom: The UK enacted its handgun ban in 1996. From 1990 until the ban was enacted, the homicide rate fluctuated between 10.9 and 13 homicides per million. After the ban was enacted, homicides trended up until they reached a peak of 18.0 in 2003. Since 2003, which incidentally was about the time the British government flooded the country with 20,000 more cops, the homicide rate has fallen to 11.1 in 2010. In other words, the 15-year experiment in a handgun ban has achieved absolutely nothing.

Ireland: Ireland banned firearms in 1972. Ireland’s homicide rate was fairly static going all the way back to 1945. In that period, it fluctuated between 0.1 and 0.6 per 100,000 people. Immediately after the ban, the murder rate shot up to 1.6 per 100,000 people in 1975. It then dropped back down to 0.4. It has trended up, reaching 1.4 in 2007.

Australia: Australia enacted its gun ban in 1996. Murders have basically run flat, seeing only a small spike after the ban and then returning almost immediately to preban numbers. It is currently trending down, but is within the fluctuations exhibited in other nations.

. Maybe banning guns like Chicago will do the trick? Last year 2,988 shooting victims, 1,827 this year. Care to guess the demographics, and more importantly gang affiliations of the parties involved? Maybe it's time to have a national discussion about how black lives don't matter to other blacks.

In fact, one could make an argument that the increase in the number of guns reduced the violence in the US.

There's some evidence in favour of this: when a law was introduced in Australia to restrict gun ownership, and the number of guns abruptly declined, the rate of violent crime increased. (See stats. The gun buyback scheme was in 1996/97.)

This is still only a correlation, because it isn't a controlled study: perhaps crime would have jumped upwards even if gun ownership had remained unchanged. But it's certainly suggestive.

Let's look at numbers before and after the change. In the chart you linked to, all the crimes are on the same chart, so the scale in such that you can't see most of the crime categories at all. Here are the numbers in tabular form, linked from the page you linked to:

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...

We see that in the three years before (1993-1995), there were 38,007 sexual assaults. In the three years after, 43,741. So 5,734 more women sexually assaulted. Do you think that's a good thing, or a bad thing? Personally, I prefer that women NOT be raped, so I support policies that decrease, not increase, rapes.

The facts show, unequivocally, that gun bans and strict gun laws are correlated with an increase in violent crimes, and a large increase in sexual assault and rape. That's just a fact- when politicians remove womens' ability protect themselves, many more women get raped. (I can provide a link to full statistics from official government sources , and further explanation, upon request) .

Really? Because this would suggest differently : http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti... The gun buyback went into place it 1996 - if removal of guns increased crime as you say, you'd expect quite the upward trend. Oddly enough, looks pretty stable to me...

No, the statistics are clear. The Australian firearm laws introduced in 1997 did not change already downwards trend of firearms homicides.

Further to that, the total homicide rate hasn't changed much, with firearms being replaced by knives as the choicest weapon for murder.

http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...

Or go to the http://www.abs.gov.au/ and find the same information by a different department.

Look to New Zealand to see a perfect example of how the Australian laws did not work. They have a very similar culture to Australia's. Their last big firearms massacre was in 1997. They didn't change their laws the same as Australia did. I.e. they didn't introduce firearms restrictions, magazine restrictions, or have any buy backs etc. They did introduce a sensible licensing scheme that prevents crazy people and criminals from owning firearms. Most of their firearms do not need to be registered (I believe they've publicly stated it does not decrease crime with firearms). Their homicide rate is lower than Australia's. Their homicide by firearm rate is lower than Australia's.

New Zealand is the model to copy. Forget about Australia. Copy New Zealand with its lower homicide rates and more sensible firearms laws.

The Australian government has counted for population growth.

http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...

And the laws made no difference to Australia's already well established downwards trend in firearms homicides.

It's not disingenuous. Crazy people substituted firearms for other just as deadly methods. The dead don't care how they were murdered.

Or are you going to say that a mass stabbing is somehow better than a mass shooting?

http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...

The rate of other violent crimes (armed robbery, kidnapping) also jumped upwards in Australia at the time of the gun ban, presumably because of the loss of the deterrent effect. See stats here. The ban was implemented as a buyback scheme from Oct '96 to Sep '97. Note the jump in the numbers of violent crimes from 1996 to 1998.

Correction, 13 dead by firearm after 1996 in 4 separate incidents.

12 people bludgeoned to death, or 15 people burned to death, or 8 children stabbed to death, is not in any way better than the same amount shot to death. Dead is dead.

Keeping firearms out of the hands of crazy people reduced the rate of deaths by firearms by those people, but it did not stop those people achieving the same goal by other methods.

But picking on individual situations (massacres) that are outliers makes almost no difference to public health or your individual risk.

Instead we need to look at homicide in a more general sense. Our government statistics are very clear on firearms. Australia's quite linear downward trend in homicides, and homicides by firearm started well before their maligned firearms laws were introduced in 1997.

http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...

As others have already noted, what you believed about guns and Australia is not true.

So, then why is the Australian Government LYING on its own web site about homicide statistics? The link that I gave began with "aic.gov.au." What reason do you have to believe that Australia is trying to slant their own numbers?

USA 1995 - Homicide per 100,000 - 8.2
USA 2012 - Homicide per 100,000 - 4.7

USA 1995 - Violent crime per 100,000 - 684.5
USA 2012 - Violent crime per 100,000 - 386.9

Australia 1995 - Homicide per 100,000 - 1.96
Australia 2012 - Homicide per 100,000 - 1.30

Australia 1995 - Violent crime per 100,000 - 240
Australia 2012 - Violent crime per 100,000 - 201

Here is the summary:
USA Violent crime - decrease by 43%
Australia Violent crime - decrease by 16%

USA Homicide - decrease by 42%
Australia Homicide crime - decrease by 33%

So, the data DOES indeed show that, overall, Australia is a safer county, However, since banning most guns, Australia has not shows NEARLY the decrease in crime that has been seen in the US.

The US also has MUCH more cultural diversity, both racially and culturally, a different overall culture, a different economy, different poverty levels, and a different mental health care system. So Australian and USA are not an "apples to apples" comparison. However, the purpose of this is to see what effect the Australian laws have had on their crime rate vs. the USA.

Also, this is an interesting graph. Note how the sudden jump in robbery a few years AFTER the new gun laws went into effect? Curious. Also note how the "sexual assault" line has remained fairly constant. http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...

Yes, I would take your gun. I hope to do so someday.

I am an honest man. Why in the world would you want to disarm an honest man? This is the thing that I absolutely cannot understand. Tell you what. If you want to live in a country without guns, there are several other countries just waiting for you. Instead of infringing on the rights of millions of Americans, just move somewhere with less freedom. That way, everybody is happier. I, for one, happen to enjoy living my own life the way that I want. I leave other people alone, and I expect the same from them. Why is that too much to ask? Do you enjoy forcing your opinions on others? Do you get a thrill from controlling people? If you don't like guns, don't buy one. It really is that simple. Tell you what. If you renounce your US citizenship, I will chip in $50 for a one-way ticket to the country of your choice, just to help you get started.

-- Source Data --

Data for US: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/c...

Data for Australia: http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...
Used estimates of Australian population of 18.07 million for 1995 and 22.72 million for 2012

As others have already noted, what you believed about guns and Australia is not true.

So, then why is the Australian Government LYING on its own web site about homicide statistics? The link that I gave began with "aic.gov.au." What reason do you have to believe that Australia is trying to slant their own numbers?

USA 1995 - Homicide per 100,000 - 8.2
USA 2012 - Homicide per 100,000 - 4.7

USA 1995 - Violent crime per 100,000 - 684.5
USA 2012 - Violent crime per 100,000 - 386.9

Australia 1995 - Homicide per 100,000 - 1.96
Australia 2012 - Homicide per 100,000 - 1.30

Australia 1995 - Violent crime per 100,000 - 240
Australia 2012 - Violent crime per 100,000 - 201

Here is the summary:
USA Violent crime - decrease by 43%
Australia Violent crime - decrease by 16%

USA Homicide - decrease by 42%
Australia Homicide crime - decrease by 33%

So, the data DOES indeed show that, overall, Australia is a safer county, However, since banning most guns, Australia has not shows NEARLY the decrease in crime that has been seen in the US.

The US also has MUCH more cultural diversity, both racially and culturally, a different overall culture, a different economy, different poverty levels, and a different mental health care system. So Australian and USA are not an "apples to apples" comparison. However, the purpose of this is to see what effect the Australian laws have had on their crime rate vs. the USA.

Also, this is an interesting graph. Note how the sudden jump in robbery a few years AFTER the new gun laws went into effect? Curious. Also note how the "sexual assault" line has remained fairly constant. http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...

Yes, I would take your gun. I hope to do so someday.

I am an honest man. Why in the world would you want to disarm an honest man? This is the thing that I absolutely cannot understand. Tell you what. If you want to live in a country without guns, there are several other countries just waiting for you. Instead of infringing on the rights of millions of Americans, just move somewhere with less freedom. That way, everybody is happier. I, for one, happen to enjoy living my own life the way that I want. I leave other people alone, and I expect the same from them. Why is that too much to ask? Do you enjoy forcing your opinions on others? Do you get a thrill from controlling people? If you don't like guns, don't buy one. It really is that simple. Tell you what. If you renounce your US citizenship, I will chip in $50 for a one-way ticket to the country of your choice, just to help you get started.

-- Source Data --

Data for US: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/c...

Data for Australia: http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...
Used estimates of Australian population of 18.07 million for 1995 and 22.72 million for 2012

As an Australian, I'm sick of you American micro dick gun nuts lying about the gun stats in my country.

Hey, did you SEE the link that I posted? It has ".gob.au? in it. So, if anybody is lying, it is YOUR OWN GOVERNMENT!

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...

I did not make up those numbers.

1995 - 18.4% of homicides were by gun.
2012 - 17.5% of homicides were by gun.

If you think that YOUR government is lying, then please contact them. Maybe elect a new government. But DON'T blame ME for what YOUR country does.

And, yes, our society may be "violence crazed," but blame the culture, the parents, and the schools. Don't blame an inanimate object. Banning an object will not change the heart. And, yes, it is still possible to commit mass murder without guns. It happens all the time in other countries. A couple of months ago, guys with knives killed FIFTY people in China. Yes, really. Look it up.

And notice that I have enough intelligence to make my point without having to resort to swearing or personal insults. It is actually possible. You should try it sometime.

And, I am also wondering why you are so fascinated with my penis. My wife has no complaints about its size, but I do not intend to share any pictures of it with you. If you really want to see pictures of some, there are web sites dedicated to that. Maybe once you know what one looks like, the mystery will be gone and you can stop taking about them.

We have 10% of the gun homocides you do.

Ummm, yeah. About that. You have a lot less homicide overall, and a somewhat different culture, different history, different racial makeup, and a different mental health care system. Of course, NONE of those have anything to do with anything.

Here is a great bit if info for you. From what I understand, the great gun crack-down happened around 1996.

Australia - 1995 - guns used in 18.4% of homicides
Australia - 2012 - guns used in 17.5% of homicides.

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...

So, how well is that working out for you? I would expect with these new laws, that gun homicides would be in the single digits.

Yes, gun deaths are down, but so are knife deaths (oh yeah, I forgot that you guys banned knives too), and beating deaths (are fists and feet outlawed)?

As a percentage of change, the US has dropped its homicide rate just as much as Australia. Meanwhile, overall violent crime has been dropping monotonically in the US, while it has just been hovering around the same amount in Australia (some years down, some up).

So, you mean that if America has enacted the same laws as Australia at the same time, we could have the same murder rate, and more violent crime too? Sign me up!

Same way it does in Japan, Australia and pretty much every other first world nation that's not the USA: It reduces the number of guns in circulation, making it less likely you (or your little kids) will be shot.

So, getting shot to death somehow makes you MORE dead than somebody stabbed to death? Curios. Please explain the logic behind this. Isn't the real reason to ban guns to reduce the overall homicide rate? If so, banning guns FAILS at this.

Case in point, Australia. They cracked down on guns HEAVILY. Result? The homicide rate was reduced by about as much as it was in the US. Overall violent crime, however, has dropped a lot in the US, while it has NOT done that in Australia. Some years the violent crime rate was up, some years it was down, but the US has seen a distinct downward trend.

Another point for you in Australia, which banned lots of guns around 1996:
In 1995, guns were used in 18.38% of homicides.
In 2012, guns were used in 17.5% of homicides.

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...

Yea, less than ONE PERCENT of change. Wow, what a difference.

Now, let's look at Japan, where they are NOT culturally diverse, respect for the law is a lot higher, the society stresses conforming, and suspects do not have the same legal protections that we do here. They also have no guns, and a MUCH higher suicide rate. I am not to dishonest as to ignore the other differences and say that if they had guns, that the suicide rate would drop to US levels. Apparently, you are not so honest and just like to look at the one difference that matters to you and are free to ignore the other differences.

Less than 1% of a change however when was the last time Australia had a mass shooting - 1996 just before guns were banned.

The odds are much higher that you will use that weapon against your own family than that you will ever use it in any way that actually protects them from harm.

It is proven that drownings happen a LOT more in houses that have swimming pools, so we need to ban them for the public good.

Sorry, but what I MIGHT do is not a good reason to restrict my rights.

If you do the math, the average male "member" is about 30 time more likely to commit sexual assault than the average gun is to commit murder. Do we need to castrate everybody based on what a tiny minority might do?

You wish to punish the 99.004% of honest gun owners based on the action of the 0.006%? Yes, those are real numbers.

Homicide is down by 50% since 1992. We are now twice as safe! We should do something to reverse this horrible trend!

So, I figure that not having guns all around us is better for our freedom overall.

Given that the gun genie is already out of the bottle, how do you propose to get the criminals to give up their guns? You think that only disarming the honest people makes you safer?

Australia got STRICT gun laws in 1996.
Australia 1995: guns were used in 18.38% of homicides.
Australia 2012: guns were used in 17.5% of homicides.

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...

Yea, destroying THOUSANDS of guns resulted in less than 1% change. Plus, things are still not all rosy in Australia: http://thenewdaily.com.au/news...

If you choose to give up your freedoms, go ahead. But don't tell me how to live. That is all that I ask. I won't tell you what to do, and you don't tell me what to do.

Same way it does in Japan, Australia and pretty much every other first world nation that's not the USA: It reduces the number of guns in circulation, making it less likely you (or your little kids) will be shot.

So, getting shot to death somehow makes you MORE dead than somebody stabbed to death? Curios. Please explain the logic behind this. Isn't the real reason to ban guns to reduce the overall homicide rate? If so, banning guns FAILS at this.

Case in point, Australia. They cracked down on guns HEAVILY. Result? The homicide rate was reduced by about as much as it was in the US. Overall violent crime, however, has dropped a lot in the US, while it has NOT done that in Australia. Some years the violent crime rate was up, some years it was down, but the US has seen a distinct downward trend.

Another point for you in Australia, which banned lots of guns around 1996:
In 1995, guns were used in 18.38% of homicides.
In 2012, guns were used in 17.5% of homicides.

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...

Yea, less than ONE PERCENT of change. Wow, what a difference.

Now, let's look at Japan, where they are NOT culturally diverse, respect for the law is a lot higher, the society stresses conforming, and suspects do not have the same legal protections that we do here. They also have no guns, and a MUCH higher suicide rate. I am not to dishonest as to ignore the other differences and say that if they had guns, that the suicide rate would drop to US levels. Apparently, you are not so honest and just like to look at the one difference that matters to you and are free to ignore the other differences.

Don't worry, I had read through the thread, I was just adding my two cents in regards to Australia's too restrictive firearms laws.

Mexico may indeed be a third world country and not the best comparison to the USA, but it's also a good example of how things can fly in the face of the law.

There is a wikipedia page for Australia's mass murder events. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Yes, there was a dip from 1996 to 1997 in the data you linked to. But something important happened in 1996, a small upwards spike, this normalised in 1997, then in 1998 there was a small downwards spike. These small variations up or down do not equate to the long term trend (and are expected). Just like climate change. I'm suspicious of gunpolicy.org data. E.g. gunpolicy.org lists the homicides by firearms alone in 1997 (a key year) as 428, yet official Australian government data from two sources lists the total homicide amount as 322. IMO better data for homicide in Australia can be found from government data sources:

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats...
http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...
http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...

Interesting points: Knives (or other pointy things) have almost always been used at a higher rate than firearms in murder. Arguably targeting them would have been the right thing to do (versus firearms). I wonder if the USA is the same? The overall homicide rate in Australia was very steady from 1993 to 2003 and only started making real headway after 2003.

Did you find any data for registered firearms in 1997 or 1998? That would make an interesting picture (a correlation between increased firearm ownership rate and lower homicides. Lol.).

Don't worry, I had read through the thread, I was just adding my two cents in regards to Australia's too restrictive firearms laws.

Mexico may indeed be a third world country and not the best comparison to the USA, but it's also a good example of how things can fly in the face of the law.

There is a wikipedia page for Australia's mass murder events. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Yes, there was a dip from 1996 to 1997 in the data you linked to. But something important happened in 1996, a small upwards spike, this normalised in 1997, then in 1998 there was a small downwards spike. These small variations up or down do not equate to the long term trend (and are expected). Just like climate change. I'm suspicious of gunpolicy.org data. E.g. gunpolicy.org lists the homicides by firearms alone in 1997 (a key year) as 428, yet official Australian government data from two sources lists the total homicide amount as 322. IMO better data for homicide in Australia can be found from government data sources:

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats...
http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...
http://www.aic.gov.au/statisti...

Interesting points: Knives (or other pointy things) have almost always been used at a higher rate than firearms in murder. Arguably targeting them would have been the right thing to do (versus firearms). I wonder if the USA is the same? The overall homicide rate in Australia was very steady from 1993 to 2003 and only started making real headway after 2003.

Did you find any data for registered firearms in 1997 or 1998? That would make an interesting picture (a correlation between increased firearm ownership rate and lower homicides. Lol.).

Statistics on Australian homicide show that the number of all homicides went from 355 in 1997 to 297 in 2012. So about a 16% reduction.

Statistics on US homicides over that same time period (1997 to 2012) show the number dropping from 21,606 to 14,827. About a 31% reduction - about double that of Australia.

Seems that eliminating firearms in Australia might have actually slowed the drop in the number of homicides (assuming that Australia would have normally followed the reductions in the US), leading to a relative GAIN in the homicide rate as compared to the US over the same period.

Given that Australian homicide rates were far lower than the US to begin with, it's not surprising. The US can experience a far higher percentage reduction than any other modern democracy,and it will still have twice the rate as those countries.

For example, for the US to experience a homicide rate like than in Canada, the rate would have to fall almost 90%.

If Canada had half that rate, it would still be lower than that of the US, even though they had a 90% drop.

Statistics on Australian homicide show that the number of all homicides went from 355 in 1997 to 297 in 2012. So about a 16% reduction.

Statistics on US homicides over that same time period (1997 to 2012) show the number dropping from 21,606 to 14,827. About a 31% reduction - about double that of Australia.

Seems that eliminating firearms in Australia might have actually slowed the drop in the number of homicides (assuming that Australia would have normally followed the reductions in the US), leading to a relative GAIN in the homicide rate as compared to the US over the same period.

For the United States hard data is surprisingly difficult to come by but the guardian says that 903 people have been killed by law enforcement so far this year. The Washington Post says that the number is consistently above 1000 per year.

In Australia between 1989 and 2011 there were 105 people killed by law enforcement so maybe 5-6 per year.

I make the US population about 14x the Australian population so per capita US law enforcement are killing more than 10x the number of people.

Different country, different crime rates etc etc etc but here is a study done on Recidivism rates in Australia with the differential being participation in educational and vocational training programs - http://www.aic.gov.au/publicat...

Summary is that re-offend rates were 32% for non participants & 23% for participants.

Why did I choose 1995? Simple. The Australian government started cracking down on gun ownership in 1996.

If you look at the long-term trend, you can see that 1995 was an unusually non-violent year. If you take a rolling average, there is a distinct downward trend from 1997 (the first year of the buyback) onwards.

The Howard gun laws did nothing statistically speaking, there's even a research paper which shows that there are no statistical breaks as a result from the gun buyback.

ABS and AIC statistics are pretty clear that death and injuries due to firearms in Australia (locally) peaked in the year of the buyback, and has steadily decreased in all years since. Data on homicides and data on suicides are available for your own analysis if you don't believe the statisticians.

why are so many americans such fucking morons when it comes to the simple undeniable truth: more easy guns = more senseless death, not protection

Simple. IT ISN'T TRUE.

How about using (gasp) some FACTS! Hard to believe, but if it were true, you should be able to prove it.

Australia has greatly tightened its gun laws since 1996. Let's look at the great change.

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...

According to this, in 1995, guns accounted for 18.38% of all murders. In 2012, guns accounted for 17.5% of all homicides. Yes, less than one percent drop! WOW! WHAT A DIFFERENCE!

OK. Gun homicides DID go down quite a bit, but so did knife homicides and blunt object homicides. Did Australia ban all knives and clubs? Yes, the police hassle people who carry such things in public, but you can have a bunch of cricket bats and very large knives in your home in Australia.

The homicide rate went down overall, but the proportion of weapon used did not seem to change much as at.. This points to some other cause for the drop in homicide. Some people point to less lead in the environment -- removing lead from gasoline and paint, for example.

So, tell me. Where is your proof?

Oh, and in the US, go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

Copy this table into your favorite spreadsheet. Make an X-Y scatter plot of "Gun Ownership" and "Murders." Add a trend line. Look: more guns = less homicide (a weak trend, but it is there). Hey, the District of Columbia has the most murders and the least number of guns (wow, go figure). Delete that row. Look, the trend is still there -- weaker, but still there.

Now, I ask you: where is your proof?

You're aware of this, right?
http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...

The big spike is obvious -- and so is the long decline.

There's a similar trend in the U.S.. I'm not sure it's related to gun legislation.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/share/clip?f=d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e8f57ckljv3

Since when does "disarm everybody" work that well on crime?

Austalia had a great "gun-ban" and their homicide rate DID go down (it wend down MORE here is the USA during the same period, but why bother with facts). Let's look at one of the consequences:

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTool...

Choose Homicide, 1995 and Homicide, 2012. The number of gun homicides, by percentage, looks almost EXACTLY the same. Firearm usage in murder dropped from 18.38% to17.5% Wow. WHAT A SLAM DUNK! There might be a LOT of reasons for the decrease in homicide rate, but apparently less than 1% can be attributed to banning guns. Wow, that makes a difference, huh?

I know, Australia is also cracking down on knife crime too, and cops can hassle a person for carrying a Leatherman -- nice freedom over there guys.

Hmmm a quick search shows that this is an incorrect assumption. The re-offend rate in Australia is between 20% & 30%. I have also annecdotally known a number of people who got caught drink driving and wouldn't ever do it again. A year without a license is a killer in Australia.

http://www.aic.gov.au/publicat...

They dropped more slowly, but have been on a steady decline.

OK, so 15 years later Australia has less violent crime. I'm sure that's a real comfort to the people who lived there from 1996-2000, right after the gun ban was enacted, and violent crime skyrocketed.

For the record, the US has also had a "steady decline" in violent crime over the past 15 years, and we didn't ban guns. So much for that hypothesis.

They dropped more slowly, but have been on a steady decline.

But now compare the violent crime rate.

Australia had a big gun-grab back in 1996. I want to know what effect
this has had, so I will start at 1995.

**Australia, 1995**
Population - 18,100,000
Murders - 321
Attempted Murder - 301
Manslaughter - 30
Robbery - 16466
Assault - 101149
Sexual Assault - 12809
Kidnapping - 469
Total Violent Crime - 131545
- - - - -
Murder, per million - 17.73
Violent Crime, per million - 7267.68

**Australia, 2010**
Population - 22,300,000
Murders - 260
Robbery - 14,582
Assault - 171083
Sexual Assault - 17757
Kidnapping - 603
Total Violent Crime - 204285
- - - - -
Murder, per million - 11.66
Murder, change from 1995 - 34.3% decrease
Violent Crime, per million - 9160.72
Violent Crime, from 1995 - 26.05% INCREASE

Yes, read that again. Murder dropped by 34.26%, but overall violent crime
is **up** by 26.05% For every life saved, an extra 312 people were the
victims of violent crime..

Wow, WHAT a slam dunk! Sign our country UP for some of that!

During the SAME period (1995-2010), here are the USA trends.
Murder - 42.6% down (compare to 34.3% down in Australia)
Violent crime - 43.5% down (compare to 26.05% UP in Australia)

Austalia, 1995 numbers.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats...

Australia, 2010 numbers.
http://www.aic.gov.au/media_li...
I used 2010 becaise of this note:
2011 figure does not include information from Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania. Therefore, the assault figure **cannot be compared with those prior to 2011**

USA figures (spot-checked, and the numbers were very close to FBI estimates.
http://www.disastercenter.com/...

For my country, Australia, I've just looked up some stats:

Homicide victims by sex (see first plot)

Homicide offenders by sex (see second plot)

They don't show the raw numbers but, reading roughly off the plots, homicide victims are ~70% male, and homicide offenders are ~80% male, in the most recent year of stats (2006-07). So, assuming there's no particular correlation for e.g. offenders to kill people of their own sex, we'd expect the following problems to ranked in decreasing severity order thusly:

men killing men
men killing women
women killing men
women killing women

(Personally, I'd prefer it if we just treated all murder as a problem.)

For my country, Australia, I've just looked up some stats:

Homicide victims by sex (see first plot)

Homicide offenders by sex (see second plot)

They don't show the raw numbers but, reading roughly off the plots, homicide victims are ~70% male, and homicide offenders are ~80% male, in the most recent year of stats (2006-07). So, assuming there's no particular correlation for e.g. offenders to kill people of their own sex, we'd expect the following problems to ranked in decreasing severity order thusly:

men killing men
men killing women
women killing men
women killing women

(Personally, I'd prefer it if we just treated all murder as a problem.)

I'm going to have to say that's a result that's unique to Switzerland. There's a direct correlation between homicide rates and assault rates (a failed homicide being classified as an assault). For your hypothesis to be correct, the overall assault rate in Switzerland has to have remained the same or climbed, while the homicide rate decreased. Indeed Switzerland has one of the highest assault rates among OECD countries (4.0%), but one of the lowest homicide rates (0.7 per 100,000).

But since most of this criticism is directed at the U.S., how do the two rates compare in the U.S.? The U.S. has one of the highest homicide rates among OECD countries (4.8 per 100,000 - more than double the OECD average of 2.2), but one of the lowest assault rates (1.5%, only Canada and Japan are lower, less than half the OECD average of 4.0%). (The interface is terrible - you have to hover your mouse over the little bars in the graph to see the number for each country, and the bars are inverted so a tall bar is a low number.) So while Americans kill each other a lot more, Europeans attack each other a lot more. This would appear to bear out the adage that "an armed society is a polite society." If the U.S. were to ban gun ownership, the homicide rate could decline to Canadian levels as you posit, or the assault rate could rise by 2.7x to the OECD average, or some combination of both. It's impossible to say which would be the outcome given the data.

I've been following this debate a long time, and followed with much interest what happened in Australia when they disarmed in 1997 (homicides are down, but assaults and sexual assaults are up, and robberies fluctuated a lot and are currently unchanged). I don't like nor own a gun, but I also dislike making decision purely on gut feeling rather than sound statistical data. The only conclusion I've arrived at is that the cultural norms for a country matter a whole lot more than whether or not you ban guns. Guns are mostly illegal in both Canada and Mexico, but widely available due to proximity to the U.S. Yet Canada is one of the safest OECD countries while Mexico is one of the most dangerous.

As an aside, it's interesting that the data on that site ranks the U.S. as the 3rd safest country against assault. The data was from a Gallup poll asking residents of those countries if they'd been assaulted in the past year. Other measurements of assault rate I'd seen ranked the U.S. about average among OECD countries. But those were based on police reports of assaults per 100,000. So either Americans are lying about whether they've been assaulted, or people in other OECD countries are not bothering to report assaults to the police, or police in other OECD countries are lying about how many assaults are reported to them. And no the high homicide rate in the U.S. does not affect the assault rate significantly. If all 4.8 out of 100,000 homicides failed and were classified as assaults, it would increase the assault rate by just 0.005%.

I'm going to have to say that's a result that's unique to Switzerland. There's a direct correlation between homicide rates and assault rates (a failed homicide being classified as an assault). For your hypothesis to be correct, the overall assault rate in Switzerland has to have remained the same or climbed, while the homicide rate decreased. Indeed Switzerland has one of the highest assault rates among OECD countries (4.0%), but one of the lowest homicide rates (0.7 per 100,000).

But since most of this criticism is directed at the U.S., how do the two rates compare in the U.S.? The U.S. has one of the highest homicide rates among OECD countries (4.8 per 100,000 - more than double the OECD average of 2.2), but one of the lowest assault rates (1.5%, only Canada and Japan are lower, less than half the OECD average of 4.0%). (The interface is terrible - you have to hover your mouse over the little bars in the graph to see the number for each country, and the bars are inverted so a tall bar is a low number.) So while Americans kill each other a lot more, Europeans attack each other a lot more. This would appear to bear out the adage that "an armed society is a polite society." If the U.S. were to ban gun ownership, the homicide rate could decline to Canadian levels as you posit, or the assault rate could rise by 2.7x to the OECD average, or some combination of both. It's impossible to say which would be the outcome given the data.

I've been following this debate a long time, and followed with much interest what happened in Australia when they disarmed in 1997 (homicides are down, but assaults and sexual assaults are up, and robberies fluctuated a lot and are currently unchanged). I don't like nor own a gun, but I also dislike making decision purely on gut feeling rather than sound statistical data. The only conclusion I've arrived at is that the cultural norms for a country matter a whole lot more than whether or not you ban guns. Guns are mostly illegal in both Canada and Mexico, but widely available due to proximity to the U.S. Yet Canada is one of the safest OECD countries while Mexico is one of the most dangerous.

As an aside, it's interesting that the data on that site ranks the U.S. as the 3rd safest country against assault. The data was from a Gallup poll asking residents of those countries if they'd been assaulted in the past year. Other measurements of assault rate I'd seen ranked the U.S. about average among OECD countries. But those were based on police reports of assaults per 100,000. So either Americans are lying about whether they've been assaulted, or people in other OECD countries are not bothering to report assaults to the police, or police in other OECD countries are lying about how many assaults are reported to them. And no the high homicide rate in the U.S. does not affect the assault rate significantly. If all 4.8 out of 100,000 homicides failed and were classified as assaults, it would increase the assault rate by just 0.005%.

I'm going to have to say that's a result that's unique to Switzerland. There's a direct correlation between homicide rates and assault rates (a failed homicide being classified as an assault). For your hypothesis to be correct, the overall assault rate in Switzerland has to have remained the same or climbed, while the homicide rate decreased. Indeed Switzerland has one of the highest assault rates among OECD countries (4.0%), but one of the lowest homicide rates (0.7 per 100,000).

But since most of this criticism is directed at the U.S., how do the two rates compare in the U.S.? The U.S. has one of the highest homicide rates among OECD countries (4.8 per 100,000 - more than double the OECD average of 2.2), but one of the lowest assault rates (1.5%, only Canada and Japan are lower, less than half the OECD average of 4.0%). (The interface is terrible - you have to hover your mouse over the little bars in the graph to see the number for each country, and the bars are inverted so a tall bar is a low number.) So while Americans kill each other a lot more, Europeans attack each other a lot more. This would appear to bear out the adage that "an armed society is a polite society." If the U.S. were to ban gun ownership, the homicide rate could decline to Canadian levels as you posit, or the assault rate could rise by 2.7x to the OECD average, or some combination of both. It's impossible to say which would be the outcome given the data.

I've been following this debate a long time, and followed with much interest what happened in Australia when they disarmed in 1997 (homicides are down, but assaults and sexual assaults are up, and robberies fluctuated a lot and are currently unchanged). I don't like nor own a gun, but I also dislike making decision purely on gut feeling rather than sound statistical data. The only conclusion I've arrived at is that the cultural norms for a country matter a whole lot more than whether or not you ban guns. Guns are mostly illegal in both Canada and Mexico, but widely available due to proximity to the U.S. Yet Canada is one of the safest OECD countries while Mexico is one of the most dangerous.

As an aside, it's interesting that the data on that site ranks the U.S. as the 3rd safest country against assault. The data was from a Gallup poll asking residents of those countries if they'd been assaulted in the past year. Other measurements of assault rate I'd seen ranked the U.S. about average among OECD countries. But those were based on police reports of assaults per 100,000. So either Americans are lying about whether they've been assaulted, or people in other OECD countries are not bothering to report assaults to the police, or police in other OECD countries are lying about how many assaults are reported to them. And no the high homicide rate in the U.S. does not affect the assault rate significantly. If all 4.8 out of 100,000 homicides failed and were classified as assaults, it would increase the assault rate by just 0.005%.

I'm going to have to say that's a result that's unique to Switzerland. There's a direct correlation between homicide rates and assault rates (a failed homicide being classified as an assault). For your hypothesis to be correct, the overall assault rate in Switzerland has to have remained the same or climbed, while the homicide rate decreased. Indeed Switzerland has one of the highest assault rates among OECD countries (4.0%), but one of the lowest homicide rates (0.7 per 100,000).

But since most of this criticism is directed at the U.S., how do the two rates compare in the U.S.? The U.S. has one of the highest homicide rates among OECD countries (4.8 per 100,000 - more than double the OECD average of 2.2), but one of the lowest assault rates (1.5%, only Canada and Japan are lower, less than half the OECD average of 4.0%). (The interface is terrible - you have to hover your mouse over the little bars in the graph to see the number for each country, and the bars are inverted so a tall bar is a low number.) So while Americans kill each other a lot more, Europeans attack each other a lot more. This would appear to bear out the adage that "an armed society is a polite society." If the U.S. were to ban gun ownership, the homicide rate could decline to Canadian levels as you posit, or the assault rate could rise by 2.7x to the OECD average, or some combination of both. It's impossible to say which would be the outcome given the data.

I've been following this debate a long time, and followed with much interest what happened in Australia when they disarmed in 1997 (homicides are down, but assaults and sexual assaults are up, and robberies fluctuated a lot and are currently unchanged). I don't like nor own a gun, but I also dislike making decision purely on gut feeling rather than sound statistical data. The only conclusion I've arrived at is that the cultural norms for a country matter a whole lot more than whether or not you ban guns. Guns are mostly illegal in both Canada and Mexico, but widely available due to proximity to the U.S. Yet Canada is one of the safest OECD countries while Mexico is one of the most dangerous.

As an aside, it's interesting that the data on that site ranks the U.S. as the 3rd safest country against assault. The data was from a Gallup poll asking residents of those countries if they'd been assaulted in the past year. Other measurements of assault rate I'd seen ranked the U.S. about average among OECD countries. But those were based on police reports of assaults per 100,000. So either Americans are lying about whether they've been assaulted, or people in other OECD countries are not bothering to report assaults to the police, or police in other OECD countries are lying about how many assaults are reported to them. And no the high homicide rate in the U.S. does not affect the assault rate significantly. If all 4.8 out of 100,000 homicides failed and were classified as assaults, it would increase the assault rate by just 0.005%.

I'm sorry, but you've been lied to. The homicide rates [aic.gov.au] in Australia did not decline after their gun ban. Or rather, they declined (averaged), but at the same rate they were declining before. In fact, that brief spike that you see on the graph is right after the ban.

Australian here. Well *I'm* sorry, but you're being deceptive, or simply cannot interpret information intelligently. I assume you're referring to graphs like this on that page. Yes, gun homicide was in decline, but certainly would have reached a level average at some point if the buybacks of 96 and 03 didn't occur. Who knows, they may have gone up. Nobody knows, because that did not happen. What *did* happen, after the buybacks, was that gun crime *plummeted*.

So it had the desired effect, and you just can't get your little mind around that. You don't want to think about it, or present a balanced argument, because it doesn't suit your bias. Intentionally misrepresenting information to make a point is just sad.

You may want (or not) to look at the graph on this page. Per 100,000 population, the gun homicide rate in the U.S. is ~3.6. In Australia it's ~0.1. U.K & Norway are the only two lower countries.

If you support gun ownership, you support gun crime, simple as that. Gun are NOT knives. Guns have only ONE purpose. They are not made to cut your steak, or butter your bread. They are made to maim and kill people. Supporting guns is supporting what guns are for. Or can't you get your head around that either?

I'm sorry, but you've been lied to.

The homicide rates in Australia did not decline after their gun ban. Or rather, they declined (averaged), but at the same rate they were declining before. In fact, that brief spike that you see on the graph is right after the ban.

Suicides also do not show any correlation with gun ban. Suicides by gun declined, yes (again, at the same rate they were declining prior to the ban), but suicides by hanging actually increased.

Violent crime rate, meanwhile, has increased, mainly due to increase in assaults, and in particular of sexual assault. Robbery rate actually spiked after the ban, but then went back to where it was. Everything else didn't change.

So, no. Australia did not solve anything, the laws were purely "feel good" kind of stuff.

I'm sorry, but you've been lied to.

The homicide rates in Australia did not decline after their gun ban. Or rather, they declined (averaged), but at the same rate they were declining before. In fact, that brief spike that you see on the graph is right after the ban.

Suicides also do not show any correlation with gun ban. Suicides by gun declined, yes (again, at the same rate they were declining prior to the ban), but suicides by hanging actually increased.

Violent crime rate, meanwhile, has increased, mainly due to increase in assaults, and in particular of sexual assault. Robbery rate actually spiked after the ban, but then went back to where it was. Everything else didn't change.

So, no. Australia did not solve anything, the laws were purely "feel good" kind of stuff.

If everything were readily available, sold in safe doses and taxed appropriately (like tobacco and alcohol,) prices would be low and people wouldn't have to steal to pay for their habits.

No but what stops drug induced loonies from maiming and killing innocent people just like alcohol does today?
Sure the War on Drugs is crazy, but let's not assume that the alcohol and tobacco model is a good situation. This is a study into the societal effects of alcohol here in Australia. TLDR: It costs us $14Billion/year due to criminal, heath, accidents and lost productivity.

I'm confused ... help me out here.

Men have testicles, which means we have significantly higher levels of testosterone coursing through our veins compared to women.
Now, testosterone gives rise to certain characteristics:

* men are larger, stronger and faster than women
* men also have a much higher libido (sex drive)
* however testosterone means that men also more violent, aggressive and risk-taking

Given all this, shouldn't men get LIGHTER sentences than women for most crimes?

On the one hand, how can a society chemically castrate men for sex offences, and on the other hand deny lighter sentences due to hormonal influence?

Meanwhile, women have successfully used PMS (menstruation) as a legal defense
Even the government-funded Australian Institute of Criminology has written about PMS as a legal defence (PDF)

Can anyone explain the double-standards to me? Anyone?

Lets use a reliable source shall we: Australian Institute of Criminology looking at the graph, the only rate that has increased is general assault charges and that has increased consistently since 1996 so unlikely that is the cause. Robbery rose slightly then fell, whilst sexual assault, kidnapping and murder all remained stable.
Also since gun control was introduced there have been no gun mascaras in Australia, (a mascara is when four or more people are killed in one event) that is not in that source but was in the SMH a few months back.
Here is a source showing pre-1996 graphs, you will note that in 1996 none of them rise out of trend.

Lets use a reliable source shall we: Australian Institute of Criminology looking at the graph, the only rate that has increased is general assault charges and that has increased consistently since 1996 so unlikely that is the cause. Robbery rose slightly then fell, whilst sexual assault, kidnapping and murder all remained stable.
Also since gun control was introduced there have been no gun mascaras in Australia, (a mascara is when four or more people are killed in one event) that is not in that source but was in the SMH a few months back.
Here is a source showing pre-1996 graphs, you will note that in 1996 none of them rise out of trend.

The Australian experience of an increase in forcible rape after guns were banned.

False. There was no appreciable increase in the three years after the ban came into effect. There has been an increase since, however that follows a trend line that started before the gun ban, so there is no correlation between the ban and the incidence of rape.

lucky enough to be in a country that has proven gun laws work.

Can you explain then why your gun control laws have not had any meaningful reflection in your homicide rates, or your general violent crime stats?

http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html
http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/violent%20crime.html