More Aussie Gun Control

The debate goes on and on over gun control. Then we get something like this.

SYDNEY is in the grip of a wave of gun crime, with a weapon fired or used to menace innocent residents six days in every seven. Police figures show there have been no fewer than 40 incidents involving guns across the metropolitan region since the beginning of last month.

About ten years ago Australia initiated a gun buy back program; by time the program ended in the summer of 1998, over 600,000 firearms were turned in and destroyed. They estimated that there were about 1.5 million firearms in Australia at the time.

The gun crime wave wasn't supposed to happen. The presence of guns in so many recent crimes is at odds with the State Government's repeated insistence that the incidence of gun crime is continuing to fall dramatically.

The armed robbers, carjackers and home invaders have not discriminated between districts of the city, striking everywhere from Double Bay to Sydney's west, from the southern to the northern suburbs.

Then in this report some Aussie social scientists boast how the gun control laws have reduced gun related deaths by one half.

They argue that the risk of dying by gunshot has halved since Australia destroyed 700,000 privately owned firearms. They say, " Not only were Australia's post-Port Arthur gun laws followed by a decade in which the crime they were designed to reduce hasn't happened again, but we also saw a life-saving bonus: the decline in overall gun deaths accelerated to twice the rate seen before the new gun laws."

The Port Arthur laws were designed to reduce the incidence of gun violence. But it looks like that hasn't worked out as planned. Not only has violent crime increased in Aussieland, but now the firearm related content is also increasing. If dangerous guns were removed from the population, then why is this happening?

I suggest that most of the guns turned in, or maybe all, were formerly owned by law abiding citizens. The punks and thugs kept theirs. And they are using them again.

Now that it is alnmost impossible to get a handgun to protect yourself, violent crime in Australia has increased.

Comparing Australia's violent crime stats from 1996 (when these dangerous guns were in the hands of law biding citizens) violent crime has increased 39%, from 145,902 to 202,484. Homicide is down 17% (59 less victims) but felony assaults are up 46%, sexual assault is up 25%, robbery is up 3% and kidnapping is up over 50%.

Since 1994, total victimization has increased by 56,582 people who were seriously beaten, raped, stabbed, robbed or kidnapped. Since 1998 when firearms were restricted, there have been an additional 32,405 victims.

Using a rather basic statistical measure of dispersion, standard deviation, against Australian crime stats yields the following. The arithmetic mean of the ten year period is 181,667 violent crimes. The standard deviation is 19,090.

A large standard deviation indicates that the data points are far from the mean and a small standard deviation indicates that they are clustered nearer the mean. Therefore the normative "bounds" of the Australian violent crime experience should be within one standard deviation of the arithmetic mean, or between 162,557 and 200,757. Anything outside of these upper and lower limits is not normal. The two years prior to the 1998 disarming are the only years lower than the new "normal" crime rate apparently established by the Aussies. The 2005 violent crimes stats have increased beyond the normative range.

This should be seriously worrying the Aussies. It would any copper. But the social scientists apparently don't care.

Gun Control, Part II

Let's take a look at some numbers, the ones supplied by the FBI in the annual Uniform Crime Report.

This chart shows the nation's homicides from 1991 through 2005. The number of murders peaked in 2003 at 23,180; there were 16,136 murders committed by some kind of firearm.

The very next year the US experienced a downward trend in the incidence of murder.

By 1999 murders had decreased by 45% to 12,658. The number of firearm-related murders also decreased by 45% to 8,259. By 2005 the number of murders reported through the country had increased to 14,860 - a 17% increase from 1999, but still 36% lower than 1993 levels. Firearm-related murder also increased to 10,100 - a 22% increase over 1999 levels but still 37% lower than 1993.

Compare this to the Australian experience.

"There was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of homicides by firearms from 1997 to 1998."-- Australian Crime - Facts and Figures 1999.

Australian Institute of Criminology. Canberra, Oct 1999

This is what the Aussies reported after banning virtually all firearms after the 1995 Port Arthur incident. The US did even better by significantly increasing the availability of firearms after thirty states loosened former restrictions on firearms, particularly handguns. Eventually the Aussies got a handle on this and the number of robberies decreased, but violent crime on the whole has been troublesome for them. From the same source:

"Although armed robberies increased by nearly 20%, the number of armed robberies involving a firearm decreased to a six-year low."-- Recorded Crime,Australia, 1998. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Jun 1999

If this isn't hiding your head in the sand (or ramming it up some other orifice) I don't know what is. Since the Australian government has effectively disarmed the entire potential victim population, Aussie criminals no longer have to fear being shot, they can now rob their chosen victims at their leisure. Aussie criminals can use knives, bats, bricks, fists, anything they please.

In the US, violent index crime totals have decreased by 27% in the past fifteen years, 1991 to 2005 (from 1,911,767 to 1,390,695). Homicide is down by 32% (from 24,703 to 16,692), Forcible Rape is down by 12% (from 106,593 to 93,394), Robbery is down by 39% (from 687,732 to 417,122) and Aggravated Assualt is down by 21% (from 1,092,739 to 862,947). My source is the FBI UCR home page here.

With the exception of murder, the violent crime rate (rape, robbery and felony assault) in Australia has risen dramatically since they disarmed their civilians. The accompanying graph illustrates this point. For a better view pleaase go here. The solid dark blue line is England and Wales. The upper dotted line is Canada and the faded lower dotted line is the US. The very short light blue line is Australia.

These are the violent crime rates per 100,000 English speaking populations for the past thirty-eight years.

It shows that the US has considerably lower crime rates than England, Wales, Canada and Australia. What is really interesting is that Australia only gives violent crime rates since 1995. That's the Port Arthur incident.

I suspect the reason why they neglect to give this information prior to 1995 is it would show that the violent crime rate has skyrocketed since they banned handguns.

England only gives their crime rate since 1980. They may have serious reporting issues that make it difficult for them to carry over crime stats from earlier years and older systems. However, the Brits were accused of changing their reporting system in part to make it harder to track the increase in violent crime throughout the remnants of the Empire. In this most recent edition of the British Crime Survey, the government reports a total of 2,420,000 violent offenses in 2005/06. That is 74% higher than the 2005 violent index crime totals reported in the UCR (2,420,000 versus 1,390,695). However the reporting systems are not similar (surveys v. reported crimes to the police) so it is not wise to draw too many inferences from the disparities.

Moreover, according to a UN report, England, Wales and Scotland now enjoy the reputation as the most violent nations on the planet.

Both Australia and New Zealand had the next highest proportion of assaults among their population at 2.4%, exactly double the level reported for the United States.

And my point? Simply this.

In light of what has transpired in other coutries that have prohibited their civilian populations from possessing handguns and other firearms, we better examine more closely what the anti-gun lobby wants to do here in the US.

For my two cents I say "Hell no!"

If there is anyone who wants to see the raw data, just leave me your email address in the comments section. I'll send the Excel spreadsheets in the manner you determine best for your system resources.

Gun Control, Part I

Our friend across the pond, Gert, has some points he would like to examine regarding my last post. I truly welcome this for two reasons:
1) It forces me to re-examine my positions in light of another's viewpoint and again evaluate the data sets upon which I draw my conclusions. I do this because I hate to sound like an idiot.
2) Because I undergo the process as defined above, it strengthens or corrects my world view. I like being right (or at least be able to present a valid argument that I am correct).

Sig:Although US gun culture is somewhat alien to the old fogies (like me) over in the Old Continent, I fully accept that the debate isn't simple at all and that there's a lot to be said for and against the right to bear arms.

Amen and amen. And I can take responsibility for some of that. We need to identify what the stakes are for the opposing sides, because both feel threatened. My take is this: the anti-gun lobby feels threatened because gun violence is at unacceptable levels and they want all guns confiscated or restricted to a point where they feel safe; the pro-gun side feels threatened because an activity they enjoy in a responsible manner may be taken away. They feel that they are safer defending themselves rather than depending on sketchy police response and, more importantly, they are of the opinion that the Constitution has given them the right to bear arms of their choosing.

But what is happening is this, gun violence in this country are going down, not up

It seems though that the debate, as debates tend to do, has spiralled into very partisan mutual entrenchment with virtually no one listening to the other side. There is therefore a lot of extremism on both sides of the divide.

This is quite a formula; it is virtually guaranteed to produce embittered positions on both sides of the coin. Everyone has their experts that they trust because they offer proof that their position is unassailable. It is very similar to a courtroom where the prosecution and the defense bring out their "hired guns" (please forgive the analogy) to sway the jury. I guess one has to make a better argument than the other, but the only minds capable of being swayed are the undecided...

What good does it do for anyone to own a collection of (modern, active) fire arms, including several hand guns as well as assault rifles, as some very clearly do? How can that be justified in the name of the legitimate right to self-defence? Are these people expecting half an army of criminals to raid their homes? It seems somewhat "overkill" in my view.

As they say, "Beauty is in the Mind of the Beholder." Some firearms are purchased legitimately for self defense. Other firearms are purchased for other reasons. I will assume that you accept self-defense as a valid justification for possessing a firearm. Thus your question is in two parts:
1) Other than self-defense, are there any other legitimate reasons for owning a firearm?
2) How many firearms does someone need to own? What is "enough?"

As a retired police officer I believe that everyone should be acquainted with the proper use of firearms. Cops can't be everywhere and when it comes down to your personal safety, cops can't guarantee it. We can guarantee that we will be sympathetic to your next of kin and bust our asses to find your killer.

Firearms are simply an effective centuries old method of protection from someone bigger, stronger, faster, younger, more determined, nastier, better looking, or nuttier than yourself.

As for reasons other than self-defense; I have a very small collection of Civil War era black powder firearms. They are working replicas, not the actual pieces. I am somewhat of a history buff and I love the weaponry of this era. As I hold them I imagine what the infantryman of that day must have experienced during a battle. He could only load and fire three times a minute if he was good at it. Loading the powder charge, positioning the ball, ramming it home, putting the percussion cap on the nipple -- and doing this while all hell was breaking lose around you. It staggers the imagination. I shoot these weapons to remember that untold thousands of lives depended on the relatively simple mechanisms of weapons technology over 150 years old. And it is a hoot to produce all that smoke at the range.

Quite frankly, I get a little teary eyed as I consider the sacrifices of our armed services throughout the history of our nation. If I were a Brit, I would feel exactly the same way about your country's armed services and the long, rich history behind the English ground pounder.

I have other firearms also. I consider the technological prowess of these weapons for their time and the men who used them -- the convergence of function and beauty. Some firearms are just butt ugly and I wouldn't buy one for love nor money. I did purchase one just because I thought it is cool looking and I love to shoot it. So do my kids. We have a ball at the range.

Question is, does the US not need much more restrictions on who can and who can't and what can and what cannot be legally owned in terms of fire arms, and not, as some are now arguing in the wake of the massacre at VA Tech, more freedom with regards to an individual's right to bear arms?

You may not agree, for but me the question is this: do I trust the government to defend me when I need protection? And who is going to protect me from the government? Our Founding Fathers were very concerned about the last question and for good reason. They feared the permanent tyranny of the government more than the temporary madness of an individual.

In the interest of public safety, the VT campus was restricted to anyone other than a police officer bearing a firearm. It proved to be not safe. The madman on the VT campus killed 32 innocent lives. The madmen in Russia, China, Cambodia and Vietnam took 100 million lives.

Gun control is not a force of nature. It is not like gravity or the speed of light or electro-magnetism. It is an entirely artificial legal construct that is utterly dependent upon the compliance of those upon whom it is imposed. And even when complete compliance is achieved, it is still relatively useless.

Moreover, once a single person chooses to ignore this limitation, he automatically assumes a position of absolute power over everyone who is in compliance. And that is what happened on the Virginia Tech campus.

Look at human history before the invention of gun powder and firearms. People have been killing each other for a long, long time. Gun control is relatively useless because there are plenty of weapons other than firearms that are readily capable of inflicting a death dealing wound. It is just that these weapons are not as concealable and many require a good deal of training and/or strength for the user to become proficient.

Firearms are far superior to these other weapons because they are deadly at far greater distances and the strength/training cycle needed to become proficient is greatly shortened. You can become proficient with a rifle or a handgun in five days. And this is why handguns are an excellent source of protection for women and the elderly.

Violent crime statistics in Great Britain and Australia indicate that while murder may decrease somewhat, other violent crimes actually increase. Aggravated assault and robbery are two of them. Since Australia instituted comprehensive gun control laws in the late 1990's, violent crimes have increased by 35%.

And out of interest, what does this UN ranking actually mean? Does it have a measuring unit, or is it an index?

The author of this section, Don Kates, is using this chart to address the anti-gun rhetoric emanating from the public health sector. In particular, the author addresses elements of the shibboleth that "more gun availability results in more homicide, suicide and gun accidents whilst strict gun control will result in fewer such tragedies." Gun availability in the US has increased dramatically in the thirty years betwen 1967 and 1997 - the number of civilian handguns increased by 273% and the total number of firearms increased by 162%, yet there was no corresponding increase in the number of homicides or suicides.

Even the Center for Disease Control (CDC) gets into this action by artifically inflating homicides and suicides in the US.

"This, for instance, when the CDC discusses homicide alone, international comparisons are made, but whenever the CDC combines honicides and suicides, data is given only for the US."

The US suicide rate is actually much, much lower than the European suicide rate. But the CDC includes the homicide rate to "bump up" the numbers.

These are the suicide rankings:
1) Estonia (39.9)
2) Finland (27.3)
3) Russia (26.6)
4) Latvia (26.0)
5) Lithuania (26)
6) Austria (22.2)
7) Denmark (22.0)
8) Switzerland (20.8)
9) Ukraine (20.6)
10) France (20.2)
11) Belgium (19.3)
12) Sweden (17.2)
13) Germany (15.8)
14) Luxembourg (15.1)
15) New Zealand (13.9)
16) Canada (12.9)
17) USA (11.5)
18) Israel (7.3)
(ARMED, pg 61)

What this shows is that the health advocates have it all wrong when equating gun availability to suicide. The nations with the highest suicide rates have the tightest gun control laws while the nations with the lowest suicide rates have greater access to civilian firearms.

So American suicide rates cannot be blamed on the availability of firearms as the anti-gun advocates try to do.

"By the same token, readers of health advocacy articles blaming American suicide increases on guns would never learn that while suicide amoug American males aged fifteen to twenty-four increased 7.4 percent in the period 1980 to 1990, the increase amoung English males of this age was over ten times greater (78 percent), car exhaust poisoning [being] the method of suicide used most often."

(Teenage Deaths Increasing Across Europe," CJ-Europe, November-December 1994)

I also look upon this as an index, especially since the unfolding of events at VT. There are a number of murder/suicides taking place across the country. I suspect that anyone disposed to taking their own life may also be more disposed to taking someone with them. I certainly would propose that anyone who has threatened suicide or attempted suicide not be considered eligible to purchase/possess a firearm. Even then, someone determined to kill another person and take his own life in the process is going to be able to procure a firearm. All we can do is make it more difficult for them to do so.

Fun With Numbers: Part II

After the Aussie gun debacle, I wandered over to see how our British cousins are faring after disarming their citizenry. I was in for a surprise. The British Home Office reports that Violent Crime is tumbling down to it's lowest level in twenty years; in fact all crime is down.

Well, I figured I was wrong. Taking guns away from law-biding citizens indeed does the trick.

But then I read this, and I got an incredible warm, gushy feeling, you know, the kind you get when you pick up a loveable, squirming puppy and it pisses all over your chest:

"Note: Violent crime, as measured by the BCS, includes common assault, wounding, robbery and snatch theft. It does not include homicide (as the victims cannot be surveyed) and other types of violent crime, like firearms offences."

Note to reader: BCS is the British Crime Survey

So what's going on? This report at News Max (March 2001) begins to peel back the facade of civility surrounding England's anti-gun laws.

To the great consternation of British authorities concerned about tourism revenue, a June CBS News report proclaimed Great Britain "one of the most violent urban societies in the Western world." Declared Dan Rather: "This summer, thousands of Americans will travel to Britain expecting a civilized island free from crime and ugliness ... [but now] the U.K. has a crime problem ... worse than ours."

Thousands of Americans also traveled to CBS for an unbiased story from Gunga Dan and have come away disappointed. But he got it right this time...

Not surprisingly to many observers, the violent crime rate has risen dramatically and steadily since gun bans have been instituted. That's a trend seen wherever strict gun control laws have been implemented. And that's the part of the story British officials have tried to keep under wraps.

A headline in the London Daily Telegraph back on April 1, 1996, said it all: "Crime Figures a Sham, Say Police." The story noted that "pressure to convince the public that police were winning the fight against crime had resulted in a long list of ruses to 'massage' statistics," and "the recorded crime level bore no resemblance to the actual amount of crime being committed."

The coppers know Barbara Streisand when they smell her.

For example, where a series of homes were burgled, they were regularly recorded as one crime. If a burglar hit 15 or 20 flats, only one crime was added to the statistics.

This is what is known as cooking the books. All that needs to be done is "reclassify" the crime or simply refuse to report a specific type of incident. I have seen it done recently at the local level.

More recently, a 2000 report from the Inspectorate of Constabulary charges Britain's 43 police departments with systemic under-classification of crime – for example, by recording burglary as "vandalism." The report lays much of the blame on the police's desire to avoid the extra paperwork associated with more serious crimes.

Britain's justice officials have also kept crime totals down by being careful about what to count.

It gets better.

"American homicide rates are based on initial data, but British homicide rates are based on the final disposition." Suppose that three men kill a woman during an argument outside a bar. They are arrested for murder, but because of problems with identification (the main witness is dead), charges are eventually dropped. In American crime statistics, the event counts as a three-person homicide, but in British statistics it counts as nothing at all. "With such differences in reporting criteria, comparisons of U.S. homicide rates with British homicide rates is a sham," the report concludes.

What a concept! Give Misha the credit at AIR... this is merely an "Undocumented DOA!" Case closed, let's say we hit the pub for a pint, no?

Explaining away the disparity between crime reported by victims and the official figures became so difficult that, in April 1998, the British Home Office was forced to change its method of reporting crime, and a somewhat more accurate picture began to emerge. In January 2000, official street-crime rates in London were more than double the official rate from the year before.

When you cook the crime books like this you create a potentially very dangerous situation. Policy decisions are supposed to be data-driven, that is, you establish a statistical basis that will support your policy recommendations. When the statistical base you create only exists in the fevered imaginations of liberal politicians, your policies are going to go right down the crapper. And that is exactly what has happened in Merry Ole.

When the United Nations sees the train wreck, you know it's a doozy. This from the September 19,2005 London Times:

A UNITED Nations report has labelled Scotland the most violent country in the developed world, with people three times more likely to be assaulted than in America. England and Wales recorded the second highest number of violent assaults while Northern Ireland recorded the fewest.

The study, based on telephone interviews with victims of crime in 21 countries, found that more than 2,000 Scots were attacked every week, almost ten times the official police figures. They include non-sexual crimes of violence and serious assaults.

Violent crime has doubled in Scotland over the past 20 years and levels, per head of population, are now comparable with cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Tbilisi.
Based on a crime survey of the world's top industrialized countries, the U.N. report indicates that a resident of the United Kingdom is nearly 3 times more likely to become a victim of violent assault than is a citizen of the United States. The report reveals that Scotland is the most violent country in the industrialized world with over 2,000 Scots attacked every week, which amounts to about 3 percent of the population on an annual basis. England and Wales are close behind with 2.8 percent of the population falling victim to violent assault. By comparison, Americans are victimized by violent offenders at a rate of 1.2 percent.

Case closed.

Fun With Numbers: Part I

Anti-Gun BS Alert
I came upon an Aussie site "proving" how the tough Australian 1996 anti-gun legislation has been a boon to the Australian people. The old adage comes to mind:

"Figures never lie but liars never figure."

Latest official data from Australia shows a marked reduction in gun-related crime and injury following recent restrictions on the private ownership of firearms. Twelve days after 35 people were shot dead by a single gunman in Tasmania, Australia's state and federal governments agreed to enact wide-ranging new gun control laws to curb firearm-related death and injury. Between July 1996 and August 1998, the new restrictions were brought into force. Since that time, key indicators for gun-related death and crime have shown encouraging results.

What is not so encouraging is that law-abiding Australian citizens were disarmed. And now they are paying for it.

"There was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of homicides by firearms from 1997 to 1998."
-- Australian Crime - Facts and Figures 1999. Australian Institute of Criminology. Canberra, Oct 1999

People were using swords, spears, clubs and rocks loooong before firearms were invented. And guess what? They'll use them again if need be.

Those who claim that Australia suffered a "crime wave" as a result of new gun laws often cite as evidence unrelated figures for common assault or sexual assault (no weapon) and armed robbery (any weapon). In fact less than one in five Australian armed robberies involve a firearm. "Although armed robberies increased by nearly 20%, the number of armed robberies involving a firearm decreased to a six-year low."

I'm sure that every Aussie who had a Ginzu held to his throat or had the snot beat out of him is now rejoicing. What's "unrelated" about being robbed or raped? What is "related" is that you have been disarmed.

"A declining firearm suicide rate, a declining firearm assault rate, a stable firearm robbery rate with a declining proportion of robberies committed with a firearm and a declining proportion of damage to property offences committed with a firearm suggest that firearm regulation has been successful in Tasmania."
-- Warner, Prof K. Firearm Deaths and Firearm Crime After Gun Licensing in Tasmania. Australian Institute of Criminology, 3rd National Outlook Symposium on Crime in Australia. Canberra, 22-23 Mar 1999.

The operative expression is "committed with a firearm" because everything else is going to hell in a hand basket. And why not? Criminals don't need a gun anymore thanks to the gubmint. Just walk right up and take it, thank you.

Let's cut to the chase. Here are the Australian crime stats from 1996 to 2003. I couldn't use the 2004 numbers as they are obviously incomplete. The numbers tell us this:

In 1996 Australia reported 354 murders, 114,156 assaults, 14,542 Sexual Assaults, 16,372 Robberies for a total of 145,424 Violent Crimes.

In 2003 Australia reported 341 Murders (-4%), 158,629 Assaults (+39%), 18,237 Sexual Assaults (+25%) and 19,709 Robberies (+20%) for a total of 196,916 Violent Crimes (+35%).

This is the Aussie Anti-gun Miracle, 13 less murders in a nation of 20 million people.

Now examine the violent, evil, gun loving Americans.

In 1996 the FBI reported 19,645 murders, 535,594 assaults, 96,252 Rapes, 1,037,049 Robberies for a total of 1,688,540 Violent Crimes.

In 2003 the FBI reported 16,528 Murders (-19%), 895,030 Assaults (-21%), 93,883 Rapes (-3%) and 414,235 Robberies (-29%) for a total of 1,383,676 Violent Crimes (-22%).

There were 304,864 fewer Violent Crimes committed in the United States during the same period of time. Australia had 51,492 more Violent Crimes. We also have a population almost 15 times the size of Australia's (295,734,134 v 20,090,437 July 2005 est.) as well as a swelling illegal immigrant population.

Not bad.