How many of you carry a gun as part of your cycling equipment?

izatt82

seems that it did nothing to help looks like it is right back were it started

Phill P

Didn't the Howard Liberal party come into power at around '95-'96 for the next 11 years??

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artemidorus

It wasn't expected to make any difference - it only affected semi-automatic weapons and handguns, and very few of these were owned by ordinary citizens before the ban.

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artemidorus

Yes, the gun control law changes were carried out in their first year of office, I recall. Americans should note that Australia's Liberal Party is our conservative party.

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Phill P

I think the trend might have something more to do with the economic trends of the last 11 years in OZ......somebody who has been here longer than me please correct me if I'm wrong.

Interest rates had been high in Australia, and from 1995ish onwards the stress on the population was increasing. Violent crime goes up.

Johnny comes along, the resources booms starts to kick in, everybody has a job (nearly) interest rates are low. Violent crime goes down.

I don't personally think the the ownership of guns results in the crime. In Africa and probably Asia they use machetes when they don't have a gun. The difference is a shooting can be done from a distance, less chance to flee or defend yourself against a gun compared to a hand held blade.

I do believe that people should only have guns who have a need or use for them. I don't think you should have one for "personal protection".

The Police in New Zealand don't have side arms, or even pepper spray. They are trained to back away and call for support. If I was faced by an attacker with a gun, they can have what ever they want, or I'd ran my arse off if it was an option!! I wouldn't tempt being shoot at by producing my own gun in "defence".

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cbjesseeNH

"Violent crime is way up in the UK/Australia since the bans on handguns"

Perhaps when you parse the data out, it looks better. It does appear that several of the more infrequent violent crimes cummulative increased since 1996, rising and falling again. The major violent crime has cummulatively increased since 1996 and has risen almost 30%.

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/...2006/fig003.png

cbjesseeNH

I'd call that revisionist history - not until the rise in crime was several years in the making did claims that the '96 ban and '97 buy-back were not expected to diminish crime appear in defense of the new restrictions.

The very fine print offerred by supporters of the gun ban/buy-back now says the intended effect was - not to diminish crime, not to diminish firearms crime, not to diminish firearms homicides, nor to diminish mutiple firearms homicides, but that the laws were "designed" to diminish mass firearms homicides defined as n=5 or greater in a single episode. Naturally, no public record of this appears in the numerous government releases and news articles from the era, as the true plan was a secret, eh?

Now that's targeting laws with 1 MOA!

But have it both ways if you want to - taking guns away from Australians was not supposed to diminish violent crime (and indeed hasn't), but the only way to diminish violent crime in the US is to take away guns.

Now THAT'S a convincing argument.

artemidorus

It's amazing how statistics can be made to mislead. There was a slow upward trend in violent crime before 1996 and the gun buyback made no difference - the trend has continued. The gun buyback had no effect either way. The politicians claimed that it would, but anyone with half a brain realised that a country with no tradition of handgun ownership outside shooting clubs, no rights of concealed carry, and almost no guns at home in the heavily urbanised areas, where most violent crimes take place, was not going to see any difference in crime rates. This is not revisionism, but simply a summary of the then prevalent pragmatic view of government spin.

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artemidorus

Of course it wasn't expected to have an effect - social policy is only effective when formulated on the basis of good evidence and true expert advice, not the knee-jerk opinions of venal politicians and kowtowing bureaucrats.

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cbjesseeNH

I take it your point is that the increasing restrictions in gun ownership/carry over years leading up to 1996 had the major impact on stimulating a steady rise in crime, and the final 1996 ban could little alter this rise? The 1996 law was just another means of distracting the public from a failed decades-old policy of restricting guns under the guise of fighting crime?

I guess if laws are made by politicians/bureaucrats, and voted for (or at least accepted) by majority of half-brained public you mention above, your use of the "was not expected to have an effect" is very particular.

There was and continues to be a literature supporting the expectation that there would be no curb on crime by added gun restrictions, but that is mostly dismissed as coming from biased gun-rights supporters, even when published in prominant peer-review journals.

Maybe it's the expectations of the pro-gun "side" you are referring to?

artemidorus

Guns for most Australians have meant an occasional foray into the country to shoot a rabbit, pig or fox with a bolt-action single shot rifle or the same with a small magazine, or else a breakable single/double shot shotgun. I have done this and enjoyed it, but not for many years. As far as I know, we can still do this without too much trouble. We have never had a "frontier" and there has been no tradition of handgun ownership in the last century. It is wrong to think of ownership as being previously "restricted", as that implies that a public desire has been thwarted. The main restriction that, I think, is hurting certain users is the lack of semi-automatic weapons to hunt dangerous animals such as large pigs, but this would be less than 1-2% of the population.
I don't feel strongly about gun restriction because I have no desire to own one. This would apply to at least 80-90% of all voters. Hence the electorate being less than caring about the tighter restrictions of 1996.
I've had a quick look at available literature and I would agree that legislation concerning gun ownership seems to have either no, or a very small, effect on crime rates. Your NRA is always quick to cite the UK and Australia as evidence for the evils of gun control, but I would submit that escalating crime rates have nothing to do with gun laws in these countries, which both have historically very low levels of public gun ownership.

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izatt82

sadly the US tries to ban our guns and crime only gets worst, because the criminals don't care if they break the law

kdelong

Just something to think about.

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CAMPYBOB

The Second Amendment AIN'T about hunting. Or target shooting.

It's a God given right for the individual to protect himself from criminals AND tyrants.