Australia’s gun laws not working

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The Victoria State Police petitioned the Australian government to stop adding restructions to handguns because it was fueling a black market and making their job harder.

It is not hard to google and find stories of Australian "bikie" motorcycle clubs making MAC-10s in their workshops, or Australian drug smugglers adding Glocks to their illegal warez. Check articles on DIY guns published by The Firearms Blog and other sources.

Even Tim Lambert came to the conclusion that the Great Australian Gun Buyback of 1996 championed by John Howard, Rebecca Peters, and Soros-backed IANSA had no measurable impact on Australian crime.
 
This latest incident in Australia involved a single family of victims -- three adults, four children. Statistically, it means nothing. We don't even know what kind of gun was used. Both sides are using this incident for their own purposes -- the antis to say that more gun restrictions are needed, and the pro-gun side to say that the existing restrictions are pointless.

In America, something like this wouldn't even make the national news.
 
AlexanderA said:
This latest incident in Australia involved a single family of victims -- three adults, four children. Statistically, it means nothing. We don't even know what kind of gun was used. Both sides are using this incident for their own purposes -- the antis to say that more gun restrictions are needed, and the pro-gun side to say that the existing restrictions are pointless.

In America, something like this wouldn't even make the national news.
Click to expand...
Unless the news could make it into some form of racial or hate crime; then it would be everywhere adding more fuel to the fire.
 
The OP is wildy going beyond data and one should have data skills, I would think:

Philip Alpers, a Sydney University gun policy analyst, said the tragedy appeared to be the worst mass shooting in Australia since a lone gunman killed 35 in Tasmania state in 1996, prompting the nation to introduce tough gun controls.
Click to expand...

If the laws were passed 22 years ago and it took that long to get a rather small but tragic shooting, how can one conclude the law is a failure? Not that I'm defending their laws but nonsensical conclusions from this one incident is the kind of rhetoric that hurts the RKBA cause.

In a surface validity argument, you would say:

The anti gun crowd like to say we’re the only ones with mass murders. We know this is a lie.
They say Australia’s gun laws should be a model for us

Here’s proof both are lies and an example Australia’s laws don’t work if someone really wants to kill a bunch of people with a gun
Click to expand...

The antigunner would say:

We don't have such laws and we've had since 1996:

Location, year, death, injuries, gun types.
Las Vegas shooting 2017 59 (inc. the perp.) 851 Semi-automatic rifles [50][51]
Orlando nightclub shooting
Dagger-14-plain.png
2016 50 (inc. the perp.) 58 Semi-automatic rifle and pistol [50][51]
Virginia Tech shooting
Dagger-14-plain.png
2007 33 (inc. the perp.) 23 Semi-automatic pistols [50]
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting 2012 28 (inc. the perp.) 2 Semi-automatic rifle and pistol [50]
Sutherland Springs church shooting 2017 27 (inc. the perp.)[nb 1] 20 Semi-automatic rifle [52][51]
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting 2018 17 17 Semi-automatic rifle [53]
San Bernardino attack 2015 16 (inc. both perps.) 24 Semi-automatic rifles [50][51]
Columbine High School massacre 1999 15 (inc. both perps.) 24 Multiple types of firearms [54]
Binghamton shootings 2009 14 (inc. the perp.) 4 Semi-automatic pistols [54]
Fort Hood shooting 2009 14 [nb 4] 33 (inc. the perp.) Semi-automatic pistols [54]
Washington Navy Yard shooting 2013 13 (inc. the perp.) 8 Semi-automatic pistol and shotgun [54]
Aurora shooting 2012 12 70 Multiple types of firearms [54][51]
Geneva County massacre 2009 11 (inc. the perp.) 6 Multiple types of firearms [54]
Atlanta shootings 1999 10 (inc. the perp.) 13 Semi-automatic pistols and revolver [50]
Red Lake shootings 2005 10 (inc. the perp.) 5 Semi-automatic pistols and shotgun [54]
Umpqua Community College shooting 2015 10 (inc. the perp.) 8 Semi-automatic pistols and revolver [54]

That's not counting failed attempts and the general shootings in the urban areas that are in the hundreds. There are others that weren't in the list I copied from Wikipedia, such as

On August 5, 2012, a mass shooting took place at the gurdwara (Sikh temple) in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, where 40-year-old Wade Michael Page fatally shot six people and wounded four others
Click to expand...

Thus, the OP would not be convincing in an argument. If you want to argue Australia, that's not the way to do it.

As PhD in psychology, I would advise folks about the inoculation effect. If you challenge someone with a weak argument, you end up strenghtening their beliefs. So if I were on stage with the OP who stated that the Australian laws failed because after 22 years of their laws since a massacre, they had a domestic shooting - I would just reel off the USA incidents. Anyone who had antigun beliefs would have them strengthened by the OPs assertions that:

The anti gun crowd like to say we’re the only ones with mass murders. We know this is a lie.
They say Australia’s gun laws should be a model for us

Here’s proof both are lies and an example Australia’s laws don’t work if someone really wants to kill a bunch of people with a gun
Click to expand...

Their laws would look pretty good. Try again.
 
Right. The better argument is that there are two big fallacies embedded in the we-should-be-Australia-argument:
  • The first is false attribution of Australia's low homicide rate and low incidence of mass murders to gun control laws. Yet even a cursory review of the data from before the big gun ban reveals that Australia's lethal violence levels have been very low for a long time and were already in (further) decline when the gun laws changed. Claims that gun laws caused the decline are akin to claims that the rooster's crowing caused the sun to rise - except that the sun was already halfway up in this case!
  • The second is the kind of narrow-framing that most anti-gun analyses adopt. In general, they consider every gun [bad thing] to be a marginal [bad thing], and totally disregard [bad thing] involving other instrumentalities. Australia may not have had any "mass murders" with guns in a while, but they have had mass poisonings, mass stabbings, mass arson killing, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia
This is akin to a traffic safety expert setting out to prove that red cars cause accidents and should be banned. So he counts all the accidents that involve red cars and calls those "red car accidents." Then he finds a local where there are few red cars (or perhaps where he has already convinced the authorities to ban red cars), and finds that there are fewer "red car accidents." Of course he will find fewer "red car accidents." He probably won't find fewer total car accidents, though, because drivers who would otherwise use a red car just substitute another color car. At least 90% of the anti-gun statistical arguments that I see turn on precisely this logic. It's ridiculous. And completely common. It assumes the causal relationship. It begs the question. It is junk science.​
 
I'd think that since the US has a population that is somewhere around 13 times that of Australia, that the 15 attacks mentioned above put us pretty much right on track with the one from Australia. 13/1 vs 15/1 is a pretty close rate for this sort of thing.
 
Darkbob said:
I'd think that since the US has a population that is somewhere around 13 times that of Australia, that the 15 attacks mentioned above put us pretty much right on track with the one from Australia. 13/1 vs 15/1 is a pretty close rate for this sort of thing.
Click to expand...
No, that's not the good response. Australia's per capita homicide rate is much, much lower than that of the U.S. as a whole (although some sub-parts of the U.S. are in the same neighborhood).
 
AlexanderA said:
This latest incident in Australia involved a single family of victims -- three adults, four children. Statistically, it means nothing. We don't even know what kind of gun was used. Both sides are using this incident for their own purposes -- the antis to say that more gun restrictions are needed, and the pro-gun side to say that the existing restrictions are pointless.

In America, something like this wouldn't even make the national news.
Click to expand...
Four children killed makes the news, count on it, even if they are 19 year-old gang bangers.
 
So, then you're saying that even though Australia has a much lower homicide rate, they still have a similar "Massacre" rate.
 
No, I am not saying that, and I don't think that's very likely to be true at all.
 
GEM said:
The OP is wildy going beyond data and one should have data skills, I would think:



If the laws were passed 22 years ago and it took that long to get a rather small but tragic shooting, how can one conclude the law is a failure? Not that I'm defending their laws but nonsensical conclusions from this one incident is the kind of rhetoric that hurts the RKBA cause.

In a surface validity argument, you would say:



The antigunner would say:

We don't have such laws and we've had since 1996:

Location, year, death, injuries, gun types.
Las Vegas shooting 2017 59 (inc. the perp.) 851 Semi-automatic rifles [50][51]
Orlando nightclub shooting
Dagger-14-plain.png
2016 50 (inc. the perp.) 58 Semi-automatic rifle and pistol [50][51]
Virginia Tech shooting
Dagger-14-plain.png
2007 33 (inc. the perp.) 23 Semi-automatic pistols [50]
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting 2012 28 (inc. the perp.) 2 Semi-automatic rifle and pistol [50]
Sutherland Springs church shooting 2017 27 (inc. the perp.)[nb 1] 20 Semi-automatic rifle [52][51]
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting 2018 17 17 Semi-automatic rifle [53]
San Bernardino attack 2015 16 (inc. both perps.) 24 Semi-automatic rifles [50][51]
Columbine High School massacre 1999 15 (inc. both perps.) 24 Multiple types of firearms [54]
Binghamton shootings 2009 14 (inc. the perp.) 4 Semi-automatic pistols [54]
Fort Hood shooting 2009 14 [nb 4] 33 (inc. the perp.) Semi-automatic pistols [54]
Washington Navy Yard shooting 2013 13 (inc. the perp.) 8 Semi-automatic pistol and shotgun [54]
Aurora shooting 2012 12 70 Multiple types of firearms [54][51]
Geneva County massacre 2009 11 (inc. the perp.) 6 Multiple types of firearms [54]
Atlanta shootings 1999 10 (inc. the perp.) 13 Semi-automatic pistols and revolver [50]
Red Lake shootings 2005 10 (inc. the perp.) 5 Semi-automatic pistols and shotgun [54]
Umpqua Community College shooting 2015 10 (inc. the perp.) 8 Semi-automatic pistols and revolver [54]

That's not counting failed attempts and the general shootings in the urban areas that are in the hundreds. There are others that weren't in the list I copied from Wikipedia, such as



Thus, the OP would not be convincing in an argument. If you want to argue Australia, that's not the way to do it.

As PhD in psychology, I would advise folks about the inoculation effect. If you challenge someone with a weak argument, you end up strenghtening their beliefs. So if I were on stage with the OP who stated that the Australian laws failed because after 22 years of their laws since a massacre, they had a domestic shooting - I would just reel off the USA incidents. Anyone who had antigun beliefs would have them strengthened by the OPs assertions that:



Their laws would look pretty good. Try again.
Click to expand...

I wish I had kept every article I've heard about this from two decades ago. The effectiveness of the Australian ban was debated even in its immediate aftermath. It has also been touted as having been successful at stopping mass shootings, while also being criticized for not affecting day to day violence at all.
In as much as Australia has roughly the same population as New York City, though, I remain unconvinced that what stats apply there would transfer well if we adopted their laws here.
 
ATLDave said:
Right. The better argument is that there are two big fallacies embedded in the we-should-be-Australia-argument:
  • The first is false attribution of Australia's low homicide rate and low incidence of mass murders to gun control laws. Yet even a cursory review of the data from before the big gun ban reveals that Australia's lethal violence levels have been very low for a long time and were already in (further) decline when the gun laws changed. Claims that gun laws caused the decline are akin to claims that the rooster's crowing caused the sun to rise - except that the sun was already halfway up in this case!
  • The second is the kind of narrow-framing that most anti-gun analyses adopt. In general, they consider every gun [bad thing] to be a marginal [bad thing], and totally disregard [bad thing] involving other instrumentalities. Australia may not have had any "mass murders" with guns in a while, but they have had mass poisonings, mass stabbings, mass arson killing, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia
This is akin to a traffic safety expert setting out to prove that red cars cause accidents and should be banned. So he counts all the accidents that involve red cars and calls those "red car accidents." Then he finds a local where there are few red cars (or perhaps where he has already convinced the authorities to ban red cars), and finds that there are fewer "red car accidents." Of course he will find fewer "red car accidents." He probably won't find fewer total car accidents, though, because drivers who would otherwise use a red car just substitute another color car. At least 90% of the anti-gun statistical arguments that I see turn on precisely this logic. It's ridiculous. And completely common. It assumes the causal relationship. It begs the question. It is junk science.​
Click to expand...

Sooooo .... yer sayin' this is a red herring :)
 
No, I wouldn't characterize anything I've said as being the pointing out of a "red herring," which I understand to mean a pure irrelevancy. Not every wrong argument is a "red herring." Most are not.
 
Tommygunn said:
I wish I had kept every article I've heard about this from two decades ago. The effectiveness of the Australian ban was debated even in its immediate aftermath. It has also been touted as having been successful at stopping mass shootings, while also being criticized for not affecting day to day violence at all.
In as much as Australia has roughly the same population as New York City, though, I remain unconvinced that what stats apply there would transfer well if we adopted their laws here.
Click to expand...
Australia has more than 3X the population of NYC; at 25 million it is closer to Texas
 
George P said:
Australia has more than 3X the population of NYC; at 25 million it is closer to Texas
Click to expand...

Maybe the Wiki article I read had it wrong. Still, it is way less than America.

EDIT: I went and rechecked the Wiki article. I believed I misread a figure that read @ 8,000,000.

Wiki actually holds it at just under 25,000,000.
 
Last edited:
stchman said:
Actually NYC metropolitan area is a little over 20 million.
Click to expand...
NYC is ~ 8.5 million - I grew up there and it can't change too much due to geography. If you want to count the tri-state area of NYC, Long Island, Upper NJ, Westchester County and southern CT, that is something altogether different
 
If you remove an easy to use tool from the common person that tool will get used less by the common person.
It will still be used by those motivated to acquire them, and other methods will be used more often.

Making such a huge deal of mass shootings in the media is why mass shootings are done more frequently. Statistically they are still very small, and most murders in our nation are committed with handguns and most of those are gang members and people in the illegal drug industry robbing and killing each other.
50% of the murders and a similar number of the victims are blacks in the US, while making up 13% of the population (up from 12% with similar statistics a couple decades ago.)
The gang subculture and drugs, hip-hop and rap, it is all tied to most of the murders in our nation. A lot of the rap industry is supported with drug money, and investigators have even linked a lot of claimed ticket sales and reported rap income as money laundering of drug money by claiming business in excess of reality. While at the same time a lot of aspiring rappers use drug profits for studio time to try and make it big.
The problem is not guns.
 
Hokie_PhD said:
Australia’s laws don’t work if someone really wants to kill a bunch of people with a gun
Click to expand...


We're going to have a lot of trouble citing this murder-suicide as the Australian laws not working since it would have taken total confiscation (not the actual case in Australia) to prevent the criminal use of firearms (which we also know won't stop criminals from using firearms). This case now appears to be a family murder without an outside element. That's a poor example to make our point.

The other examples cited are far more relevant in making our point.
 
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