Whenever someone brings up Australia

[goldpelican]

Kiln - besides being larger with more people, doesn't the population of the U.S. have a greater variety of ethnicities and nationalities than Australia?
America is/was the "great melting pot" with people from nearly every country on the planet, maybe even from them all. Australia is primarily populated by people from the U.K., with many being "forced settlers" but still primarily British subjects. They don't have the diversity we do.

That's a misconception - 28% of Australian residents were born overseas, versus about 14% of US citizens/residents. Very diverse.

 

[Kiln]

We have a larger gang problem than Australia does. More drugs too. There are still drugs in Australia but it's not nearly as bad as it is here in the US.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

News reports from Australia show that drug gangs have diversified into importing handguns, broken down into parts not readily detectable as guns, then reassembled. A clandestine drug workshop for making/handling/packaging drugs easily becomes a mini-factory for guns.

 

[Guy B. Meredith]

Even a cursory glance at US homicides/firearm homicides will show that a very high, extraordinarily disproportionate, percentage of them are younger black males generally related to gangs/drugs in larger cities/urban areas. If the comparison country doesn't have that demographic, it's pretty silly to act as though comparing the countries is comparing more guns vs less guns in a vacuum

Warp is on the right track.

Using national rates annoys the HECK out of me and really needs to be attacked. The national rate is largely due to an easily described part of the population: gang, drug and poverty culture, mental health (including domestic violence), career criminals and terrorists. THEY generate the violence. When we use national rates we are attributing the violence to the overall population and including innocents as part of the violent population. This is promoting the anti-gun prejudice that all firearms owners are part of the problem. :banghead:

STOP IT!

 

[Guy B. Meredith]

And while I'm on a soapbox I should point out the fallacy of suicides in Australia. I cringe every time credit is given to the Australian buyback. The buyback was for specific repeating firearms. :banghead:

A repeating firearm is not usually needed. Jolly Jiving Uncle Joe Biden's double barrel shotgun is just fine for suicide

 

[sawdeanz]

Don't forget that in the U.S. the common mass murder definition (that the antis use) is 4 or more injured/killed so that right there makes it harder to compare to Australia. The antis often include police shootings and other defensive shootings as well, does Australia? I will follow this thread though because it gives some good information. The hardest part is often trying to get antis and fence sitters to admit that a gun homicide isn't somehow worse than a regular homicide. If they were forced to use only general homicide/crime rates their arguments would start to lose water.

 

[ATLDave]

Post in error. Delete please, mods!