Gun Crime in Australia

It's a murky area with some statistics and some glaring omissions, that is, we don't know how many illegal firearms are in the community, we can only guess.

We also do know how many gun crimes in this country are committed with legally owned firearms vs illegal firearms but its rarely ever mentioned and often completely omitted. Illegal firearms includes stolen firearms, traded or grandfathered firearms owned well before registration (and as such don't exist officially), smuggled in firearms or back yard made.

In the case of smuggled in, there's no way of knowing how many there are but we know several firearms used in well known homicides were never legally sold or imported here. We know that police did undercover a smuggling operation that brought in large number of Glock semi auto pistols most of which remain unrecovered. We know police seized a South African made "Street Sweeper" which have never been sold or imported legally into WA.

We also don't know how many back yard gunsmiths there are. Police have caught several, one in WA was making full auto pistols with the simple blow back design principle.

So getting the complete picture is difficult and that can lead to undue fear or even the deliberate use of undue fear to create regulations to problems that may or may not exist.

In the case of reported gun crime in Australia, there's this statistical chart from University of Sydney which its worth remembering is not exactly pro gun. Some of the academics involved would like to see all firearms outlawed completely with only the police & armed forces having firearms.

So you can see easily there's a definite falling trend line in gun crime. Yes you can focus in on a few select years & create spikes but take into consideration the rise in population in Australia.

Gun Crimes in Australia...
1987   -   694
2016   -   238
(Around 65% reduction)


Australia's Population
1987  -   16,263,874
2016  -   24,127,200
(Around 48% increase)

Population increased by 7,863,326 and gun deaths went down by 456

To put that in a different perspective, over that time it's gone from 4.26 people per 100,000 to 0.986 per 100,000 people.

Now look deeper. Gun death statistics used in this graph include suicides, accidents, unknown or undetermined cause and police against criminals. Suicides are generally removed from gun crime as the cause of the incident isn't the gun, the gun is just the method. There's no solid evidence that proves anyone suiciding with gun wouldn't have if a gun was not available. There is the other uncomfortable fact that as terribly heart breaking as suicide is, it's not an act against another.

Now some people want guns used in crime to have stricter regulation.
For the incidents that involve illegal firearms, by all means. Remember though penalties don't usually deter people from criminal acts, the likelihood of getting caught does. However that being the case, you have a good chance of getting caught & being executed if you get trafficking drugs in a number of Asian countries & yet we still see plenty of people still taking the risk. Some get executed, some get lucky and are released after long jail terms in prisons you probably wouldn't want to be in for a week.

And yet people still break the law.

I think no matter how strict the laws are, no matter how heavy the penalties are and no matter how great the likelihood of getting caught is some people will still own illegal firearms.

There is a strong body of evidence that shows more firearms in the community does not automatically mean more crime. Most gun homicides in the USA involve drugs and gangs. Some states have high gun ownership and low crime, some have low ownership & high crime, some have high ownership & high crime. There is no automatic predictor.

There's some interesting research matter on gun crime in Australia here at...
https://aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi361

If you want to spare yourself the long read, here's the conclusion.

Short sharp facts...

1. Firearms are used in around 20 percent of homicides committed each year in Australia (Davies & Mouzos 2007).
   
   
2. Arguments over money or drugs represented the primary alleged motive behind handgun homicides, and accounted for almost three in 10 homicides committed with a handgun.
   
   
3. In 2005-06, firearm homicides fell to their lowest level in 13 years
   
   
4. Since 1992-93, firearm homicide as a proportion of all homicides has halved, continuing a general downward trend in firearm homicide that began in the early 1980s.
   
   
5. Fact is the most heavily regulated part of firearms in Australia (and WA) are handguns & most guns used were illegal at the time of the crime.
   
   
6. Worst year for Suicide by Firearms was 1915 - 4.03 people per 100,000 people
   Same year, the number of Non Firearms Suicides was 9.166 people per 100,000 
   
   
7. Lowest year of Firearms Homicides was 2004 - 0.1592 people per 100,000 & has been up & down annually since the all time high in 1984 - 0.802 people per 100,000
   But since then it's been a downward trend line.

Some people are calling for the ban on recreational hunting, a call which says firearms can only be used by professionals (pest controllers, primary production) AND for use at the Gun Range.
That means no recreational hunting at all.

First up, those that illegally hunt on Crown Land, state forests, reserves are not hunters, they're poachers. They're breaking the law just as they would be trespassing onto any property they don't own, without permission with the purpose of shooting.

Poaching is banned, its a criminal activity. By all means increase those penalties if need be.

If someone has a permission to shoot on a property, all is good. Its legal and we should not over regulate those doing the right thing, or regulate them out of existence.

Do we lose track of who shooters are after the licence is issued?
No. WA Police have access to the database and can see all a firearm owners details. Names, contact details and list of all their registered firearms. Can all police easily access the actual residential address very easily? Unsure. I think is this were accessed a red flag would be raised & rightly so as a matter of process.

Its also worth repeating that gun deaths were descending before & after Port Arthur.

Remains a fact if we truly have a gun crime problem its criminals with illegal guns that is the lion's share that needs attention.

 



Facts not Feelings - Its a thing, a preferred proper thing.

Do you oppose Extremism or just SOME Extremism

Not even a week since the distressing atrocity in NZ and already several camps have shown some of the deepest and ugliest disrespectful examples of politically weaponising the massacre.

In the US even the Democrats have fallen foul. At a Democrat event 2 of their followers got stuck into Chelsea Clinton for apparently making comments that attributed, no helped cause the NZ Massacre. The 2 people that were getting stuck into Clinton...one has publicly called for the "demolition" of Israel.

So yes, its already gone off the rails. There is a mad scramble for the dominance of the Narrative Lead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT3hws144Sw

The only extremism to be targeted in all this is Islamophobia.

In the short time shadow of such a shocking massacre we can now expect Australian Gun Control activists to ramp up despite NZ & Australia having very different rules & regulations. There's a prediction as all sorts of people pile on the brutally murdered innocents of Christchurch in order to gain more political weight to their own political agenda.

Its is disgusting to see, total insensitivity and another extension of the "whatever it takes" attitude that's a hall mark of Australian Politics and political activism.

It is deeply disrespectful.

It was heralded as an opportunity for all people to come together, yet its been used as an opportunity by some to bring all people together behind their viewpoint.

Here's the lost opportunity.

Use time and bandwidth to oppose ALL EXTREMISM.

Extremism is an ideology of evil. That's as deep as one needs go for the philosophy behind killings this soon after the killings. White Supremacist ideology is no different to the Hindu & Muslim activists killing each other on the continent, anti-Semitic terrorists blowing up cafes of mixed faith people or any terrorists.

They may have different worldviews but they are ALL IDEOLOGIES OF EVIL.
It is not an opportunity to advance one ideology over another. Its a time to promote moderate positions that support more people of more faiths & ideas to be safe.

I saw the Drum have an all Muslim panel since the massacre. That doesn't worry me deeply even though the ABC should be promoting diversity and balanced viewpoints. I wasn't too worried and bit dismissive to be honest until one of the panellists cranked up against "Netanyahu" getting red carpet treatment. Ironically about the time of the NZ massacre a mortar attack on a supermarket in Israel. There was also a larger massacre in Nigeria, 140 people slaughtered. In Holland another terror attack.
All EXTREMISTS...but I can only guess why the media has been quiet on them.

Oppose EXTREMISM, AND IF YOU ONLY WANT ONE SIDE OF A CONFLICT OPPOSED YOU MIGHT JUST BE A EXTREMIST YOURSELF.

 - - - - - - - - - -
Facts to make you think...go to this link, it will show you the number of Terrorist Attacks & the number of deaths its resulted in. To date 549 Terrorist Attacks resulting in the deaths of 2113 innocent people (as of 20th of March 2019)
Worse still when you understand that 10,000 deaths from Terrorist attacks is the low side of normal over the last few decades.
Terrorism comes from Extremism. Extremism wants full authoritarian state control & a loss of personal liberties and freedoms.
Theocracies, Marxism, Communism, Fascism, Socialism are all ideologies of evil, the home of extremism where terrorism is born, bred ad then exported.
https://storymaps.esri.com/stories/terrorist-attacks/

Why has Socialism regaining traction?

Yes it is but t's been given different names. Fact is the traits that make it up are being called for. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is not the sharpest knife in the drawer so she may not even realise what she's been calling for, but it's more state control & intervention and a lot more costly things being introduced including paying "income for those who don't want to work"

So what is the difference between Communism, Socialism & Fascism?
Well coon thought is Communism is extreme and bad, Socialism hasn't really been carried out properly yet but its good for everyone and Fascism is evil ultra right wing evil.

What people should keep in mind is what they have in common.

All are variants of Marxist dogma

All rely on brutal, ruthless authoritarian state control

All are against free thinking, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of religion.

All create an scary enemy in order to get full state control to neutralise the enemy and its generally a lie

Fascism creates a race/ethnic threat or a foreign power threat. Whilst it is socialist ideology it plugs into the receptive of the far right followers. It's about brutal authoritarian control.

Communism creates a class threat. Whilst it is socialist variant ideology it plugs into the receptive of the anti religion, anti wealthy class followers. It's about brutal authoritarian control.

Socialism is a authoritarian regime where the state controls everything too, it is receptive to those who're anti religion, anti God, anti wealthy class, its a brutal ruthless state of oppression.

They're all oppressive regimes where the state comes first and the individual does not rate at all. The individual has no rights or liberties, only the state rules.

A theocracy or caliphate is also an authoritarian state, removing all rights and choices from the individual and placing all citizens under a religion run authoritarian rule which is also brutal ruthless and like the others, more often murderous.

Cults are the same except they're pretty localised and not a Theocracy unless they're at a nationwide level.

Cult, Caliphate, Fascism, Socialism, Communism...you name it they're all blood thirsty authoritarian regimes that oppress their own people and if they refuse to live life as the state dictates they remove the objectors lives completely. They generally don't expel detractors, they generally kill them.

It doesn't matter if you think they're left wing or right wing, doesn't matter what they think they are.
They're all brutal murderous extremists. They're the easy door to the platform for crimes against humanity.

If socialism is so good, where's the immigration mass exodus type people caravan heading to North Korea, Venezuela or Sharia led Muslim caliphate countries?

So why is Socialism regaining support in Western Countries?
Who knows, it's completely counter productive and counter anything sensible.
I expect young people who've never lived through a authoritarian regime think its alluring to be subversive.

That or leftist academics are building up or we just have more idiots these days