I say this because I got into a discussion & it was very one sided, well no, two sided...strongly, definitively 2 immovable sides but one side had a few facts the other didn't. So no, it did not go well. No one was hurt or abused or anything like that, it didn't go well because despite the introduction of facts, no minds were changed.
It started with the Firearms Laws in WA have to be updated, that updates were way overdue. I said "Yup 100% probably should be reviewed every 5 years regardless"
(I should say I didn't point out I was a legal firearms owner, that I put a submission into the Govt before & after the Law Reform Commission report was handed down, 2017 I think?)
Ongoing mental health checks for all firearms owners being brought in was a good idea & what did I think?
I said if it helps bring a positive outcome I'm for any reform.
(I should say I didn't point out that I didn't think the introduction of mental health checks would serve any positive outcome, would add immense cost & would not be able to predict any future criminal behaviour)
Next I got hit up with the idea that limiting the number of firearms to 5 was also a good idea & make the public safer.
I said again, if it helps bring a positive outcome any reform is a good idea.
(I should point out I didn't point out that I didn't think there was a magical number of firearms that was safer for the public and a magical number that automatically increased gun crime or gun deaths. If a person is a fit & proper person with genuine need for 2-5 guns & not committing crime it is no logical or plausible to say the same person with more than 5 firearms would suddenly, automatically be likley to commit a gun crime or cause a more crime. Its just not true)
Next I got told these changes ought to come in now & the gun fanatics should be shut down & probably should be banned from owning firearms.
OK, now I thought it was time to say something more aligned with facts & less polite fence sitting, this is where things went from real friendly to real prickly.
All I said was, if someone is any sort of fanatic then we should look if they're the type of person who should be able to get a firearm. If they're a known member or supporter of known terrorist group, drug cartel then I don't think they'd be able to get a firearms licence, or shouldn't perhaps background checks aren't thorough enough but if the firearms are all legal, there's a proven genuine need, they're used, maintained & stored safely and securely and the applicant is a fit & proper person...I don't think there's any provable possible problem with owning 5 guns or 50 guns.
Well it went like an internet argument that eventually winds up with some obscure reference to Nazis (Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies). Adolf Hitler & his followers weren't mentioned but the other person straight away went to "We don't want to be like the US is".
Why? Well because it's apparently the Gun Death Capital of the World.
Now yes, I knew some obscure (to most others) facts. Because I'd heard this argument before & I went and checked what was what just a few days earlier.
This is not word verbatim quote but it's pretty close to what I said off the top of my head.
Lets look at the facts & go to a year that's Pre-Covid so its without any massive non firearm event impact across a society that pushes any numbers in the statistics up or down.
Take 2019.
In 2019 the US Population was 328 million with roughly 40% of Americans being gun owners.
There were more guns than people, as in 120 guns for every 100 people.
Also in 2019 there were 6 million Americans legally carrying guns daily.
There were 33-34,000 gun deaths in the USA that year.
63% were suicides.
15% were justified police deaths
15% were justified police deaths
5% were accidental as in accidental discharge with a person killing themself or another.
That leaves 17% of which we don't know very much at all to make enough valid conclusions to make a plan to reduce death.
We don't know how many of those 17% deaths were legal or illegal guns.
We don't know how many were drug & gang related.
We do know that that 17% included "mass shootings" but sadly we also know that any incident gang related where 3 or more people were shot dead are included in "mass shooting" and some states use a different cut off number for "mass" shooting than others. One well known mass shooting in Philadephia that year turned out to be a dispute between 2 people with guns, legal or not we don't know & because people were accidently killed & the death toll was above 3 it went into the same statistical cohort as a school shooting.
So I'm not exactly sure which death cohort can be lessened by America adopting a 5 gun per person limit. We do know that not all but nearly all gand related deaths involving gang members or drug disputes involved people who've gone to jail, people who are ineligible to legally buy a gun (so they use illegal guns) & we know in Chicago...well you can't buy guns there & yet they have a serious gun crime epidemic.
Which changes do you think will lessen gun crime, by how much and how that will work exactly the same in WA?
The reply I got was jaw dropping to me..."What sort of person has access to those sort of statistics, are they even accurate?"
I just said, yes I think its all accurate, I read up them only a few days ago. On the public record from the Authorities...I didn't make them up.
I didn't say this at the time, wish I had but here's no evidence or research for saying a reduction in gun ownership will drop suicides by whatever number that 63% works out to be. But grab the calculator, that number in 2019 works out to be around 20,000 suicides will be somehow magically lessened if gun ownership is lessened to 5 per person...zero valid reason let alone factual data. No data at all to suggest or prove 5 guns per owner will lessen the 4-5000 justified police killings by gun either.
There is no valid research to say less guns will reduce deaths, are we going to reduce the number of cars on the roads & restrict people's daily alcohol intake & sentence people to imprisonment for smoking cigarettes?
Makes no sense.
Then I got, "I can't believe you're even saying this, its astounding you defend guns"
I pointed out I'm not attacking nor defending anyone nor anything, I'm putting forward the facts & I am saying I support any reforms of any laws that make sense & have valid data behind them. Restricting people to a number makes no sense.
Again I didn't say this at the time, but I think it would have made no difference...
People that are involved with ballistic sports usually have one for their competition & not unusual to have a back up firearm in case the usual one breaks/malfunctions during competition. I know people that compete in 4 or more disciplines. Some hunt. Some do feral control, some are hunting for food.
If they have a genuine need, meet the background checks, maintain, use & store the firearms safely AND have a genuine need then there is no number of firearms that will suddenly turn them into a gun suicide or a killer. Its just not even fanciful, its 100% untrue.
Bring the facts & bring everyone along. Don't ram through just because you have a gut feeling or reckon that might help. I pointed out something previously on mental health checks...we're grossly understaffed for mental health professionals in WA but most psychologists take many hours, sometimes as many as 10-15 hours to establish a patient baseline BEFORE they can make a disagnosis. In Western Australia there's 90,000 licenced firearms owners so are we expecting 10 hours of lead up to a diagnosis that cannot predict future behaviour like murder or suicide is helpful?
10 hours x 90,000 is nearly a million clinical hours to cover every licenced shooter in WA. Divide that by a 30 hour working week we're going to need what another 30,000 mental health workers clinically trained to make a diagnosis of a condition but not able to make an accurate prediciton of crime, suicide, assault or murder?
Its just facts we need, not emotional.
That last comment (I won't repeat) was a very prophetic comment because the comment came back with swear words telling me to go somewhere & calling me a below the waste body part.
Very non-adult, very fact free, very emotional
My position remained the same then as it is now. If it helps bring a positive outcome I'm for any reform...but it must be a well thought out plan or change that has facts behind it, lots of rigourous discussion from everyone around it & no knee jerk cold slap idea that's more about creating a demon & killing it with a fact free stick just to get a political hug/vote/donation from others who don't think to ask about the facts & research.
That leaves 17% of which we don't know very much at all to make enough valid conclusions to make a plan to reduce death.
We don't know how many of those 17% deaths were legal or illegal guns.
We don't know how many were drug & gang related.
We do know that that 17% included "mass shootings" but sadly we also know that any incident gang related where 3 or more people were shot dead are included in "mass shooting" and some states use a different cut off number for "mass" shooting than others. One well known mass shooting in Philadephia that year turned out to be a dispute between 2 people with guns, legal or not we don't know & because people were accidently killed & the death toll was above 3 it went into the same statistical cohort as a school shooting.
So I'm not exactly sure which death cohort can be lessened by America adopting a 5 gun per person limit. We do know that not all but nearly all gand related deaths involving gang members or drug disputes involved people who've gone to jail, people who are ineligible to legally buy a gun (so they use illegal guns) & we know in Chicago...well you can't buy guns there & yet they have a serious gun crime epidemic.
Which changes do you think will lessen gun crime, by how much and how that will work exactly the same in WA?
The reply I got was jaw dropping to me..."What sort of person has access to those sort of statistics, are they even accurate?"
I just said, yes I think its all accurate, I read up them only a few days ago. On the public record from the Authorities...I didn't make them up.
I didn't say this at the time, wish I had but here's no evidence or research for saying a reduction in gun ownership will drop suicides by whatever number that 63% works out to be. But grab the calculator, that number in 2019 works out to be around 20,000 suicides will be somehow magically lessened if gun ownership is lessened to 5 per person...zero valid reason let alone factual data. No data at all to suggest or prove 5 guns per owner will lessen the 4-5000 justified police killings by gun either.
There is no valid research to say less guns will reduce deaths, are we going to reduce the number of cars on the roads & restrict people's daily alcohol intake & sentence people to imprisonment for smoking cigarettes?
Makes no sense.
Then I got, "I can't believe you're even saying this, its astounding you defend guns"
I pointed out I'm not attacking nor defending anyone nor anything, I'm putting forward the facts & I am saying I support any reforms of any laws that make sense & have valid data behind them. Restricting people to a number makes no sense.
Again I didn't say this at the time, but I think it would have made no difference...
People that are involved with ballistic sports usually have one for their competition & not unusual to have a back up firearm in case the usual one breaks/malfunctions during competition. I know people that compete in 4 or more disciplines. Some hunt. Some do feral control, some are hunting for food.
If they have a genuine need, meet the background checks, maintain, use & store the firearms safely AND have a genuine need then there is no number of firearms that will suddenly turn them into a gun suicide or a killer. Its just not even fanciful, its 100% untrue.
Bring the facts & bring everyone along. Don't ram through just because you have a gut feeling or reckon that might help. I pointed out something previously on mental health checks...we're grossly understaffed for mental health professionals in WA but most psychologists take many hours, sometimes as many as 10-15 hours to establish a patient baseline BEFORE they can make a disagnosis. In Western Australia there's 90,000 licenced firearms owners so are we expecting 10 hours of lead up to a diagnosis that cannot predict future behaviour like murder or suicide is helpful?
10 hours x 90,000 is nearly a million clinical hours to cover every licenced shooter in WA. Divide that by a 30 hour working week we're going to need what another 30,000 mental health workers clinically trained to make a diagnosis of a condition but not able to make an accurate prediciton of crime, suicide, assault or murder?
Its just facts we need, not emotional.
That last comment (I won't repeat) was a very prophetic comment because the comment came back with swear words telling me to go somewhere & calling me a below the waste body part.
Very non-adult, very fact free, very emotional
My position remained the same then as it is now. If it helps bring a positive outcome I'm for any reform...but it must be a well thought out plan or change that has facts behind it, lots of rigourous discussion from everyone around it & no knee jerk cold slap idea that's more about creating a demon & killing it with a fact free stick just to get a political hug/vote/donation from others who don't think to ask about the facts & research.
I don't really understand the Hashtag thing but that aside...
#ReformsDoNotIncludeOverReachOrBurden
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Just an aside, a theocracy is when the political leaders, the leaders of the nation are religious leaders. That's what a theocracy actually is.
When people say bureaucracy people just think its the Public Service but...No.
A Bureaucracy is where a country is run by the bureaucratic leaders and the public service doesn't serve the public, it serves the Bureaucratic leaders. This is the Swamp when people made the clarion call it "Drain the Swamp"
This is what's happening in the USA & opposition to the Swamp is growing.
We have a bit of swamp going here to because when bureaucrats & the minister construct bills to become legislation WITHOUT public comment period, without stakeholder consultation & generally get industry or stakeholders in to quietly listen to them, then ignore what they've said or asked for & just start explaining what will be...your options are shut up & comply or speak up thanking us as you comply or suffer more consequences you can call payback.
No call to rise up. Rather join an advocacy group or get involved supporting them as they support you.
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