The SMH reports on a significant statistical shift in gun related deaths in Australia after the introduction of stricter gun laws in Australia, and the gun buy back held at the same time.
Some readers may be surprised to learn that despite my libertarian capitalist leanings, I despise guns, and I’ve always thought that gun laws in the US where bizarre at best. Indeed, I’d positively note that the District of Columbia is currently challenging the definition under law of the Second Ammendment, arguing that it doesn’t allow every man and his dog in the US to own a gun, which is a positve.
But I digress, the statistics show a direct connection between gun ownership and gun related crimes.
Titled Australia’s 1996 Gun Law Reforms: Faster Falls in Firearm Deaths, Firearm Suicides and a Decade without Mass Shootings, finds that in the 18 years before the gun buyback there were an average of 492 firearm suicides a year.
After the introduction of the buyback scheme, that figure dropped to 247 in the seven years for which reliable figures are available.
The only people who should own guns are the police, armed forces, legitimate sportsman or those who require guns for their work (such and Roo shooters, Vermin shooters (dogs, cats, rabbits etc.)). How any society can endorse gun ownership in the average home is beyond me. I do know, and do believe, that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, but it does make it a fair bit harder when they don’t have easy access to a gun. Statistics don’t lie.