HarmlessRabbit

I was going to compose a reply, but I realise now that, even in the case of canada where you just proved yourself wrong, you're too delusional to even take that as a sign of a problem.

You can continue to lie, twist words, and ignore my requests for information as long as you'd like, but that doesn't make you "right".

Mojo_PeiPei

http://www.nrawinningteam.com/auresult.html

year after gun-owners were forced to surrender 640,381 personal firearms, including semi-automatic .22 rifles and shotguns, to be destroyed in a government program costing over 500 million dollars, the results are in...

The latest crime statistics reveal a dramatic increase in criminal activity. Gun control advocates respond "Just wait... we'll be safer... you'll see...".

Unfortunately, the ban has made the Australian criminal safer now.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


OBSERVABLE FACT AFTER 12 MONTHS OF DATA





Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2%.


Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6%.


Australia-wide, armed-robberies are up 44%. (yes, FORTY-FOUR PERCENT)


In the state of Victoria, homicides-with-firearms are up 300%!


The steady decrease in homicides-with-firearms that occurred during the previous 25 years became an increase in the last 12 months.


The steady decrease in armed-robbery-with-firearms that occurred during the previous 25 years became an increase in the last 12 months.


There has been a dramatic increase in breakins-and-assaults-of-the-elderly.


At the time of the ban, the Prime Minister said "self-defense is not a reason for owning a firearm".


From 1910 to present, homicides in Australia have averaged about 1.8-per-100,000 or lower, a safe society by any standard.


The ban has destroyed Australia's standings in some international sport shooting competitions.


The membership of the Australian Sports Shooting Association has increased by 200% in response to the ban and in an attempt to organize against further controls, which are expected.


Australian politicians are on the spot and at a loss to explain why no improvement in "safety" has been observed after such monumental effort and expense was successfully expended in "ridding society of guns". Their response has been to "wait longer".



.... circa 1998

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Food Eater Lad

http://www.canoe.ca/OttawaNews/os.os-10-02-0013.html


By LAURA CZEKAJ, Ottawa Sun




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THE NATIONAL homicide rate rose slightly last year over the previous two years, with knives accounting for more murders than firearms, Statistics Canada reported yesterday.

Last year, Ottawa reported the second-lowest homicide rate per 100,000 population (0.93) out of the nine largest metropolitan regions but that was still an almost threefold increase over its 2001 homicide rate of 0.35 per 100,000.

Of the 17 mid-sized and smaller metropolitan regions, Gatineau reported one of the highest homicide rates (2.21 per 100,000 population) in 2002. The previous year, Gatineau had one of the lowest homicide rates at 0.75.

"The rate has been gradually declining since the mid-'70s, the two previous years it has stabilized and this year it increased," said Mimi Gauthier, information officer with the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.

Last year's increase in homicides was largely driven by a jump in British Columbia, where there were 126 homicides reported in 2002, up 50% from 84 in 2001. Contributing to the increase were 15 homicides of missing women that occurred in previous years in Port Coquitlam and that were reported by police in 2002.

Statistics Canada also reported that more people were killed with knives than guns last year.

31% STABBED

Stabbings, the most common method in 2002, accounted for 31% of homicides, followed by shootings at 26%, beatings at 21%, and strangulation or suffocation at 11%.

Handguns accounted for two-thirds of the 149 firearm homicides in 2002, up from about one-half during the 1990s and one-third of firearm murders prior to 1990. The 98 homicides committed with handguns last year were consistent with the annual average over the past decade.

The agency reported that there has been a declining trend in the use of rifles and shotguns. They now account for only one-quarter of all firearm homicides.

Thirty-seven homicides were committed with a rifle or shotgun in 2002, substantially fewer than the previous 10-year average of 67. The remaining 14 firearm homicides were committed with other types of firearms.

The drop in the use of firearms to commit murder is partly due to a decline in gang-related killings, said Gauthier.

"We looked at our gang-related homicides and those have dropped quite a bit ... from 61 in 2001 to 45 in 2002."

The agency said police reported 582 homicides, 29 more than in 2001.

As a result, the national homicide rate climbed 4% to 1.85 homicides per 100,000 population, compared with 1.78 in 2001.

Crime and placement

Homicides by city for 2002. The first number represents the number of victims; in brackets is the rate per 100,000 inhabitants:

Population 500,000 or more

Toronto: 90 (1.80)

Montreal: 66 (1.87)

Vancouver: 69 (3.26)

Calgary: 15 (1.52)

Edmonton: 27 (2.79)

Ottawa: 8 (0.93)

Quebec: 3 (0.44)

Winnipeg: 23 (3.41)

Hamilton: 13 (1.97)

Population 250,000 to 499,999

Kitchener: 3 (0.65)

St. Catharines-Niagara region: 8 (1.88)

London, Ont.: 4 (1.05)

Halifax: 5 (1.33)

Windsor: 7 (2.16)

Victoria: 3 (0.93)

Oshawa: 0 (0)

Gatineau: 6 (2.21)

Population 100,000 to 249,999

Saskatoon: 8 (3.41)

Regina: 4 (2.00)

St. John's, Nfld.: 1 (0.57)

Sudbury: 2 (1.26)

Saguenay, Que.: 1 (0.66)

Sherbrooke, Que.: 1 (0.68)

Saint John, N.B.: 2 (1.37)

Trois-Rivieres, Que.: 2 (1.38)

Thunder Bay: 1 (0.79)

Food Eater Lad

Now again I have shown that when you ban guns, murders go up. Any questions?

Food Eater Lad

Mojo,

I am glad to be on the same side with you on this one. Even though we disagree on Israel/Palastine.

Mojo_PeiPei

Hehe I concur FEL =)

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

HarmlessRabbit

Yes. Why does the NRA use data from 1996 on Australia when the latest study from their same data source shows that firearms-related incidents went down dramatically from 1994 to 1999?

In 1994, there were 616 gun-related hospital incidents. In 1999, there were 473.

In 1994, 3.4 incidents per 100,000 citizens. In 1999, 2.5 incidents per 100,000.

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/ti198.pdf

Again, this is from the SAME SOURCE that the NRA uses for their australian story above.

See, when you supply evidence, then your points can be discussed and refuted.

Food Eater Lad

And like I said, there were LESS gun related deaths in Australia. BUt MURDER was up. So what is your point? Like I said a few times now, after gun bans, murder goes up. I never said GUN MURDER, I said murder, and crime.

Again for the folks at home. Gun Homicides down 20%, but Murder overall UP 20%.


Thanks for providing the acutal document to prove the fact that was already true.

HarmlessRabbit

Oh, sorry, I was proving that hospitalizations due to gun crime went down dramatically. The document I linked to only talks about hospital visits, so I don't see how you can say "thanks for providing the actual document." Did you even read it? You want to talk about murder rates. OK.

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/f...gures_2002.pdf

Please note figure 9 and the caption that follows:

<b>The percentage of homicides committed with a firearm continued its declining trend since 1969.

In 2001, 16% of homicides involved firearms. The figure was 18% in 2000.
</b>

Again, this is from the same source as the NRA.

You know what's sad? The NRA's figures are deliberately picked to take advantage of a spike in the murder rate from the death of 18 people in the Port Arthur Tragedy, which was somewhat like our Columbine.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre

Any questions?

HarmlessRabbit

here's another good chart on australia:

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi054.pdf

See that 1995-6 spike? that's from the Port Arthur incident. That's exactly where the NRA's "facts" stop in order to make their dubious point.

Food Eater Lad

So those people killed werent murdered? Is that your point?

Food Eater Lad

Again you are just saying that GUN murders are down. THat jives with what i was saying. I guess you dont read my points do you? But overall murder is up. So i guess your point is NON gun murders are swell?

And I notice you ignored Canada, and England completly.

HarmlessRabbit

My point is that the trend for murders with firearms in australia is down. The trend for total murders is flat. The trend for hospitalizations due to firewarms is down significantly. All of this as of 2003.

The article you cite here:

http://www.nrawinningteam.com/auresult.html

is not correct. Or, at minimum, you could say that it is no longer correct and badly in need of updating.

Food Eater Lad

Look at the 1998 numbers, two years after the gun confiscation: armed robbery up 73%, unarmed robbery up 27%, assault up 20%, and unlawful entry up 8%. Again, read 'em and weep at http://www.ssaa.org.au, the web site of the Australian counterpart to the NRA. The data are compiled and graphed there using official government crime data. Looking at these graphs, also note that, before and after the confiscation, about 30% or less of these crimes even involve firearms to begin with.

Food Eater Lad

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m...ixopinion.html

Interesting editorial on gun control.

You would think if "gun control" was going to work anywhere it would be on a small island. Particularly a small island at whose ports of entry the zealots of HM Customs like nothing better than performing intimate cavity searches on the off-chance you've got an extra bottle of duty-free Beaujolais tucked away up there. Surely, if you also had a Walther PPK parked out of sight, these exhaustive inspectors would be the first to notice.

But apparently not. Since the Government's "total ban" five years ago, there are more and more guns being used by more and more criminals in more and more crimes. Now, in the wake of Birmingham's New Year bloodbath, there are calls for the total ban to be made even more total: if the gangs refuse to obey the existing laws, we'll just pass more laws for them not to obey. According to a UN survey from last month, England and Wales now have the highest crime rate of the world's 20 leading nations. One can query the methodology of the survey while still recognising the peculiar genius by which British crime policy has wound up with every indicator going haywire - draconian gun control plus vastly increased gun violence plus stratospheric property crime.

What happened at that party in Aston? I don't mean "what happened?" in the sense of the piercing analysis of Chief Superintendent Dave Shaw, who concluded: "There has clearly been some sort of dispute which has resulted in people coming to the premises with guns, discharging their weapons and causing this incident." You can't put anything over on these coppers, can you? But my question is directed at the broader meaning of the event. Chief Supt Shaw went on: "We have never had to deal with anything like this. In terms of the nature of the incident, it's almost unprecedented in Birmingham." He didn't quite say Birmingham is one of those bucolic tightly-knit communities where everyone in the village knows everyone else and no one locks their doors, but you get the drift: this is some sort of bizarre aberration.

I think not. When those young men decided to open fire in Birchfield Road, they were making an entirely rational decision. One reason why Chief Supt Shaw has "never had to deal with anything like this" is because Aston was long ago ceded to the gangs. And, if you can deal drugs with impunity and burgle with impunity and assault with impunity and use guns with impunity, who's to say you can't murder with impunity? The West Midlands Police have offered a reward of £1,000 for information leading to the arrest of those involved. Think about that: would you name a known gang member for a thousand quid? Once the funerals have been held and the media's moved on, the constabulary will go back to forgetting about Aston. But you'll still have to live there.

When Dunblane occurred, all of us - even, if they're honest with themselves, the shrieking hysterics baying for pointless legislation - understood it was a freak event: a nut went nuts. It happens, and, when it does, the event has no broader implications. But what happened in Birchfield Road is of wider relevance: it's a glimpse of the day after tomorrow - not just in Aston, but in Edgbaston and Solihull and Leamington Spa.

After Dunblane, the police and politicians lapsed into their default position: it's your fault. We couldn't do anything about him, so we'll do something about you. You had your mobile nicked? You must be mad taking it out. Why not just keep it inside nice and safe on the telephone table? Had your car radio pinched? You shouldn't have left it in the car. House burgled? You should have had laser alarms and window bars installed. You did have laser alarms and window bars but they waited till you were home, kicked the door in and beat you up? You should have an armour-plated door and digital retinal-scan technology. It's your fault, always. The monumentally useless British police, with greater manpower per capita on higher rates of pay and with far more lavish resources than the Americans, haven't had an original idea in decades, so they cling ever more fiercely to their core ideology: the best way to deal with criminals is to impose ever greater restrictions and inconveniences on the law-abiding.

The gangs on Birmingham's streets instinctively understand this. They know, even if the Government doesn't, that the Blairite "total" ban, which sounds so butch and macho when you do your soundbite on the telly, is a cop-out: it makes the general population the target, not the criminals. And once that happens it's always easier to hassle the cranky farmer with the unlicensed shotgun than the Yardies with the Uzis. When you disarm the citizenry, when you prosecute them for being so foolish as to believe they have a right to self-defence, when you issue warnings that they should "walk on by" if they happen to see a burglary or rape in progress, the main beneficiaries will obviously be the criminals. Aston is the logical reductio of British policing: rival bad guys with state-of-the-art hardware, a cowed populace, and a remote constabulary tucked up in bed with the answering machine on.

I see I haven't yet mentioned the touchy social factor which even squeamish British Lefties have been forced to confront: Aston is yet more "black-on-black" violence. The reason I haven't mentioned it is because there hardly seems any point. What's new? Canada also had a Dunblane-like massacre, followed by Dunblane-like legislation, and, like Birmingham, boring, bland Toronto has lately been riven by gun violence from - wait for it - Jamaican gangs. But in neither Britain nor Canada is it politically feasible to suggest that perhaps Jamaicans should be subjected to special immigration scrutiny. As it happens, that Canadian massacre, of Montreal female students 12 years ago, was committed by the son of an Algerian Muslim wife-beater, but, although we all claim to be interested in the "root causes" of crime, they tend to involve awkward cultural judgments. It's easier, like Mr Blair, just to go "total": blame everyone, ban everything.

This basic approach of addressing any cultural factors apart from the ones that correlate was pioneered by American progressives. The corpulent provocateur Michael Moore, in his film Bowling for Columbine, currently delighting British audiences, spends an entire feature-length documentary investigating the "culture" of American gun violence without mentioning that blacks, who make up 13 per cent of the population, account for over half the murders (and murder victims, too). Once you factor them out, Americans kill at about the same rate as nancy-boy Canadians.

But, as I said, it's hardly worth mentioning in relation to Britain. In my part of New Hampshire, we're all armed to the hilt and any gangster who fancied holding up a gas station would be quickly ventilated by guys whose pick-ups are better equipped than most EU armies. The right of individual self-defence deters crime, constrains it, prevents it from spreading out of the drug-infested failed jurisdictions. In post-Dunblane, post-Tony Martin Britain, that constraint doesn't exist: that's why the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea now has a higher crime rate than Harlem.

Meanwhile, America's traditionally high and England and Wales's traditionally low murder rates are remorselessly converging. In 1981, the US rate was nine times higher than the English. By 1995, it was six times. Last year, it was down to 3.5. Given that US statistics, unlike the British ones, include manslaughter and other lesser charges, the real rate is much closer. New York has just recorded the lowest murder rate since the 19th century. I'll bet that in the next two years London's murder rate overtakes it.

HarmlessRabbit

Why do you keep changing the subject?

Food Eater Lad

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=15304

Since Australia banned private ownership of most guns in 1996, crime has risen dramatically on that continent, prompting critics of U.S. gun control efforts to issue new warnings of what life in America could be like if Congress ever bans firearms.

After Australian lawmakers passed widespread gun bans, owners were forced to surrender about 650,000 weapons, which were later slated for destruction, according to statistics from the Australian Sporting Shooters Association.

The bans were not limited to so-called "assault" weapons or military-type firearms, but also to .22 rifles and shotguns. The effort cost the Australian government about $500 million, said association representative Keith Tidswell.

Though lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:


Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;

Assaults are up 8.6 percent;

Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;

In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;

In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily;

There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.

At the time of the ban, which followed an April 29, 1996 shooting at a Port Arthur tourist spot by lone gunman Martin Bryant, the continent had an annual murder-by-firearm rate of about 1.8 per 100,000 persons, "a safe society by any standards," said Tidswell. But such low rates of crime and rare shootings did not deter then-Prime Minister John Howard from calling for and supporting the weapons ban.
Since the ban has been in effect, membership in the Australian Sporting Shooters Association has climbed to about 112,000 -- a 200 percent increase.

Australian press accounts report that the half a million-plus figure of weapons turned in to authorities so far only represents a tiny fraction of the guns believed to be in the country.

According to one report, in March 1997 the number of privately-held firearms in Australia numbered around 10 million. "In the State of Queensland," for example, the report said only "80,000 guns have been seized out of a total of approximately 3 million, a tiny fraction."

And, said the report, 15 percent of the more than half a million guns collected came from licensed gun dealers.

Moreover, a black market allegedly has developed in the country. The report said about 1 million Chinese-made semi-automatics, "one type of gun specifically targeted by the new law," have been imported and sold throughout the country.

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said the situation in Australia reminds him of Great Britain, where English lawmakers have passed similar restrictive gun control laws.

"In fact, when you brought up the subject of this interview, I didn't hear you clearly -- I thought you were talking about England, not Australia," Pratt told WorldNetDaily. "It's hard to tell the difference between them."

Pratt said officials in both countries can "no longer control what the criminals do," because an armed society used to serve as a check on the power and influence of the criminal element.

Worse, Pratt said he was "offended by people who say, basically, that I don't have a right to defend myself or my family." Specifically, during debates with gun control advocates like members of Handgun Control, Inc. or similar organizations, Pratt said he routinely asks them if they're "against self defense."

Most often, he said, "they don't say anything -- they just don't answer me. But occasionally I'll get one of them to admit it and say 'yes.'"

Pratt said, based on the examples of democracies that have enacted near-total bans on private firearm ownership, that the same thing could happen to Americans. His organization routinely researches and reports incidents that happen all over the country when private armed citizens successfully defend themselves against armed robbers or intruders, but "liberals completely ignore this reality."

Pratt, who said was scheduled to appear in a televised discussion later in the day about a shooting incident between two first graders in Michigan on Tuesday, said he was in favor of allowing teachers to carry weapons to protect themselves and their students on campus.

Pratt pointed to the example of a Pearl, Mississippi teacher who, in 1997, armed with his own handgun, was able to blunt the killing spree of Luke Woodham.

"By making schools and even entire communities 'gun free zones,' you're basically telling the criminal element that you're unarmed and extremely vulnerable," Pratt said.

Pratt also warned against falling into the gun registration trap.

"Governments will ask you to trust them to allow gun registration, then use those registration lists to later confiscate the firearms," he said. "It's happened countless times throughout history."

Sarah Brady, head of Handgun Control, Inc., issued a statement calling on lawmakers in Michigan and in Washington to pass more restrictive gun access laws.

"This horrible tragedy should send a clear message to lawmakers in Michigan and around the country: they should quickly pass child access prevention or 'safe storage' laws that make it a crime to leave a loaded firearm where it is accessible by children," Brady said.

Brady also blamed gun makers for the Michigan shooting.

"The responsibility for shootings like these do not stop at the hands of the gun owner," Brady said. "Why are ... gun makers manufacturing weapons that a six-year old child can fire? This makes no rational sense. When will gun makers realize that they bear a responsibility to make sure that their products do not mete out preventable deaths, and that they do not warrant nor deserve special protection from the law to avoid that burden? Instead of safeguarding the gun makers, we should be childproofing the guns."

In contrast to near-complete bans in Australia and Great Britain, many U.S. states have passed liberal concealed carry laws that allow private citizens to obtain a permit to carry a loaded gun at all times in most public places. According to Yale University researcher John R. Lott, formerly of the University of Chicago and a gun control analyst who has conducted the most extensive study on the impact of concealed carry laws in the nation's history, the more liberal the right to carry, the less violent crime occurs.

Lott, who examined a mass of crime data spanning decades in all 3,200-plus counties in the United States, concluded that the most important factor in the deterrence of violent crimes were increased police presence and longer jail sentences. However, his research also demonstrated that liberal concealed carry laws were at the top of the list of reasons violent crime has dropped steadily since those laws began to be enacted by state legislatures a decade ago.

The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, a division of Handgun Control, Inc., disagreed with Lott's findings, as well as the overall assumption that a reduction in the availability of guns in society reduces violent crime.

"Using violent crime data provided by the FBI, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence determined that, on average over a five-year period, violent crime dropped almost 25 percent in states that limit or prohibit carrying concealed weapons," the Center said. "This compares with only a 11 percent drop in states with lax concealed carry weapons (CCW) laws. Moreover, states with some of the strongest laws against concealed weapons experienced the largest drops."

Without naming its source, the Center also claimed "a prominent criminologist from Johns Hopkins University has stated that Lott's study was so flawed that 'nothing can be learned of it,' and that it should not be used as the basis for policy-making."

In his most recent research, Lott noted a few examples of mass shootings in schools when teachers who were armed, albeit illegally, were able to prevent further loss of life among students indiscriminately targeted by other students with guns.

Ironically, both Lott and Handgun Control acknowledge that the reams of gun control laws on the books in Washington and in all 50 states have been ineffective in eradicating mass shootings or preventing children from bringing weapons to school. However, Lott's research indicates the criminal element has been successful in obtaining weapons despite widespread bans and gun control laws, while HCI continues to push for more laws that further restrict, license or eliminate handguns and long guns.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jon E. Dougherty is a staff reporter and columnist for WorldNetDaily.

Food Eater Lad

Same subject. Banning guns =higher murders, more crime.

Better question, why do you ingnore the data?

Food Eater Lad

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=15304

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crime up Down Under
Since Australia's gun ban, armed robberies increase 45%

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Jon E. Dougherty
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Since Australia banned private ownership of most guns in 1996, crime has risen dramatically on that continent, prompting critics of U.S. gun control efforts to issue new warnings of what life in America could be like if Congress ever bans firearms.

After Australian lawmakers passed widespread gun bans, owners were forced to surrender about 650,000 weapons, which were later slated for destruction, according to statistics from the Australian Sporting Shooters Association.

The bans were not limited to so-called "assault" weapons or military-type firearms, but also to .22 rifles and shotguns. The effort cost the Australian government about $500 million, said association representative Keith Tidswell.

Though lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:


Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;

Assaults are up 8.6 percent;

Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;

In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;

In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily;

There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.

At the time of the ban, which followed an April 29, 1996 shooting at a Port Arthur tourist spot by lone gunman Martin Bryant, the continent had an annual murder-by-firearm rate of about 1.8 per 100,000 persons, "a safe society by any standards," said Tidswell. But such low rates of crime and rare shootings did not deter then-Prime Minister John Howard from calling for and supporting the weapons ban.
Since the ban has been in effect, membership in the Australian Sporting Shooters Association has climbed to about 112,000 -- a 200 percent increase.

Australian press accounts report that the half a million-plus figure of weapons turned in to authorities so far only represents a tiny fraction of the guns believed to be in the country.

According to one report, in March 1997 the number of privately-held firearms in Australia numbered around 10 million. "In the State of Queensland," for example, the report said only "80,000 guns have been seized out of a total of approximately 3 million, a tiny fraction."

And, said the report, 15 percent of the more than half a million guns collected came from licensed gun dealers.

Moreover, a black market allegedly has developed in the country. The report said about 1 million Chinese-made semi-automatics, "one type of gun specifically targeted by the new law," have been imported and sold throughout the country.

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said the situation in Australia reminds him of Great Britain, where English lawmakers have passed similar restrictive gun control laws.

"In fact, when you brought up the subject of this interview, I didn't hear you clearly -- I thought you were talking about England, not Australia," Pratt told WorldNetDaily. "It's hard to tell the difference between them."

Pratt said officials in both countries can "no longer control what the criminals do," because an armed society used to serve as a check on the power and influence of the criminal element.

Worse, Pratt said he was "offended by people who say, basically, that I don't have a right to defend myself or my family." Specifically, during debates with gun control advocates like members of Handgun Control, Inc. or similar organizations, Pratt said he routinely asks them if they're "against self defense."

Most often, he said, "they don't say anything -- they just don't answer me. But occasionally I'll get one of them to admit it and say 'yes.'"

Pratt said, based on the examples of democracies that have enacted near-total bans on private firearm ownership, that the same thing could happen to Americans. His organization routinely researches and reports incidents that happen all over the country when private armed citizens successfully defend themselves against armed robbers or intruders, but "liberals completely ignore this reality."

Pratt, who said was scheduled to appear in a televised discussion later in the day about a shooting incident between two first graders in Michigan on Tuesday, said he was in favor of allowing teachers to carry weapons to protect themselves and their students on campus.

Pratt pointed to the example of a Pearl, Mississippi teacher who, in 1997, armed with his own handgun, was able to blunt the killing spree of Luke Woodham.

"By making schools and even entire communities 'gun free zones,' you're basically telling the criminal element that you're unarmed and extremely vulnerable," Pratt said.

Pratt also warned against falling into the gun registration trap.

"Governments will ask you to trust them to allow gun registration, then use those registration lists to later confiscate the firearms," he said. "It's happened countless times throughout history."

Sarah Brady, head of Handgun Control, Inc., issued a statement calling on lawmakers in Michigan and in Washington to pass more restrictive gun access laws.

"This horrible tragedy should send a clear message to lawmakers in Michigan and around the country: they should quickly pass child access prevention or 'safe storage' laws that make it a crime to leave a loaded firearm where it is accessible by children," Brady said.

Brady also blamed gun makers for the Michigan shooting.

"The responsibility for shootings like these do not stop at the hands of the gun owner," Brady said. "Why are ... gun makers manufacturing weapons that a six-year old child can fire? This makes no rational sense. When will gun makers realize that they bear a responsibility to make sure that their products do not mete out preventable deaths, and that they do not warrant nor deserve special protection from the law to avoid that burden? Instead of safeguarding the gun makers, we should be childproofing the guns."

In contrast to near-complete bans in Australia and Great Britain, many U.S. states have passed liberal concealed carry laws that allow private citizens to obtain a permit to carry a loaded gun at all times in most public places. According to Yale University researcher John R. Lott, formerly of the University of Chicago and a gun control analyst who has conducted the most extensive study on the impact of concealed carry laws in the nation's history, the more liberal the right to carry, the less violent crime occurs.

Lott, who examined a mass of crime data spanning decades in all 3,200-plus counties in the United States, concluded that the most important factor in the deterrence of violent crimes were increased police presence and longer jail sentences. However, his research also demonstrated that liberal concealed carry laws were at the top of the list of reasons violent crime has dropped steadily since those laws began to be enacted by state legislatures a decade ago.

The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, a division of Handgun Control, Inc., disagreed with Lott's findings, as well as the overall assumption that a reduction in the availability of guns in society reduces violent crime.

"Using violent crime data provided by the FBI, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence determined that, on average over a five-year period, violent crime dropped almost 25 percent in states that limit or prohibit carrying concealed weapons," the Center said. "This compares with only a 11 percent drop in states with lax concealed carry weapons (CCW) laws. Moreover, states with some of the strongest laws against concealed weapons experienced the largest drops."

Without naming its source, the Center also claimed "a prominent criminologist from Johns Hopkins University has stated that Lott's study was so flawed that 'nothing can be learned of it,' and that it should not be used as the basis for policy-making."

In his most recent research, Lott noted a few examples of mass shootings in schools when teachers who were armed, albeit illegally, were able to prevent further loss of life among students indiscriminately targeted by other students with guns.

Ironically, both Lott and Handgun Control acknowledge that the reams of gun control laws on the books in Washington and in all 50 states have been ineffective in eradicating mass shootings or preventing children from bringing weapons to school. However, Lott's research indicates the criminal element has been successful in obtaining weapons despite widespread bans and gun control laws, while HCI continues to push for more laws that further restrict, license or eliminate handguns and long guns.

HarmlessRabbit

You mean the data I posted that shows that in australia murders with guns are down, murders without guns are flat, and hospitalizations due to guns are way down?

Food Eater Lad

The offence categories, for which there were increases between 2001 and 2002 in numbers of incidents recorded, included sexual assault (6%) and assault (5%). Manslaughter (29%) and murder (2%) also increased, but a 21% decrease in the number of victims of driving causing death and a 14% decrease in attempted murders resulted in an overall decrease in victims for the homicide and related offences category.


http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs%4...2568a9001393f2!OpenDocument

This is right from the Aussie goverment, Idont see how a raise of such a magnitude is considered 'flat'

HarmlessRabbit

The subject was murders. Thanks for trying to twist my words and take my statement about murder rates being flat and misapplying it. Remember when you said:

But your data is really interesting. At the same time that assaults have gone way up, hospitalizations due to assault have gone way down. My conclusion is that assaults are now more "bar fight" type incidents and that the reduction in the number of guns have greatly reduced the severity of injuries due to fights.

Zeld2.0

Christ they should lock this thread. This thread seroiusly takes the cake for most links/quotes to news at a time.

Thread over.

And yes, people need to pick their words a bit more carefully.

Food Eater Lad

So what does flat mean to you? I guess flat means rise since murders went up.

So more assaults are good things? More murders are good, as long as they werent caused by guns?