Australian gun buyback explained.

[westcliffe01]

I guess if we go back to the way things were in the dark ages, everything is going to be so much better...

 

[dave1949]

There is one simple fact that you are avoiding; you can't shoot someone without a gun.
No, I think what you mean to say is - The law only prevents law abiding people from owning a gun to protect themselves. It does NOT prevent the criminals from having them, even if they have to make them themselves (many fully automatic sub machine guns being made in backyards shops in the 3rd world). Do you wish to state for the record that banning guns will take them away from criminals ? If you agree it will not, then please do not dictate the removal of our means of defense from evil people. You do as you wish.

If I say our LEO's shouldn't have to worry about a punk with a gun, your answer is they better not be complacent. They are two different concepts.
Why do LEO's carry a GUN ? Answer: to protect themselves. So how are we different ? I can tell you one way: Civilians are not IMMUNE from prosecution if they draw and brandish a weapon or point it at anyone when a judge and jury later decides it was not justifiable. The problem is that law enforcement has been escalating the level of violence used against civilians and the judicial and executive branch has been backing them up all the way. With VERY few exceptions, shootings by law enforcement are considered justifiable. Even if it is 6 different officers emptying their 17 round magazines at the same lone knife wielding mentally handicapped guy. Or the former marine shot 17 times in his own house by the "No Knock" swat team executing a search warrant at 9am. One does not need to be a genius to see that rising violence against the civil population, coupled by the Federal governments refusal to enforce US sovereignty at the southern border - leading to out of control human, gun and drug smuggling operations by Mexicans is leading to an arms race between the state and the people.

History has shown that governments kill more people than any other institution. The founders knew that and put in place checks and balances that our ever larger and hungrier central government is trying to circumvent.

"Gun ban" cities, are gun bans in name only. Clearly, if guns are being used, then guns are present.
So if you lived in one of them, and you could not own one to defend yourself without becoming a felon, how would you feel about "in name only" then ?

I would like to live in a country where personal security is not dependent on carrying a gun.
We all want the same thing. The difference is that one either accepts personal responsibility for providing for your own protection, or you don't and you can tell us afterward how it feels like to be a victim (if they let you live and you retain your faculties intact - a matter of luck vs planning)

In any case, it will always be the young and elderly who will remain undefended in such a scenario. What concealed carry recommendations do you have for my 86-year-old Mom with severe arthritis in her fingers?
It has always been the responsibility and DUTY of able bodied men and women to help those who are unable to help themselves. If all of us are to be disarmed, except the criminals (who never will) what are we supposed to do to help others ? Right now the federal government ENSURES that we CANNOT by prohibiting law abiding citizens from being discreetly armed in the places that sociopaths choose to act out their game of one-up-manship in the human equivalent of the arcade game. Then the same people who disarmed everyone wish to express their shock and revulsion at their own handiwork ??? I say sentence every politician for criminal conspiracy, who voted "Aye" on the "Gun Free Schools Act". But I forget, our politicians are immune from prosecution for the outcome of their laws, in the same way law enforcement and the military can't be held accountable for "collateral damage" when they use force.

Turning our schools, or anywhere else, into hardened bunkers is the sickest outcome I can imagine. It would reflect the sickness in our society, and the NRA is fully behind that sick idea. If you are unable to see that for the debased morality that it is, nothing I say will make sense to you.
Do you suppose Israeli schools look like bunkers ? No, they simply have staff and family members on the premises who are discretely armed and have access to greater firepower in a short time if needed. Have you ever been to a school in a real conflict zone ? Does it occur to you that seeing people who are armed for your own protection (as opposed to law enforcement - who often have a tenuous relationship with local communities) is actually reassuring ? But I forget, you have probably never been anywhere where your life was in danger.

I don't have the answers. It is possible that the Founders' 2nd Amendment ideas which seemed sound and necessary at the time, are not workable in modern reality. There sure seems to be a lot of collateral damage attached to the 2nd Amendment. Yes, I own guns. I do not have a CC permit.
Every bit of collateral damage is caused by criminal behavior. 2000 years ago, apparently the "Ten Commandments" sufficed to govern a peoples behavior. Today the law is an incomprehensible mess of billions of pages that takes qualified lawyers months even years to work through a single case. We now have a judicial system that has become its own bureaucracy, which in many cases no longer serves the interest of the people. A situation where 30% of the adult population has a criminal record, combined with a pious population who believe that once convicted, a person is to be marked as a criminal for life and should be deprived of their most basic rights (right to work, right to defense) FOREVER is just the right recipe for the kind of social breakdown that we are seeing. When someone convicted of a minor non-violent crime is then basically unemployable, where do you think this leads ? The answer is plainly into more criminal activity and the stakes are constantly escalated until they feel there is "no way out" at which point the killing begins.

I do not wish to condone any kind of criminal behavior, but the population needs to consider carefully the cost of the lives wasted by the present laws, law enforcement, judicial system, local and central government. The freedom we currently have has become a very narrow path indeed. Straying just a tiny bit (which is human after all) can quickly cost you everything you have and any future prospects. All of these people who enter the judicial system end up costing us at payroll time (for those of us actually working or living on investments). All of those people sitting on the other side of the bench are costing us too. Very handsomely I might add. The typical LEO here in MI is retired before 50 with full pension and medical for life. People are entering these professions for the wrong reasons, it never used to be a job that revolved around money and benefits, but it is now. Not to mention all the perks for that special interest group (permitted to be armed anywhere within the US regardless of state law, real estate tax breaks etc etc). And I hate to say it, but some join the profession because they are hungry for the power that goes along with being the only party who has control of the "justified and legitimate" use of force in the community, like a bouncer at the door of a nightclub.

I can see you are just as passionate about this as I am disgusted. I'm fine with that.

From my point of view, the direction of your thoughts always leads to an armed populace versus each other versus a police state that will settle their differences in violent ways. The more armed citizens are, by necessity, the more armed and aggressive the police and other citizens will be. This is a spiral of violence that should not to be embraced, nor should we succumb to it, or be herded into it by fear. It will never achieve any sort of ideal or safe way of life. Israel is hardly a role model for how we want to live.

Our country is and can be better than that. That is a sort of patriotism too, you may recognize. We have non-violent methods of reforming that which we do not agree with. The provisions of the Constitution that make that possible are just as important as the 2nd Amendment, more so in my thinking.

We are killing each other, not imaginary tyrants, not foreign invaders, very few criminals, and not out-of-control LEOs. I don't think the tree of liberty was meant to be watered with the blood of school children, movie goers, family members and fellow students. There has to be a better way.

 

[westcliffe01]

Its not true. The Swiss are by far more armed that the Americans. The difference in in the lack of "top down" aggression. Swat teams are only called in for hostage/terrorism situations. Not to arrest tax evaders or people who have pot. They do not have drones spying on the population. You will not generally find yourself looking down the barrel of a gun in a traffic stop. Police departments are not driving around in armored vehicles.

Law enforcement needs to become polite again. Ordinary citizens lives need to mean something. A shameful scene like the multi cop vs lone deranged guy with between 30 and 40 rounds fired would not happen in any other westernized country in the world, let alone all the cops keep their jobs.

The politicians wail over 26 people allegedly killed in CT, yet don't bat an eyelid when a drone kills over 40 innocents in some middle eastern country.

Until the violence perpetrated by the president, congress and their agencies (CIA in many foreign countries, DEA in foreign countries, ATF in Mexico etc etc all the way down to local law enforcement) stops, there will not be any peace.

We don't need to read any more reports like this: Take note of the property seizure after killing the old fart. Doesn't the constitution provide safety against unreasonable searches and seizure ?
SWAT Team Kills 69-year-old Man For Having Prescription Painkillers | Real News Reporter

June 23, 2011 Crime & Justice, U.S. News No comments
SWAT Team Kills 69-year-old Man For Having Prescription Painkillers

Guns and four bottles of prescription painkillers — three of them empty — were among the items seized after a drug raid at a Hampton home Saturday led to the homeowner’s death during a shootout with police.

William A. Cooper, 69, was shot at about 10 a.m. after police — executing a search warrant seeking controlled prescription painkillers — forced entry into his home on Clifton Street in Wythe. Police say Cooper opened fire on them in the home, and they had no choice but to shoot back. A friend of Cooper’s says he thinks Cooper must have been startled by the raid and believed his home was being invaded by criminals.

The list of seized items, filed Tuesday in Hampton Circuit Court, included one empty bottle of OxyContin and three bottles of Oxycodone-acetaminophen — one containing pills and two of them empty. OxyContin and Oxycodone-acetaminophen are controlled substances that are highly sought on the black market.

Friends said Cooper used a cane, suffered from knee and back pain, and took a lot of pain medicine. The list of seized items doesn’t include whether or not the prescriptions were valid ones in Cooper’s name.

“We did locate evidence that supports the charge of distribution of illegal narcotics,” police spokesman Jason Price said Tuesday. The list of confiscated items includes 16 other pill bottles — for drugs used to treat symptoms ranging from arthritis to diabetes to seizures to heart disease.

A confidential informant had told police that Cooper was selling methadone, Percocet (one trade name for Oxycodone-acetaminophen) and other prescription drugs from his home. Methadone was not among the items seized.

Other seized items included Cooper’s wallet, $903 in cash, his 2000 Lexus automobile — allegedly connected to the drug sales — as well as a vehicle title and “financial documents.”

Also confiscated from Cooper’s home — under a separate warrant issued after the shootout — were 16 guns, including revolvers, pistols, rifles and shotguns. Cartridge cases, bullets and other items also were seized.

Also on Tuesday, Price said police found no evidence that a stray bullet from the shootout made its way to a baseball field that runs 150 to 200 feet behind Clifton Street — separated by a creek and dense brush.

Rita Roby, a coach of a girls softball team playing at the field, said Tuesday that there were about 100 people at the field at the time of the shooting, including ball players, spectators and coaches.

Roby said that she was huddling with her team at the edge of the field when they heard about five bullets.

One of her players, she said, felt something whiz past her shirt. Roby said she can’t believe police engaged in a shootout so close to a ball field where children were playing ball.

“It really makes me angry,” she said. “It’s really sloppy.”

Price said a bullet did go through the back of Cooper’s home, but police have not recovered it.

“We checked the field with metal detectors, and interviewed people there,” he said. “We found no evidence that a bullet went into the ball field,” or that it had whizzed past the girl’s shirt.

Price noted that the field is not visible from Cooper’s home because of the dense brush.

 

[westcliffe01]

You are gravely mistaken.

Gun violence in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Prevalence of homicide and violent crime is greatest in low income urban areas of the United States. In metropolitan areas, the homicide rate in 2005 was 6.1 per 100,000 compared with 3.5 in non-metropolitan counties.[32] In U.S. cities with populations greater than 250,000, the mean homicide rate was 12.1 per 100,000.[33] According to FBI statistics, the highest per capita rates of gun-related homicides in 2005 were in D.C. (35.4/100,000), Puerto Rico (19.6/100,000), Louisiana (9.9/100,000), and Maryland (9.9/100,000).[34]

People with a criminal record were also more likely to die as homicide victims.[14] Between 1990 and 1994, 75% of all homicide victims age 21 and younger in the city of Boston had a prior criminal record.[39] In Philadelphia, the percentage of those killed in gun homicides that had prior criminal records increased from 73% in 1985 to 93% in 1996.[14][40] In Richmond, Virginia, the risk of gunshot injury is 22 times higher for those males involved with crime.[4]

Self-protection
The effectiveness and safety of guns used for personal defense is debated. Studies place the instances of guns used in personal defense as low as 65 thousand times per year, and as high as 2.5 million times per year. Under President Clinton, the Department of Justice conducted a survey in 1994 that placed the usage rate of guns used in personal defense at 1.5 million times per year.[69]

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-15
So lets really talk about what law abiding gun owners do, since war has not been declared.
In 2007-2011 there were 257-285 justified homicides by civilians with guns, 153 with handguns, 12 with rifles, 10 with shotguns. But in the least of cases is someone killed, most end with a wounding and most of the time, the bad guys flee when they realize that their victim is armed (65 000 to 2.5 million times per year).

CRIME AND GUNS
Basic to the debates on gun control is the fact that most violent crime is committed by repeat offenders. Dealing with recidivism is key to solving violence.
• 71% of gunshot victims had previous arrest records.
• 64% had been convicted of a crime.
• Each had an average of 11 prior arrests. 117,118
• 63% of victims have criminal histories and 73% of the time they know their assailant (twice as often as victims without criminal histories). 119
Most gun violence is between criminals. This should be the public policy focus.

117: Richard Lumb, Paul Friday, City of Charlotte Gunshot Study, Department of Criminal Justice, 1994
118: Homicides and Non-Fatal Shootings: A Report on the First 6 Months Of 2009, Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission, July 13, 2009
119: Firearm-related Injury Incidents in 1999 – Annual Report, San Francisco Department of Public Health and San Francisco Injury Center, February 2002

NWS Lightning Safety Medical Information
The odds of being struck by lightening in your lifetime run about 1: 10 000
The odds of getting shot with one of the weapons which the government is trying to ban runs about 1 in a million

We are killing each other, not imaginary tyrants, not foreign invaders, very few criminals, and not out-of-control LEOs. I don't think the tree of liberty was meant to be watered with the blood of school children, movie goers, family members and fellow students. There has to be a better way.

 

[dave1949]

What you see, westcliffe01, as "top down violence" has a history. As I recall from your posts, you did not grow-up in this country, and have had some nasty experiences. In any case, there was a time in this country that a LEO could go about their job without being overly worried about someone shooting them. That has changed. What changed it is the fact that too many LEOs were being shot by citizens.

What you perceive as a coordinated effort by multiple presidents and government agencies to deprive us of freedom, is in fact a predictable response to escalating citizen violence that is enabled to a degree by guns.

June 23, 2011 Crime & Justice, U.S. News No comments
SWAT Team Kills 69-year-old Man For Having Prescription Painkillers

William A. Cooper was not killed for having prescription pain killers, he was killed because he fired on a police officer. The headline alone should make you suspect the slant of the organization that wrote it. What do you really know about Cooper? If he was selling prescription drugs, which is a common thing everywhere, then don't you think the police, as representatives of society, have a duty to find out? Cooper surrounded himself in a cocoon of suspicion and lethal weapons, he would be alive today but for that fact. Don't create this as your own destiny.

 

[westcliffe01]

Same old lies. The homicide rate is lower now than it was 20 years ago. Our country is safer and less police officers are being shot than at any other time. Don't forget that this country has a thing called population growth, so there are a lot more people around compared to 40 years ago. But by capita things are more peaceful and a lot of that is because of the deterrent effect of victims being able to lawfully shoot back. The virtually nationwide ban on concealed carry had crime rising continuously year after year, before concealed carry was re-introduced in Florida. Since that time, it is nationally on the decline. Violent crime in the US was half in 2011 what it was in 1991 FBI — Table 1

However, even 5 years ago the incidence of LEO carrying AR 15's and driving around in armored vehicles was a lot lower than today. And lets not forget about some of the legislation passed in the last 15 years. Patriot act. (Bush) NDAA (*****). Those pieces of legislation directly undermine constitutional rights in a way that was about unimaginable 15 years ago. Despite all the positive trends within the population (excluding gun ban areas), NOW is the time to be rendered helpless by the central government ?

 

[clemsonfor]

There is one simple fact that you are avoiding; you can't shoot someone without a gun. If I say our LEO's shouldn't have to worry about a punk with a gun, your answer is they better not be complacent. They are two different concepts.

.

But criminals cant legally own guns and don't buy them legal and are not legal citizens and they still have guns!!

 

[Alien]

I don't know when you last purchased a gun but your information seems to be out of date or wrong?? Yes you do need a permit to even own parts of guns but I have never had to renew any permit and can find no mention of time limits in any of my paperwork?
I purchased a shot gun last year and their was no requirement on land owned etc. The dealer just processed the paperwork as did the police and it was mine. You can even purchase weapons interstate all you have to do is fill in the dealers form, he processes it , sends the gun to you local police station by mail, you register it there and you are free to walk out with it.
I agree with you on the cost of getting the paperwork done. If you buy a second hand gun it can cost you more getting the paperwork done than it did for the gun. But most of this is due to the dealer. They could chose to process the paperwork for nothing but they find it an easy way to increase the margin on their sale. Try different dealers they all quote different prices it is not a set government charge.

Don't intend arguing the point Zonta, Just telling you the way it happened. It would be about 3-4 years since I sold them now.

 

[OldMcDonald]

An excellent post from MBTrac and the immediately preceding one from Alchemysa cannot be argued against. I had a sheep and cattle property in Australia from 1979 to 1991, and sharefarmed some arable ground nearby too. I used guns for vermin control - pigs and kangaroos, and occasionally rabbits, but I mostly dealt with rabbits by poisoning. John Howard was never a particular favourite of mine, but at the same time, I did not see the need for anyone to have an automatic rifle in Australia. Note in Australia.

The one thing I could never understand about Howard's claim to have reduced suicides through banning auot and semi-auto guns was - Who ever committed suicide with such a weapon? The only suicides by gun that I knew of in Australia were by shotgun or non-automatic weapons, including pistols. Pistols swere carried by a few of my neighbours to deal with any stock that were down and needed to be shot. A pistol is a lot easier to carry than a rifle when working stock on horseback, although I did not carry either. I did always carry at least a rifle when travelling on the property by vehicle - usually more guns.

I have never lived in the US, but understand your crime rate is much, much higher than the countries in which I have farmed, and I think it is impossible for any outsider to comment on your position. I also think it is not reasonable to use the experience of any other country in your (ie the US people) decisions about guns.

 

[westcliffe01]

OldMcDonald. Just to make a comparison using a UN report: http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/CTS12_Persons_prosecuted.xls

If we compare prosecutions of civilians in a few different countries (rate per 100000 citizens)
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
USA: 31.5 30.9 29.3 29.4 30.1 31.7 32.2
Mexico 197.6 197.6 190.8 193.7 191.5 208.1 187.0
Canada 1,361.0 1,336.0 1,274.7 1,260.3 1,286.0 1,285.5 1,277.8
England and Wales 1,632.0 1,337.5 1,317.4 1,343.8 1,390.9 1,449.9 1,560.3 1,526.6
Germany 1,105.5 1,161.2 1,168.8 1,129.6 1,347.1 1,319.0 1,282.5 1,236.9
New Zealand 2,606.4 2,706.1 2,488.6 2,531.5 2,682.8 2,850.9 2,949.3 2,794.5
Japan 138.1 142.2 143.8 142.4 135.4 125.4 123.6

It is quickly apparent that prosecution of US citizens is lower than in most other nations. Australia is not listed, but its neighbor NZ has one of the highest prosecution rates, basically with over 2.5% of its population being prosecuted per year. That is a LOT. I have family who live in NZ and they feel that life is micro managed. Instead of having rights, one needs permission, or "permits" which have to be paid for to do nearly anything.



When one looks at intentional homicide rates, the US is clearly not the worst place in the world. List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

However, when one looks at violent crime rates and then compares to the prosecution rates, there is a pretty big mismatch in the US
Year 1992 2000 2004 2010 2011 (per 100 000)
US Violent crime 757 506.5 463.2 404.5 386.3
UK and Wales 2034

Looking at the 2004 time frame, it is clear that less than 1/10th of violent crime is ever prosecuted (note that prosecution is for ALL crimes)
So the logical conclusion is that our violent crime rate is as low as it is, not because of policing and prosecution (which are infective , time consuming and expensive) but because of actions taken by potential victims. And the reason for that is because it is lawful to take those actions and also because those actions only seldom result in an actual shooting of the criminal. The deterrent effect is the main one, the same reason we still have nuclear weapons.

By comparison, the violent crime rate in the UK is way higher The most violent country in Europe: Britain is also worse than South Africa and U.S. | Mail Online by a factor of 5x the rate in the US and the fact that it does not translate into more murders is more a cultural matter than simply a matter of luck. For whatever reason, it seems that repeat offenders in the US are more likely to kill without a second thought than what they are in the UK. But who knows, this may not develop in a favorable manner for the UK in the future. Lack of prosecution could easily lead to an escalation in the level of violence leading to a greater number of deaths. All it may take is a new drug hitting the streets.