Hi Steelredux.

My crime figures are not just two decades old, they recount the rise in crime in Australia from the turn of the century to 1993. The graphs of different types of crime within "Rising Crime in Australia", show a very slow rise in almost every type of crime throughout the 20th century, except homicide and robbery. Homicide stayed steady while robbery actually fell during the 1930's. Interestingly, Australians were less inclined to rob others during The Great Depression when our people were the poorest.

Crime rates began to accelerate in the mid sixties, and rose again sharply during the 1980's when they were going almost straight up. If there has been any reduction from what are historically high rates of criminal behaviour, that hardly equates to Australian society becoming safer.

I actually laughed when you submitted that rape in Australia had declined from 52,000 reported incidences to 40,700. In 1923, there were only 13 reported rapes or even attempted rapes in the whole Commonwealth of Australia. Between 1963 and 1972, reported rapes rose 1400%. I think we can conclude that Australian women are a lot less safe today than in 1923, or even 1963.

Any reductions in crime rates has nothing to do with firearm availability. The major factors are technology, and increased police powers resulting from public demands that politicians get tough on crime. One major advance in technology since the 1980's is DNA testing, which now joins photography and fingerprinting as a major crime fighting tool. The other, is that security cameras are everywhere.

So too, civil liberties have been constrained to give police increased crime fighting abilities. Police may now stop and search pedestrians, and even conduct car searches without a warrant. Even houses can be searched without warrants in certain situations. In addition, both police and the security police have enhanced powers of telephone tapping as well as Email intercept powers. Such power were instrumental in foiling two mass murder plots by Muslim "Australians", the planned bombing of the Victorian MCG, and the plot to shoot Australian soldiers at Holsworthy Army base in Sydney

[Deleted for abuse.]

Dear LEGO,

Lol.

You do know there was a pretty simple premise put by me, that Australia was becoming less violent not more as you have asserted. And no I was not judging it against 1923.

I'm afraid if you can not challenge the fact that homicide rates are down, that physical assaults rates are down, that sexual assaults are are down then it really doesn't matter if every 10th Australian is a potential serial killer you have to concede for the average citizen Australia is becoming less not more violent and the chances of them suffering a criminal act of violence is diminishing. This really isn't a big ask.

Sir! Jimbo's being naughty again!

More people in the USA are killed by automobiles than guns. If gun ownership is banned,so should car ownership. A car driven at 100 km per hr can kill more people than a gun. It has far more potential energy but very few people use it this way.

Do we then ban kitchen knives, baseball bats, nail guns, household poisons and garden tools? They can all kill.

Well said David. I support your views 100%.