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The Forum > Article Comments > The truth about Australia's gun control experiment > Comments

The truth about Australia's gun control experiment : Comments

By David Leyonhjelm, published 16/6/2014

While deaths due to shooting have decreased, there is no credible evidence linking this to Australia's adoption of gun control laws.

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ChrisPer, so the evidence is a polemic written by yourself? A person who’s expertise is editing a Wikipedia page on the subject. I would be impressed, but anyone can edit a page on Wikipedia.

But back to the polemic: the bit about activists is the unsubstantiated claim that gun-control activists partnered with the media in the late 1970s and wonder of wonders created the Milperra Bikie shootout. What a load of drivel.

The rest of the article smacks of a complete failure to understand the difference between correlation and causation.

I searched the academic literature and could found no evidence that linked activists to creating firearm massacres, but I did find these references which are useful for the original article and tend to disprove Leyonhjelm’s central point.

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/12/6/365.short

“In the 18 years before the gun law reforms, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia, and none in the 10.5 years afterwards. Declines in firearm-related deaths before the law reforms accelerated after the reforms for total firearm deaths (p = 0.04), firearm suicides (p = 0.007) and firearm homicides (p = 0.15), but not for the smallest category of unintentional firearm deaths, which increased.”

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/10/5/280.short

“After initial Victorian reforms, a significant downward trend was seen for numbers of all firearm related deaths between 1988 and 1995 (17.3% in Victoria compared with the rest of Australia, p<0.0001). A further significant decline between 1997 and 2000 followed the later reforms.”
Posted by Agronomist, Wednesday, 18 June 2014 9:57:06 AM
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Why, thanks for that Agronomist! Clearly you have the wits to discuss this stuff and show me flaws in my argument. However, your invective misrepresents what I say. The Milperra massacre is not partly caused by media reporting; it is an extremely significant event that got anti-gun activists and journalists a lot of airtime, and opened media opportunities for anti-gun activists.

Would you care to explain how a persistent pre-existing downward trend in firearm suicides is caused by a buyback of semi-automatic guns which are fully substituted by bolt-action rifles and double barrel shotguns?

Leigh and Neill ignored Australian suicide literature that reported the existing evidence of substitution of hanging for gun suicides, in which the rise in hangings started slightly earlier that the fall in gun suicides. When I drew it to Andrew's attention he was cross they had not cited his paper - until I pointed out that it predated him by several years.

I note that correlation is not causation. So the fall in gun suicides, which does not correlate closely with the changes in gun laws, is not certain to be caused by them either. The likely cause is declining fashionability of and access to guns by younger cohorts, probably through urbanisation, as well as safe storage laws. But do the intellectually dishonest pc journalists and scientists examine that? No, its the Buyback that stopped suicides. they believe what they want to believe, and write papers that are flawed by 'correlation is causation'.
Posted by ChrisPer, Wednesday, 18 June 2014 10:32:33 AM
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ChrisPer, when I asked for evidence that activists were creating firearm massacres, I was expecting, well some data that could be assessed to determine how true that claim of yours was. Instead you linked to an article of yours that contained no evidence supporting the proposition. Effectively, you are stating that the evidence for the position is your own opinion.

As such, it is worthless. Having looked through the academic literature for evidence for the position you have espoused, I have come to the conclusion that you have made it up. It is e sort of argument that I am sure when it is boiled downed to its essentials relies heavily on convoluted explanations and a whopping dose of wanting it to be so. So I don't see how I have misrepresented this argument of yours.

As for the Milperra massacre, it was important, because it made a lot of people sit up and are notice. The overwhelming response that I remember was people concluding they didn't want to live in a society where this sort of thing could happen.

I haven't linked to Leigh and Neill as evidence, so why does what they did matter? In fact the research from New Zealand has established that firearm legislation does not affect the number of suicides very much because of substitution. However, this discussion has been about mass shootings, not suicides, so I am struggling to see how your comments are germane. They look more of a shifting of the goalposts to me.

As for your insistance that I explain how the buy back influenced the decline in firearm deaths prior to the buy back. That is a strawman argument that I have not made. The evidence I linked to in my previous post indicated the existing decline accelerated after the buy back.
Posted by Agronomist, Wednesday, 18 June 2014 12:55:12 PM
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akasif/quote..<<..question frames the argument*>>

thats a big POINT/NEVER ASK
IF YOU KNOW THE ANSWER/HURTS OUR CASE...WE MUST RETAIN..REASONABLE DENIABILITY..

FRAMED<<....in such a way..that you have limitless justification,.as you are basing restrictions..??..objectives..<<..off of a subjective..>>

another important point..<<need for enjoyment...This is a slippery slope.>>

how do/they..say..'self affirmation'/dece[topm
externalized concecration..of external perception.

<<...For that reason,..I..would first define my terms.

What is a military weapon?>>

precision/precision/precision.

<<..Does it share similar capacities..to it's civilian counterpart?>>
of course..they are oftem created maintained/by the same people

<<..>>other important question self deletedbut to reply it
fast fire.reliability.the ability to wound..not kill*

[see hunters need that kill/but solgers need to keep the enema busy...[wounding one bloke/shiela..takes out 3 fighters]..and uses up the work-efforts..of up to 20 other/supporting the wars fruits.

hunters want softbullits that tears rip etc
miniTARY AMMO IS POINTY OFTEN PASSING STRAIGHT THROUGH*..with minimul damage..but then 100 pin holes will kill anyone..anyhow MORE PEOPLE DIE BY BEE STING and death by copper.[cops killed more than all terrorst acts/by far.]
Posted by one under god, Wednesday, 18 June 2014 1:42:28 PM
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Hi Agronomist, There is no proof that the perpetrator watched that particular show, but Coroner (Mattieson I 1996, see Lovibond J 1996) found that show offered a script in obtaining illegal firearms, and that one person followed that script and went to Tassie to buy a gun, and killed himself. NCGC's words are thus proven to have killed one suicider via media. Mass shootings are in the literature called parasuicide events.

Yes I am the only author who has explicitly blamed the activists and media for the Port Arthur Massacre and suggested that anti-gun activism from 1980 may have caused our series of massacres. The references above include Cramer 1993, who proposed the media as trainer and rewarder of massacre perpetrators based on US evidence. Cialdini in discussing the state of the field on suicide and contagion found that people imitate those seen as similar in various ways, and the guidelines in preventing suicide copycats are designed to make the individual seem like his own circumstances were unique to him. Mullen et al. (including the so-respectable Assoc. Prof. Alpers - is that you btw?) found that the Australian massacres after the first were copycats.

The media frenzy after Port Arthur and through the Buyback is a more likely cause of people no longer committing massacres, than actual shortage of guns to be obtained. There are more guns in Australia now than then, including many that are just as fast to operate as semiautos.

The causative reasoning of the copycat mechanism is strong, but its not proven in the case of Port Arthur that the particular show that killed one at least, caused Bryant to become a mass shooter. Brievik would have published his manifesto, perhaps encouraged by NBC pumping the publicity package prepared by the mass shooter Cho.

Media have been proven to cause copycat suicides in large numbers. The same mechanisms are at work in mass shooters; the same preventatives will help too.
Posted by ChrisPer, Wednesday, 18 June 2014 1:48:32 PM
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The facts are that 10,000 Americans are shot dead by other Americans each year. Adjusted for population, that equates to 700 Australians shot dead by other Australians. What is the figure for Australians? If it's a hell of a lot less than 700, what do we learn from the American experience seemingly envied by Mr Leyonhjelm about which country is protecting its citizens and which one isn't? What I've learned personally is never to be fooled by the deceptive party name "Liberal Democrats", and to appreciate the sometimes irritating enforcement of Nanny state laws blocking kill-crazies from carrying firearms on to an airliner.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Wednesday, 18 June 2014 2:11:03 PM
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