Aidan,

Obviously, as far as long arms are concerned, it was easier before the law changes, to obtain one as in NSW as there were few restrictions.
As a point of fact, the Griener Government restored to their owners guns that had been confiscated under the previous Unsworth ALP rule.
However pistols were controlled and it is arguable that it is now very little harder to get a pistol licence, although personal protection is no longer a valid reason.
By the proliferation of illegal pistols it is obvious that there is a thriving blackmarket and don't blame the police as they are not the Customs and as Customs cannot possibly search all containers entering the country don't blame them either.
The Glocks that came in via the postal service were an example of the impossibility of examining all parcels.
There is now-a-days much more unlawful public firing of pistols in our streets and that is a fact attested by police reports.
Obviously our streets are less safe than they were before Howard's
Laws and as greater public safety was one of the claims made for those laws, then they have failed.

It looks as if AJ has left the arena, which is a pity.

To summarise, the degree of severity of any nations firearms laws is generally a predictor of how sick your society has become. Peaceful, law abiding and socially cohesive societies, who's culture forbids violence for personnel reasons, do not need strict gun laws. But violent societies do.

Western societies are becoming more violent for three primary reasons. We are destroying our social cohesion through multiculturalism. We are importing people from foreign cultures which have vastly different concepts as to what constitutes correct behaviour. Some are from cultures like Islam which sanctions the rape of women who do not follow the ways of Islam. Others are from extremely backward societies where male codes of honour demand violence and retribution for any imagined slight. Others engage in criminal behaviour undreamed of by even the worst criminals within western societies. The use of children as drug couriers and as hired murderers, as well as using schoolchildren to sell drug "starter kits" at schools, comes to mind.

AJ's premise that ethnicity and crime are not linked, and that the idea of widespread ethnic crime is just a manifestation of media sensationalism, is more worthy of hilarity than serious consideration.

The next important factor that is changing western culture to a culture promoting violence and criminality violent one is our entertainment media. It is a scientific fact that violent media and real life violence are linked. As the US American Medical Association has written, it has been "proven by science, over and over again." I find it incredible that AJ, who claims that he is a trained criminologist, is ignorant of this fact. It just goes to show how badly our tertiary trained elites are being educated. Apparently, the "dumbing down" of students is not limited to primary and secondary schools.

Lastly, we have the breakdown in societies most important socialising agent, the family. Almost one third of children today are being reared in single parent families. It is no surprise that this figure is much higher within communities where crime is endemic.

There is no comparison between 'Gun Control'(sic) and the reasonable, proven alternative, which is effective, risk-based, regulation and management of firearms that results in evidence-based laws that are effective, efficient and robust.

Good laws enjoy the full support of the public. Good laws do not need to be sold through shameful tactics of fudging numbers and facts. Fear mongering, wedge politics and secret squirrel political deals behind closed doors are not required where laws are fairly based on evidence.

'Gun Control' is the euphemism for the complete disarming of the citizens of the Western democracies. It is about confiscations from ordinary law-abiding citizens by the State under force of arms by the State. 'Gun Control' is totalitarianism.

As a stepping stone to abolition and forced confiscations, 'Gun Control' is about such Marxist tactics as flexing the meanings of words (a common Marxist tactic used elsewhere in politics by the organised Left), negatively stereotyping lawful owners particularly through conflating criminals and the unlawful actions with the many thousands of respectable citizens with licences, and making the lawful, licensed ownership and particularly the recreational use of firearms difficult, expensive and punishing.

The last-mentioned tactic is laid bare, obvious, through legal provisions permitting the State to conduct compulsory, unnecessary intrusions and abuses of the rights of licensed owners, such as by the laws requiring Australian police to conduct random, flying visits with compulsory inspections and interrogations in the home of those ordinary, known law-abiding citizens.

Of course the leftists who spruik the mantra of 'Gun Control' would never countenance such State and police monitoring and random inspections where they themselves or criminals are involved.

Could someone, maybe from those supporting gun control, direct me to where I can find some information on Gun Control Australia?

Their web site seems to be deliberately lacking in any useful information.

They exhort people to join but it seems to be a leap of faith (or into the dark).
No other organization that purports to be interested in the public good seems to be so secretive.

LEGO,

I have already told you that I’ll be busy for the next couple of months.

<<It looks as if AJ has left the arena, which is a pity.>>

I could quite happily leave at this point, though, given that you’re simply repeating yourself now and have spent the whole discussion dodging that which is inconvenient for you.

Lucky for you, though, I enjoy this topic as much as I enjoying seeing you duck, weave and rehash the same old arguments over and over in the hope that they’ll eventually become true. So I’m not leaving anytime soon. I anticipate this discussion going well into the new year.

<<I realise that Lucy Sullivan's book, which clearly demonstrated that crime in Australia was extremely low when Australian's were armed to the teeth, (and very poor) is an excruciating embarrassment to you.>>

Not at all. Not only did I already know about the data she used, but I have addressed them head-on. You, on the other hand, could only flip what I had said off by claiming that it was “lame”...

<<And you have to dream up any lame excuse to suppress the her inconvenient truths.>>

...which you still haven’t justified, by the way, despite my request that you do so (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17534#310246).

<<What was it again? Oh, yes, she is a sociologist, and sociologists can't read data or plot graphs.>>

Let's see what I actually said, shall we?

"Sullivan is a sociologist, not a criminologist. So her understanding of the causes crime, from a sociological perspective ... are good. But, according to her book, her ability to analyse statistical data - when it comes to determining real figures of crime - are woefully inadequate." (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17534&page=0#310193)

What kind of a scumbag sits there and lies through their teeth like that? Twice now too.

You have no scruples.

<<But her book will not go away, and unless you can dream up some way to "homogenise" the raw data from the Commonwealth year books, then you have the problem, not me.>>

I’ve already addressed this here http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17534#310247 and here http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17534#310247.

Continued…

…Continued

<<I expect you to read The 2001 US Surgeon general's report…>>

You don’t get to expect anything from anyone. Especially when it doesn’t sound like your read what I linked to. I did read it, however, and there was not much there that I didn’t already know.

The article you linked to was problematic too. Firstly, it assumes that correlation necessitates causation (http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations) with the only data to control for spurious correlations coming from South African whites - not a big enough sample size to rule out other influences. Secondly, the author provides no documentation of a systematic method of measurement and analysis so that others may test his findings. Finally, the current homicide rate is still less than what it was 80 years ago, which suggests that the mid-twentieth century was an aberration, leaving the question to be more, “Why was the homicide rate as low as it was in the mid-twentieth century?”, rather than, “Why is it as high as it is now?”

<<On your assertion that you do not agree that the world is going to pot, "see above.">>

This is the slippery slope fallacy. That makes three fallacies from you now.

<<My premise is, and always has been, that the rising incidences of serious crime in the western world is a consequence of three factors…>>

Yes, and for the second time now, I have already addressed this at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17534#310115 and http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17534#310194. I’m still awaiting your response there too. Not just a rehashing of the claim.

<<"There is absolutely no doubt, that the increased level of TV viewing, is correlated to the increasing acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behaviour.">>

I agree, and even touched on this at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17534#310115.

<<I don't know why you even bother to deny that ethnic crime is a primary reason why crime today is so much higher than when there were no gun restrictions at all.>>

You haven’t yet demonstrated that ethnic crime is a primary reason for any rise. Perhaps you could start by pointing out the flaws in the article I linked to regarding this (http://aic.gov.au/media_library/publications/tandi_pdf/tandi167.pdf).

Continued…