Indy,

Are you still sympathetic towards the deranged terrorists Brenton Tarrant who murdered 51 innocent men, women and children at two mosques in Christchurch, NZ 15th March 2019. You described Tarrent's barbaric acts as merely "revenge", therefore offering an excuse for mitigation, or possibly exoneration, what's it to be? AND you believe in "harmony" ho, ho, he, he ha, ha. You have got the be kidding!

ALL acts of terrorism should be unequivocally condemned, and not given some kind of back handed approval as YOU did.

Mhaze

My comments that the suicide rates in Australia dropped dramatically after we tightened gun laws, especially among men, reversing what had been an upwards trend, referred to the overall suicide rate, not just firearms-related suicide. This was partly to address Indy’s point – if people simply switched from using firearms to other means of killing themselves, then a drop in gun-related suicide would not be a net improvement.

I agree that gun-related suicide was in decline before Port Arthur. However, the decline over the mid-1990s was particularly abrupt – from 2.19 per 100,000 in 1995, before the reforms began, to 1.27 per 100,000 in 1998, after they were completed. That is a much steeper fall than in any other 3-year period since WW2, and suggests more at work than continuation of an ongoing trend.

You claimed that suicide rates “INncreased” after the gun law reforms that followed the Port Arthur massacre, and remained high for several years. That is incorrect.

The suicide data I quoted were for 1996-97 not 2006-07, my error was in writing up the dates of the results not looking at the wrong data. That should be clear from the annual averages I posted and the quote from the analysis accompanying the data.

The decline in gun-related suicide rates was steeper for men than for women because men are more likely to attempt suicide using guns than women.

Here are the gun-related suicide rates per 10,000 for 1995:
4.27 Men
2.19 Persons

And here are the rates for 1998:
2.44 Men
1.27 Persons

Note I am using AIHW data as it has a longer timescale. These differ marginally from the ones quoted above from gunpolicy.org. I have not included women because these data are not published for all of the relevant years.

https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/data-downloads

When you have crazy policy like the following, if implemented society will have real problems;

"Establish family and home protection as a genuine reason to own and use a firearm and continue to support measures increasing a person’s right to self-defence." NSW Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party.

Family and home protection, self defence, that means virtually everyone, I assume adults, but the Shooters Party is keen on children owning gun as well, anyone who has a family and/or a home, and requires self defence, should be entitled to the American style; "Right To Bear Arms" Dangerously crazy stuff as well.

BTW; The far right One Nation Party is just as extremist on guns as is the Shooters and Hooters Party! A vote for these parties is a vote for mass killings!

not given some kind of back handed approval as YOU did.
Paul1405,
You are just one sick racist idiot !

I’m not sure what point you are trying to make,
Rhian,
The point I’m making is the point of mentality ! No matter what the weapon it’s the mentality of the user that is the problem. Ever since the Goaf & Co did away with National Service people have lost sense of direction, sense of responsibility & sense of community !
Is it any wonder crime has found a neat nichè here .

Rhian,

"That is a much steeper fall than in any other 3-year period since WW2, and suggests more at work than continuation of an ongoing trend."

Why are you choosing a 3-year period other than to try to make the data fit the pre-conceived conclusion. Which it should be noted was based on a misremembering as to when the buy-backs actually occurred.

Why 3-years? Why not 5-years or 10-years? Because other periods don't show what you hope to show?

eg gun suicides declined by 32.5% in the 5 years prior to the buy-back and by (the statistically equivalent) 28.9% in the 5 years after the buy-back. The buy-back had little to no effect on the rate of gun suicide which had been falling for several decades along with the overall suicide rate.

Most definitely the data don't support the original claim that the suicide rates fell dramatically after the buy-back when they instead actually increased by 8.3% between 1995 and 1998.