OT, but since you raised it, Cornflower - you may have missed this news item yesterday:

<< Howard's gun buyback slashed firearm suicides

Australian researchers have found there has been an almost 80 per cent drop in firearm suicides since former prime minister John Howard's gun buyback was introduced in 1997.

The figures equate to about 200 lives each year.

The 1997 gun buyback saw 650,000 semi-automatic rifles and shotguns destroyed, and is estimated to have halved the number of gun-owning households. >>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/30/2996838.htm

That has to be a positive result, no?

Poirot... the die is cast.

His Excellency, the deposed King of Bennelong (hohoho), and the unsuccessful Czar of Cricket (hahaha), will turf the Abbott from the NSW Commonwealth pile where he lived as lowly PM years (not enough of them) before and take up his rightful place again.

Abbott will have to slum it in The Lodge because the cycling is better in the ACT than on Keneally's dangerous NSW roads, and no one really cares if Keneally falls prey to a poorly driven NSW Barina, but to lose a PM that way would be too much to think about.

After all, we've already had one PM 'taken' by a yellow submarine, and we dare not lose anymore, particularly as 'roadkill'... very messy.

<< That has to be a positive result, no? >>

Not sure about that CJ. The obvious question is: how many people who would have committed suicide with a gun ended up doing it by some other means?

The article says nothing about this.

The gun buy-back scheme probably has been quite significant, but maybe not to the extent that the article implies.

Now, I just don’t understand why the independents are required to back one or other major party especially, as Andrew Wilkie said yesterday given that he (and presumably the others) will continue to be independent and assess each bill on its merits rather than on a party-aligned basis.

I’ve said it before a couple of times on OLO and there has been very little comment – it just makes a complete mockery of the principle of independence for these four MPs to align themselves with either major party, especially in the enormously significant manner needed to decide who will govern!

Tony Windsor sounds like he is very concerned about alienating lots of people no matter which way he goes. Well… of course each independent is going to incur a backlash and an entrenched group of people against them that are currently not at all against them, no matter which party they back.

So then, why on earth don’t they just insist on remaining neutral?

OK, so they could win some advantages for their electorates in the deal-making process. But they’d compromise their integrity. And I’d suggest that integrity in federal politics is a very rare and valuable commodity.

Alright, so I guess they should fully suss out what advantages there might be in supporting one or other party and then possibly do it if the gains are really significant.

But they sure as hell should NOT be required to back one or other party and should be allowed, unpressured, to remain fully independent if they so choose.

C J Morgan

The suicide rate overall was falling before the Howard gun laws and buy-back and continued at the same rate notwithstanding it. How come Howard's 'initiatives' showed no effect?

Again, the authors you quoted did not consider substitution of the means of suicide. Say rope or car 'accident' in lieu of gun. In fact the most popular mean of suicide, hanging, increased during the period.

How could a buy-back of semi-automatic guns reduce suicide anyhow when only one bullet is needed? Also, many of those who owned the categories of gun bought back by Howard would have owned other firearms. So how could that stop their suicide if that is what they planned? The authors didn't think that through.

There is much more but that is enough to destroy the findings. Well, that and the simple fact that there was a national initiative, in which all levels of government were involved, to reduce the incidence of suicide. Didn't the authors of that report think of Beyond Blue, the initiatives taken prevent male suicide in country towns and so on? Tough when so many professionals and the public put so much work into mental health, depression and reducing suicide but the 'researchers' who wrote that paper were apparently unaware of it.

Then again, the authors seem unaware of the recent gun violence committed by drug criminals with illegal firearms, such as the bikie driveby shootings and middle eastern drug turf warfare in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Must not read the papers, huh?

The authors themselves made the point that suicide has fallen for ten years and suicide by firearm is almost statistically insignificant. They should give credit where credit is due - to the national mental initiatives the credit for reducing suicide, not Howard. Howard blew $1billion that could have gone to mental health.

TBC you have the taint of that lefty thugs and mugs union and its slogans in you.
I have its members, refugees from lefty loony ism and screaming and shouting.
Stay as close as you can to reality.
Tis thread has been interesting but Abbott would never dare put the dwarf in that job.
Ludwig without independents, look at the senate in the last Parliament, no one can govern.
We must know that basic surely.