Before using "Wikipedia" as the gospel of truth understand that anyone can go on there and post the most outlandish statistics.

Also the internet is full of absolutely ridiculous so called facts and statistics.

Shadow Minister,

No, what you are demonstrating is reporter bias, or fudging it, where you choose selectively to arrive at your desired position.

The evidence is not there. That is why Australia should fund a national independent university study into violence.

I can understand but never support your insistence in defending John Howard. He does hold the record for the highest amount of taxpayers' money every squandered for no practical (and measurable) return.

Imagine if some of that very considerable wad of money and the resources wasted thereafter had gone into a national study of violence to advise policy.

But wait a bit, might such a study also identify the callous stupidity of selling off mental health and rehabilitation facilities? What about the policy of returning people with mental health problems to the community? Some cannot cope and some carers cannot cope.

Now if the marginal IQ Martin Bryant had had a sheltered workshop with counselling facilities to attend.. Or if police and medical authorities had had some way of referring him.. After all, authorities were aware of him and as a person with marginal intelligence he would have been suffering all sorts of stresses in daily living.

But apart from that, why wouldn't you support national research into violence?

We drift like a lost ball on the sea at times.
The American tragedy is just that.
A heart breaking event America has to deal with.
And not ours, but in a way, we, all of humanity play a role.
We hunt around the edges asking why.
But do not let the answers breath.
Gun control has to play a roll, but so too the very culture of America must .
Any one see an idiot calling him self the joker killing in a theater here?
And what has current or past Australian gun laws got to do with this.
Power to Obama, Republicans, clearly part of the problem, will fight him but America needs Obama to win.

Switerland has the highest gun ownership % on the planet and the lowest crime rate.

In Sydney with strict gun control we have daily driveby shootings by the criminals.If someone wants a gun it is not hard to find.

My point that most ignore to their peril is that under the lies of terrorism,our rights and constitutions have been stripped away.Anyone of us can be defined as a terrorist and imprisoned Bradly Manning is one such victim who fed info to Julian Assange.They currently want to do the same to Assange.

At this stage in our history we need to give back the power to the people.History tells us that we cannot trust Govt that has too much power.

You are all fools if you think that the Third Reich will not rise again.Both Bush and Obama are controlled by the banking military industrial complex.

Belly,

The bodies were still warm and the relatives and friends of the victims very raw with loss and bewildered when the usual suspects stepped in to make political capital out of the carnage. Where there is death the vultures gather. Only vultures do not have a secondary agenda.

The media, which must be considered part of the problem for creating copy cat multiple killings around the world, did the usual thing of making a production out of it, a series of exposes and whipped up public hysteria to gather extra audience for days. Weeks when you count the calculated tweaks the editors and TV directors will give the show, returning to relatives and friends to probe the nerves for tears and trembling voices. What editor doesn't prefer blood?

The media seeking an audience and politicians out to score political points out of misery with their simplistic solutions have made multiple murders the gold standard means for sad individuals and evil monsters to go out in a blaze of glory. Living or dead the offenders know they have a lasting memorial. They are celebrities. In some ways there are parallels with the terrorist bombers and some multiple murders use bombs, or arson.

If sympathy, ethics, principle and good sense don't constrain the media and self-promoting politicians from making hay out of a mass murder, the public should be demanding better. The public can choose not to be part of the manipulated mob. Politicians can choose not to take advantage to get their names on front pages.

There is a difference between reporting this truly dreadful event and sensationalising the offence and offender. But no, $$ is being made out of it. Or in the case of politicians, huge political points from pat 'solutions' that never allow for independent study of violence, not just the single event.

Dear onthebeach,

I usually go fairly easy on new members to the forum but when you come in here with rhetoric like your last post I think we can dispense with the niceties.

Firstly who in the hell would post a link to a story about a madman knifing 16 children in a school in China to defend guns? There were 3 killed but 13 SURVIVED!

In the tragedy in the US all the victims had multiple gunshot wounds and of all the people who were shot only ONE survived!

How does this not register with people like you? What do you think the outcome would have been in China if the man had been armed with assault weapons with 100 round magazines?

How absolutely clueless do you have to be, not only to post the link in the first place but to then refer to it twice more?

The other poster child of the my-guns/my-rights crowd which you so predictably put up was Switzerland - “Switzerland has the lowest gun-related crime rate of any civilised country. Switzerland has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world, and young men are armed with assault rifles to take home. But gun related crime is rare.”

My God when will your lot just go and check the figures?

Switzerland has by far the highest per capita figure in Europe for suicide by firearm. Around a quarter of victims use weapons to do the deed as opposed to less than 3% in England., a method which is 90% effective.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/switzerland_for_the_record/european_records/Switzerland_s_troubling_record_of_suicide.html?cid=8301804

In fact Switzerland has over three times the firearm related death rate per 100,000 that Australia has. 3.5 compared to 1.05.

'Oh wait' you will probably say 'What about homicides? They can't be very high because I know for a fact that “Switzerland has the lowest gun-related crime rate of any civilised country.”'

Australia's homicide involving a firearm rate per 100,000 is .09 yet Switzerland's figure is .52, more than five times as high.

Cont..