Cont..

What rot. Here is the actual figures.

Britain has enacted a series of legislations banning various classes of weaponry. The most significant were the 1997 Firearms Act and the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006, both targeting firearms. Britain has seen a significant drop in gun related crime every year for the last seven years.

“The number of offences generally rose from the late 1990s to a peak of 24,094 offences in 2003/04. The number of firearm offences has fallen in each year since then with 11,227 offences recorded in 2010/11, 13% lower than the previous year and 53% below the peak of 2003/04.”
www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn01940.pdf

Rawmustard should disown the clip immediately or produce alternative statistics.

OTB might sit here and claim all he wants is some studies done on violence in Australia but the fact he sees the money spent by John Howard during the Buyback as 'wasted' shows his true leanings.

At least the NRA, that highly right-wing, powerful lobby group in the US had the good grace to recognise it is time to do something to stop the carnage.

While in some ways this discussion appears unseemly I recognise that people are understandably seeking answers to a bewildering event and that points should be allowed to made from each side of the issue. But please have the decency not to post propaganda. It is an affront to those in grief

csteele,

I am sorry if you are getting angry. All I am asking for is an independent national university research into violence, with all governments and police forces cooperating.

I am an ordinary taxpayer participating in a public forum. It reflects on you and your lack of facts that you feel obliged to stereotype and label me to 'win' your argument.

It is perfectly reasonable to ask for measures of success and evidence of positive outcomes for any policy. Government does not have any of its own money. It all comes from taxes.

This is a democracy and we are entitled to ask for proof of outcomes. However despite direct government funding to find some positive, practical outcome somewhere for the cool billion dollars (and counting!) wasted by (ex-)PM Howard, the results are zilch. The public is constantly being fed spin by hordes of public relations professionals also paid for by tax dollars.

Around the same time governments both Howard's LNP and Labor closed and sold off mental health and rehabilitation facilities. A billion dollars and the continuing wastage of resources on police busy-work minding the affairs of licensed citizens could have gone to mental health and rehabilitation, and more support for carers.

I replied to you earlier, clearly stating my position and why.

I also put this to you, which you consistently refuse to answer,

"Here is your chance, specifically what is there [from Howard's spend of a billion $$] to prevent someone encouraged by media reports to do a copy cat in Australia?"

Petrol and other means have also been used in mass killings in Australia. I shudder to think of the possibilities for a disaffected, alienated person (that IS the likely problem isn't it?) who uses a basic knowledge of chemistry or information freely available from public sources.

That is why we all should be demanding independent national research into violence in all of its categories and dimensions. Policy is not well rooted in the populist knee-jerks of politicians teased or blackmailed by the media, and by small but noisy lobby groups.

Belly, didn't I say that farmers should have guns?

How many Australians that don't live on farms or stations have snakes climbing all about their homes? Even if they did, we don't always need a gun to kill them.

As for the old guy needing to kill people breaking into his home, the law these days says we can only use reasonable force in these situations.
Should all house break - ins result in the death penalty by firing squad after no trial?

Of course not...

Onthebeach is still on about "...an independent national university research into violence" .
What other research do we need other than statistics on injuries and deaths caused by violence, and the circumstances involved. This can all be ascertained by court documents.
We already know about the violence and the fact that guns are only one form of violence.
We also know that they are a major violent weapon in America, and that we don't want to go there too...

<<Should all house break - ins result in the death penalty by firing squad after no trial?

Of course not...>>

Of course not ALL: if someone breaks into YOUR home, you are under no obligation to shoot them, but if some of your neighbours would shoot burglars and if burglars had no prior knowledge in which houses they will be shot and in which they wouldn't, then they wouldn't dare to try their luck and so, Suse, you too will be safer.

In the words of the Israeli Dromi Law (http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/new-law-absolves-property-owners-of-liability-for-defending-their-homes-1.248502), "a person shall not be held criminally responsible for an action that was immediately necessary to repel someone breaking into or entering a residence, place of business or fenced farm with the intent to commit a crime."

I wish to counter Y and the rather obscure references in that post.
I strongly think America needs gun control.
But harking back to a theme H introduced early this year.
It is just so simple to criticize ,but what would you do?
Look at SYDNEY birth place of our country.
Nearly daily shootings.
With ileagle hand guns.
Maybe the answer to this threads starting point, repeated mass killings is in the way we handle it AFTER.
Meade should not be able to release the vermin's name, by doing so they grant immortality to a murder.
never to be released on every living ones papers.
BAN military guns, 20 years in prison for having one.
Look for the answers in law.
And those opposed? what rights did those loverly kids have?
Sydney? 10 years in prison for owners or users of hand guns not legally owned, confiscation cash and property to make them pay for time in prison.
We MUST take victims rightsBEFORE offenders, in law

There are some who believe that the Gold Standard way of getting attention is to strap explosives to themselves and kill and maim dozens of innocents.

There are some who believe that the Gold Standard way of getting attention is to fly planes into office blocks.

There are some who believe that the Gold Standard way of getting attention is to use frightful poisons and bacteria.

Still others planned to break into an Aussie military base and kill.

We could go on. But authorities generally understand how those criminals became convinced in their beliefs and who did the convincing, ie that it was the 'solution' to alleged problems and it was the recognised Gold Standard way of getting attention.

What we the public need to understand are the whats, whys and hows behind the awful slaughter the world has just witnessed in the US. It isn't just the US, it has happened elsewhere and can happen again.

How the hell did this young man come to believe that his problems were unsolvable and the way he needed to get attention was to inflict the most horrific punishment possible on society, by killing the young. He knew it guaranteed enormous personal publicity and ensured an everlasting memorial to him and his grievance and pain. Or was it anger? He knew from previous well publicised incidents that the offence guaranteed instant celebrity and the media and others would be certain to personalise reports in detail and to re-play and re-tell ad infinitum.

What if we find out the what is behind these choices and do something about it before the trend changes to a more disastrous tool, particularly one that is easily concealed, damned difficult to detect and the offender can be elsewhere at the time? Of course there needs to be broad independent national research into violence. Even if it turns up some unpleasant facts about social changes.