TRTL,

One would have thought that you would have by now attempted to defend your anology about young people and cars?
Was my refutation so devastating that you have been shocked into silence?

Dickie,

Thanks for those references. Alpers et al have been refuted as to their veracity and methodology by Dr. J. Baker and Dr. S. McPhedran in a paper which may be accessed through c.l.a.s.s.
http://www.c-l-a-s-s.net/index.htm

The figures which you quote of the number of gun deaths are accurate however your use of them is misleading.
In 'Firearms Deaths and Hospitalisations in Australia' the authors break them down into different categories (p.2).
In the 24 years covered, 1979-2002, there are 13,459 deaths but of these 10,383 are suicides; 2,007 are homicides; 206 undetermined; and 113 legal intervention/war.

In the same period 750 or an average of 31/year were 'unintentional'
The unintentional figures would include police, armed services etc and possibly unintended findings in criminal events as well as sporting shooters.
So the actual number for sporting shooters would be lower.
The figure for target shooting is, afaik, Zero.

On page 6 there is a graph on suicides.
Firearms suicides show a steady decline across the period of 24 years whereas overall suicide rates which peaked in 1986 and again in 1997 have not dropped significantly.

So why is it a bad thing to teach young people safety?

Actually Is Mise, your refutation about cars didn't actually address the my point at all - you did say how they're different in terms of rules, but I've still yet to see you explain why it should be a different situation - not allowing children to drive, but allowing them to shoot guns. Unless you're advocating children be allowed to drive...

And young people do need licences to actually drive cars on roads intended, and people under 16 aren't permitted to fill tanks at the bowser.

"One of the alarming findings of the auditor-general’s report has been a steady increase in the number of firearms in Tasmania. In the 1997/98 period, there were approximately 90,000 firearms in Tasmania. By 2003/04, the number had increased to almost 120,000.

"Yet, during the same period the number of firearm licences had dropped to its lowest level in eight years, down to 38,000 from a high of 45,000. This means that whilst there are fewer licensed firearm owners in Tasmania, each firearm owner is holding more and more firearms (on average)."

"In any event, the shooting lobby will continue to pump out its often superficial research, attempting to encourage a public debate about rights and levels of violence in the community. It is easy to raise levels of community apprehension about crime and violence, and this can provide an all too easy opportunity for the shooting lobby to suggest that further firearm availability is a solution to the problem.

"Further, aspects of the 1996 Firearms Agreement have never been implemented. For example, the minimum age for a firearms licence was stipulated in the agreement to be 18 years. There was no mention in 1996 of any gun use by persons below the age of 18 years.

"However, when the laws were enacted across each of the jurisdictions, the concept of minors permits popped up whereby people down to the age of 12 years have been able to get permits to go shooting with a person who holds a full firearms licence. This was never contemplated by the National Firearms Agreement and is regarded as being a breach of that agreement.

"Of course, this did not prevent the Sporting Shooters Association of Tasmania embarking on a critique of the auditor-general’s methodology, and a novel one at that. The association proclaimed that the ”Gun report poses risk to health and safety”16 and criticised the auditor-general’s work as the result of “flawed analysis methods [sic]”.

Google: "Institute for Security Studies Gun Laws Australia"

TRTL<
Children/young persons/youths are only allowed to shoot under one to one supervision. They are not allowed to shoot alone.

If you read what I said about cars,
they are allowed to buy them, use them without supervision etc etc and there is no law against giving them petrol for their cars, bikes, utes or whatever.

Children under twelve are not allowed to use firearms under any circumstances.
They cannot posses/use/carry/own or borrow firearms until they are eighteen and have successfully passed the checks and balances and obtained a licence. They can however buy petrol at the bowser during the same period and at seventeen and a half hold a drivers licence.

Why shouldn't they be taught to use a gun safely and to drive a car safely?
Why is safety training wrong for one and not the other?
Is it because cars kill far more people than guns?

Dickie,

If you want 'flawed methodology' look no further than:

"Further, aspects of the 1996 Firearms Agreement have never been implemented. For example, the minimum age for a firearms licence was stipulated in the agreement to be 18 years. There was no mention in 1996 of any gun use by persons below the age of 18 years.

"However, when the laws were enacted across each of the jurisdictions, the concept of minors permits popped up whereby people down to the age of 12 years have been able to get permits to go shooting with a person who holds a full firearms licence. This was never contemplated by the National Firearms Agreement and is regarded as being a breach of that agreement"

Obviously the Minors Permits were left to the States. In point of fact children from the age of TEN were initially allowed to continue shooting in competition as there were a number who were doing very well and the Police Ministers agreed that it would be unfair and quite upseting to curtail their competition activities.
This concession naturally didn't continue beyond another two years.

It is rather disingenuous to suggest that because something was not mentioned that was subsequently agreed to by the Police Ministers that it is not within the spirit of the original agreement.

What about all the regulations made under the various State Acts that are not mentioned in the original Agreement?

No, Is Mise. Clearly it's because our governments don't want children with young and impressionable minds being recruited into the gun culture.

Personally, I agree with this position, but I can see why gun nuts wouldn't.