Australia's More Violent......Despite Gun Ban !

With all the talk in the United States about the terrible massacre in Sandy Hook and the political will  to initialize a gun control program to prevent it from happening again one point is missing....it won't reduce violent crime. Much has been written about the great success of the ''Australian initiative" of a nation-wide ban on military firearms and tight control of rifles and handguns. Unfortunately it is the product of the revisionist history of anti-rights proponents who claim that since Australia instituted their gun ban, there have been no mass murders with no mention of the marked increase in knife murders.

It is a common fantasy that gun bans make society safer. An organization called Peace Movement - Aotearoa, based in New Zealand, touts itself as ''interested in peace and social justice'' and has a fact sheet on their website entitled '' Sharp Drop in Gun Crime Follows Tough Australia Firearm Laws.''  It's very revealing that gun ban organizations validate gun control by focusing on gun-involved violence while avoiding any mention of overall violent crime trends. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there was a slight drop in the percent of murders committed with a firearm between 2001 and 2009 (16.0% and 13,4% respectively). However, the percentage was highest in 2006 (16.3% and remains higher than the low of 8.9% in 2005. Guns were used in 6.4% of all robberies in both 2001 and 2009.

In 2002....five years after enacting its gun ban the ''Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged that the gun ban had no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime: ''The percentage of homicides committed with a firearm continued its declining trend since 1969.''  Even the head of Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn, acknowledged that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime. He states, ''There has been a drop in firearm-related crime, particularly in homicide, but it began long before the new laws and has continued on afterwards. I don't think anyone really understands why. A lot of people assume that the tougher laws did it, but I would need more specific, convincing evidence.''

Mr Weatherburn adds, There has been a more specific problem with handguns, which rose up quite rapidly and then declined. The decline appears to have more to do with the arrest of those responsible than the new laws. As soon as the heroin shortage hit, the armed robbery rate came down. As always, I repeat, the best crime measure consists of good police work and the arrest of those responsible. The rise of Lebo (Lebanese) crime/drug gangs, bikies and their squabbles and now with young Muslims and Sudanese show an ease to acquire handguns that the poor honest citizen must jump through many ''hoops'' to own one.''

Between 1995 and 2009, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2% and robbery 6.4%. Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9% ! Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2%. At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased31.8%: rape dropped 19.2%; robbery decreased 33.2%; aggravated assault dropped 32.2%. Australian women are now raped over 3 times as often as American women (whom, if reports are correct, are arming themselves at record rates). More women, from soccer moms to professionals are ''packing heat'' for sport, self-empowerment and protection, sadly, something Aussie gals find very hard to do.

The Way I See It....Australia and America both experienced similar decreases in murder rates: Between 1995 and 2009, Australia saw a 31.9% decrease; without the gun ban, America's rate dropped 31.7%.  Go figure.

While this doesn't prove that more guns would impact crime rates, it does prove that gun control is a flawed policy. Moreover, for groups like the Peace Movement - Aotearoa, it's apparently social justice when more people are raped, robbed and assaulted, as long as they cannot defend themselves with firearms. This highlights the most important point: Gun banners promote failed policy irregardless of the consequences to the people who must live with them.

NOTE: For in-depth analysis of the dangerous side-effects of Britain's and Australia's gun bans, read Chapter 2 of  Four Hundred  Years of Gun Control: Why Isn't It Working?, which deconstructs the gun control agenda and should motivate more people to support the civil right of self-defense.