The problem with Gun control

All of those attacks combined account for a fraction of the gun related deaths in America over that same period of time. Let me know when we will recognize simple math and we can have a logical conversation about sensible gun control, which I’ve said time and again does not include banning all guns. Until then, you’re just throwing up distractions from the issue at hand. Gun control. We can name a thread “the problem with gun control” and it turns into blaming trucks and other attack methods that don’t come close in comparison of simple numbers. You want to blame ideology? The perpetrators of mass shootings in America are mainly white American males. Keep deflecting. The issue won’t go away just because the facts are inconvenient.

And again, a gun is not a tool. It is a weapon. It has a singular purpose, unlike every other method you mention. Stop pretending guns are screwdrivers. They aren’t.

I’d rather do what other countries do because it does work. Again, math. Facts. Statistics. They are real. Compare gun death stats per capita of any industrialized nation to the U.S. It’s right there in front of us.

But I’ve said all of this before, so I’ll respectfully bow out now and accept that we won’t agree. I’ll let my votes do the talking and hope for the best.

In Australia, biker gangs MAKE guns that are banned for crying out loud.

Or really anyone with a bit of skill and access to some machining tools. You don't even have to like bikes!

Wait a minute... you can't own a completely defensive form of protection from the gun toting psychos?? Well that says it all right there!!! Conspiracy!!! Obviously perpetrated by the govt so when they come for the children you can't protect yourself!

You might be closer to the truth than what you think. People who thirst for control don't want educated, civilized, well armed people. They're harder to control. Do you think benevolent powers run the world right now?

Of course we want educated civilised armed people, we just pay them to be on our side :lol:

As for conspiracies - It's really saving YOU money - you buy body armour, I have to spend more of your tax dollars rearming my secret police force with heavier rounds, yadda-yadda-yadda.

Honestly, just stay in line (feel free to have legal protests or vent your views in open online forums. They cost me nothing )

Crikey, it doesn't take much imagination to see how a semi-auto rifle can be employed at a higher lethality in a more diverse range of circumstance then a knife, or an axe, or a truck etc. Lots of things can kill, but not many things are designed especially for killing and surviving the encounter, and so it stands to the most basic reasoning that something designed for purpose will be fit for purpose. I mean, come on, a self loading rifle is effectively a tool designed and refined to allow the hunting of and killing of a large number of human sized animals!!!! Just because insane people have not had the imagination to employ them to their potential does not mean they are not a serious risk to the community.

Further, there is only so much damage you can do with a knife, axe or truck before the knife breaks or someone tackles you, the axe gets stuck, the truck's running into things breaks it... but a semi-auto self loading rifle is designed to be a portable killing tool for ranged accurate killing of multiple moving human sized targets..... its the design of the tool which dictates its potential danger to the community more then how someone might have used it. Society needs to be more proactive when it comes to security as technology gets more lethal, being reactive only works when there are people left to react.

And Australia, we don't even allow revolvers
But yea, in Australia, bikies tend to keep handguns or shotguns close and hidden, and they tend to prize them. They don't go around with them much because the Cops have a habit of pulling them over to see if their tyres are bald etc, and they only employ them strategically within their own 'business' models against each other, and they don't use semi-auto rifles!!

So generally speaking guns are not a threat to the Australian public from organized crime, with the odd exception of course. It usually is the whacko who beats his wife, inherits his dads rifle and goes off the deep end into paranoid delusions - and over time those sorts of guns get removed from circulation allowing the Police to focus on remaining pockets (ie organized crime) and emerging trends like desktop manufacturing etc, which will eventually be a big problem but by then hopefully armor will be cheaper to compensate. While we all get to walk around knowing there is a 98% chance the nearest firearm (other then a cop) is wrapped up and buried in someones backyard about 10 miles away, or hidden in some drug dealers ceiling space covered in cockroach poop.

What that means on the street is, if you see a gun then its 99.9% illegal so anyone and everyone calls the Police who come down hard and fast. A kid was hiking around a suburb nearby a few years ago, getting ready to join the Army, with a piece of metal in the shape of gun so he could get used to the weight while rucking...... and needless to say he got to meet the Police quite quickly as a result - but they dont shoot him, because they know most people don't have a gun, and so the Police can be more relaxed about it, relatively. So the Australian approach also dramatically reduces the chance of the Police accidentally shooting someone. That same thing happened to me also back in the 80's when I was about 8, but that was on a farm and so the Officer had good reason to think those sticks were indeed a couple of rifles.... :S

So rather then focus on the tool when banning one tool does not stop this but just changes the tool used. Should we focus on the ideology of the people committing the attack? Maybe revamping our mental health system? Maybe actually making sure our government does its job rather than failing to report people into the system? Or do we repeat the acts of other nations because yea it might make you feel good but the reality is that it changes nothing?

Wait...what?

So if the "Government" did its job of [strike]rounding up all the loonies[/strike] having complete unrestricted access to, and control over all of its citizens, you feel all would be right with the world?

but of course, you're not interested in the next step of this master plan, which is of course, disarming said citizens....

Senan wrote: All of those attacks combined account for a fraction of the gun related deaths in America over that same period of time. Let me know when we will recognize simple math and we can have a logical conversation about sensible gun control, which I’ve said time and again does not include banning all guns. Until then, you’re just throwing up distractions from the issue at hand. Gun control. We can name a thread “the problem with gun control” and it turns into blaming trucks and other attack methods that don’t come close in comparison of simple numbers. You want to blame ideology? The perpetrators of mass shootings in America are mainly white American males. Keep deflecting. The issue won’t go away just because the facts are inconvenient.

And again, a gun is not a tool. It is a weapon. It has a singular purpose, unlike every other method you mention. Stop pretending guns are screwdrivers. They aren’t.

I’d rather do what other countries do because it does work. Again, math. Facts. Statistics. They are real. Compare gun death stats per capita of any industrialized nation to the U.S. It’s right there in front of us.

But I’ve said all of this before, so I’ll respectfully bow out now and accept that we won’t agree. I’ll let my votes do the talking and hope for the best.

First of all race and ideology is not the same so your comment was far outside the point.

Secondly, I pointed out that the number of deaths in the nations that tried your method did not go down after the bans and that mass shootings still happened. That means that if it did not work for other nations why would it work here? If only the tool changes but not the number of people killed. As per this Harvard Study: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence
from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual
portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the
general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific
evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of
conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the bur‐
den of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal
more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, espe‐
cially since they argue public policy ought to be based on
that mantra.149 To bear that burden would at the very least
require showing that a large number of nations with more
guns have more death and that nations that have imposed
stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions
in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are
not observed when a large number of nations are compared
across the world.

In short gun control changes NOTHING but the tool used. Meaning it does nothing. The same number of people die, are hurt or robbed. Or at least within the normal downtrend of crime first world nations have seen overall. As in all crime is going down in all nations and gun laws or not have shown no impact for good or ill.
You keep touting gun deaths like they are all that matters. But what has been shown by this study is that when guns are gone all that happens is that criminals have use new tools and it slows nothing down. So what you are asking for is a feel good law that will change nothing in reality. Sure less people will be killed by guns. But the same amount will not be killed by knives and other tools. That has been the point of my post.

JamesSand wrote:

So rather then focus on the tool when banning one tool does not stop this but just changes the tool used. Should we focus on the ideology of the people committing the attack? Maybe revamping our mental health system? Maybe actually making sure our government does its job rather than failing to report people into the system? Or do we repeat the acts of other nations because yea it might make you feel good but the reality is that it changes nothing?

Wait...what?

So if the "Government" did its job of [strike]rounding up all the loonies[/strike] having complete unrestricted access to, and control over all of its citizens, you feel all would be right with the world?

but of course, you're not interested in the next step of this master plan, which is of course, disarming said citizens....

No, and do not strawman. The recent shooter in Texas had two reasons he could not own a gun legally. He was dishonorably discharged from the military and had domestic violence convictions. The government failed to put these convictions into the NICS database. The government failed to do its job. That is the point. The government can't even do its job now. Expecting it to do better with more laws is foolish.

This is just a photo at the train station of their surveillance office to discourage fare evaders and kids doing graffiti or whatever.

I didn't get a picture of the other poster, but it basically explained they use your ticket-card thing to track your "usual travel patterns" so they'll know if you've been dodging fares or are lying about where you were planning to get off....




The other thing I wanted to share was crime statistics from a nearby town for the last 30 days (population of around 1100, so 89 offences / 1100 people..every month roughly 8% of the people who live there commit a crime. On an annual basis, everyone (statistically) commits 1.2 crimes (or thereabouts) :woohoo: -

Anyway, my point is, this place is a shithole, full of shit people - as long as the worst they can do is punch each other and throw bottles, it is (relatively speaking) a safe place to go.

(as you can see, most people just steal stuff, or are involved in buying/selling it, and occasional hooning in a car)

I'm obviously speculating, but I would wager that were guns readily available, the numbers toward the top of the list would be higher.

Homicide and Related Offences
Murder 0
Other homicide and related offences 0
Acts Intended to Cause Injury
Serious Assault resulting in injury 0
Serious Assault not resulting in injury 1
Common Assault 7
Assault Police 0
Other acts intended to cause injury 0
Robbery and Related Offences
Aggravated robbery 0
Non-aggravated robbery 0
Blackmail and extortion 0
Other Offences Against the Person
Threatening behaviour 0
Dangerous or negligent acts 1
Abduction, harassment and other offences 0
Offences Against Property
Serious Criminal Trespass
SCT - Residence 1
SCT - Non Residence 3
Theft and Related Offences
Theft/Illegal Use of MV 3
Theft from motor vehicle 3
Theft from shop 38
Receive or handle proceeds of crime 8

MadHatter wrote: No, and do not strawman. The recent shooter in Texas had two reasons he could not own a gun legally. He was dishonorably discharged from the military and had domestic violence convictions. The government failed to put these convictions into the NICS database. The government failed to do its job. That is the point. The government can't even do its job now. Expecting it to do better with more laws is foolish.

Government implies process... and wasn't it human error in not following the process which was the problem? I'd argue back at you that it sounds like the system was meant to work!! That the control would have been effective if only the people had been capable to employ it properly. Which goes straight back to the point but from the other direction :pinch:

Adder wrote:

MadHatter wrote: No, and do not strawman. The recent shooter in Texas had two reasons he could not own a gun legally. He was dishonorably discharged from the military and had domestic violence convictions. The government failed to put these convictions into the NICS database. The government failed to do its job. That is the point. The government can't even do its job now. Expecting it to do better with more laws is foolish.

Government implies process... and wasn't it human error in not following the process which was the problem? I'd argue back at you that it sounds like the system was meant to work!! That the control would have been effective if only the people had been capable to employ it properly. Which goes straight back to the point but from the other direction :pinch:

If they cannot properly enforce it now how is more going to help? If I cant manage to lift 150 pounds adding 30 pounds won't make me do any better now will it.

Further, as per the Harvard study, I linked gun controls are USELESS. Crime rate, murder rates, and suicide rates do not change when they are enacted or when more guns are owned. Basically its not the tool that matters which is what I have said from the start.

I'm obviously speculating, but I would wager that were guns readily available, the numbers toward the top of the list would be higher.

Well you would lose that bet according to the study I already linked.

No, and do not strawman. The recent shooter in Texas had two reasons he could not own a gun legally. He was dishonorably discharged from the military and had domestic violence convictions. The government failed to put these convictions into the NICS database. The government failed to do its job. That is the point. The government can't even do its job now. Expecting it to do better with more laws is foolish

I'm not really fussed about that bloke, or any other bloke in Texas - I'm remarking upon your sort of handballing that when things go bad it's because the government didn't have enough control, but the idea of the government enforcing some sort of control over guns (rather than any other aspect of your life) is so distasteful to you.

I get it, you believe guns save lives, except in all the instances when they don't, in which case it's probably the governments fault they didn't have exactly the right rules in those circumstances to control that particular event.

Lets say, hypothetically, that I am the government - It's a helluva lot easier for me to blanket ban something and grant exemptions (that the onus is on the party requesting the exemption to prove and pay for) than to blanket allow something and try to chase up every possible circumstance where it might be a bad idea.


As always (it seems an important qualifier) I'm a gun happy shooter (I was never any good at fishing though), but I rather see the benefit of keeping guns out of most people's hands - if they really want them, they can have them, just do the paperwork and wait....(90..ish days.....there's a wait period for the licence, and a wait period per firearm purchase)

You can say "Yeah, but the real psychos will still get guns, they can stay angry for 90 days no worries" - Maybe, maybe not. That wait period gives my government enough time to "Do their job" and check that the purchaser doesn't have any skeletons in the closet that might bring their suitability for handling firearms into question.

Purchasing and owning firearms aside (because really, it's not that hard as long as you can be arsed, and have a few hundred bucks up your sleeve for the government costs) - CARRYING a gun is a whole diffren' ballgame.

Basically, You Can't.

You can get permits for hunting, or security, or target shooting, or what-have-you - you need to carry the permit on you, and you need to be somewhere where it makes sense (there's not many Deer in Fed Square) - This law, whether you like it or not, means the Government can DO ITS JOB, by basically assuming anyone seen carrying a gun is probably up to no good, and they can straight up arrest that person.

Without that law, the government's job would not be to arrest people for carrying a firearm, and they would have to wait for someone to commit a different crime, lets say homicide, before they could conduct an arrest.

where does this leave us? Well, mostly it leaves me able to enjoy an ice cream in fed square, knowing that there are a bunch of Victoria's finest in bright yellow vests (over their ballistic armour) keeping their sharp eyes out for people they can arrest so that I don't have to worry about being fast on the draw (and getting ice cream all over my shirt)


If your argument is "I don't want the Government having any say what so ever in how I live my life" - That's fine, I can absolutely respect that, so can that bloke in Texas probably. (I rather hope he felt a burst of patriotism or something when another gun owner shot him. I'd like to think he felt that a far better form of justice than "The Man" coming down with black vans and masks....)


What's the line? It's your world holmes.

Well you would lose that bet according to the study I already linked.

Debatable.

Never been to Harvard, couldn't even find it on a map.
Since I'm gambling, I'll double-down and say no one involved in that study could find where I live on a map either.

I couldn't even find the word Australia in the study

Moreover, as someone who makes charts and graphs for fun, something like "Murder vs Rate of Gun Ownership" doesn't inspire much.

You know what is interesting though (cover your ears folks)

Poor people commit more crimes (or what you think of as crimes. White collar crime, as the name suggests, is obviously rampant amongst other social strata), and tend to get more DVOs and such against them, because they're generally stupid, raised by poor, stupid people, and it's a fantastic cycle of lower order "humans" that struggle to understand the concept of condoms.

Ever been to Mt Druitt? Crap hole of the world. Also full of poor people.

Really, we only need to keep guns out of the hands of poor, stupid, people. Which is easy by involving some made up costs and paperwork

Could even just make it a Post Code check - No guns for people in Browns Plains, Mt Druitt, Pt Lincoln, Broadmeadows, or Palmerston (I don't know much about WA or Tasmania, fill in your own Worst Suburb) :woohoo: