Continued from yesterday’s posting.

Let’s look at what the Australian Buyback achieved.

If weapons were outlawed and collected in 1996 we should immediately see a reduction in homicides by firearms in 1997.  Right?

Here’s the data

As you can see firearms homicide rate didn’t change in 1997 after the restrictions went into effect.  The big spike labeled “Port Arthur” is the event in Tasmania which spurred the “buyback”.   The authors of the study conclude, “The graph suggests that the Port Arthur Incident was an isolated event with no impact on the longterm behaviour of firearm-related homicide“.  Hmmmm?  I imagine you feel much safer with the FACT that firearms homicides went, well unchanged.  The authors go on to say that firearm homicides showed a “weak downward trend” PRIOR to the “buyback”  Further they say, “This raises the issue as to whether more recent behaviour is part of a longterm cycle rather than being the result of short-term influences“.  In simpler terms,

“Oops, perhaps banning guns doesn’t have any appreciable effect.”

Let’s put this in a broader perspective.  What effect did taking away guns do to homicide rate in general?

Here’s more data

Do you see a large reduction in 1997?  The overall homicide rate was  unchanged immediately after the ban, as expected.  Four years after the “buyback”, in 2001, there was a huge uptick in homicides.  Feel safer now?  The graph indicates that there has been a downward trend in homicides both before and after the ban, which means that there is NO CONCLUSIVE correlation between the homicide rate and the gun buyback.  As in the US, there are more homicides with knives than with firearms.  There are also more homicides by bludgeoning than with the use of firearms.  Always has been the case.

Let’s look at another and the LARGEST class of firearms related deaths, suicide.  Let me state that suicide is a tragedy.  I’m not making light of it here.  Personally I have known four friends that killed themselves with firearms.  The unfortunate fact is that suicide is the MAJORITY of firearms deaths.  In the US most firearms related deaths are suicides.  In Australia, firearms suicides make up an even greater percentage of firearms deaths than the US.

Here’s more data from Australia

The suicide rate is has shown a steady increase in the past 10 years. There are news headlines that suicides were at their highest rate. And what happened right after the “buyback” to the suicide rate?

There was a slight decline in firearms related suicides, BUT overall suicides SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED.   Firearm suicides, just like homicides, were on a downward trend prior to the “buyback”, while the overall rate was increasing.  Tell me again how lives were saved by the “buyback”?

The researchers behind the data seem reluctant to explain what happened.  The report waffles and says, “… there may be evidence
of substitution in means used to commit suicide“.  WTF?  “There MAY be evidence”?  That deserves a “No shit, Sherlock“.  Increasing of deaths by other means is ignored because it doesn’t fit the “good news” narrative of the effect of banning firearms.  Once more, how many lives have been saved?

Let’s look at one more FACT.  Armed robberies.  Obviously, “common sense” says we should see a decline in armed robberies once firearms are confiscated, right?  Well that’s wrong.

And yet more data

There was a downward trend in firearms used in robberies PRIOR to and continuing downward after the “buyback”.  Tell me again how the buyback helped?  Well the bad news is that ARMED ROBBERIES INCREASED after the “buyback”.  Armed robberies were on an upward trend after the “buyback”.  Do you feel safer without those evil firearms?

The liberal left touts that Australia hasn’t had a “mass shooting” since the great confiscation.  That’s actually not true. There were at least 4 that I can find since the ban.  What if we look at “mass homicides” after the ban?  The numbers stay ugly.  We have all sorts of mass homicides.  Killing by knives, bludgeonings with blunt objects, and a new form, mass homicide by arson.  There were many “mass homicides” by burning down buildings with occupants inside, post “buyback”.  And then we have the terrorist who drove a vehicle into a mall last year killing 6 and injuring more than 30 others.  All this after the “buyback”.  Feel safer when you can’t fight back?

The unfortunate reality is that “Common sense” in liberal-speak means, “Ignore the FACTS”.

The following were used as reference for this entry.  You can click on the links if you want to read them for yourself.

tandi116  No. 116, “Firearm-related Violence: The Impact of the Nationwide Agreement on Firearms”, Jenny Mouzos; Australia Institute of Criminology

sr002  AIC reports Statistical report 02, “Homicide in Australia 2012–13 to 2013–14: National Homicide Monitoring Program report”,  Willow Bryant and Samantha Bricknell; Australia Institute of Criminology

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by+Subject/3303.0~2016~Main+Features~Intentional+self-harm:+key+characteristics~7

Here is yet another reason I despise the trickery of the Left.

They have coined the term “Common Sense (fill in the blank)“. Right now they are screaming that “everyone” wants “common sense gun control“. Disagree and you are not part of the “everyone”.  If you are opposed to their agenda, obviously you lack “common sense” and are summarily dismissed as just another screwball who is “bitter and clings to guns and religion“, as noted by Senator Barack Obama in 2008. That all said, what exactly is “common sense”?

Well banning weapons that are SCARY LOOKING is obviously “common sense”. The other “common sense” measure bandied about is a “Voluntary”  Australian-like buyback program. Hillybob said during her FAILED campaign that “we” need to seriously look at an Australian buyback program.  Of course we will all line up to “voluntarily” hand over all of our firearms, Second Amendment be damned.

Once again let’s roll the tape and see just what such a measure would accomplish. BE FOREWARNED, the Commies will never give you these FACTS.

In 1996 and 2003 the Australian government instituted a “National Firearms Buyback Program” where they compensated people to turn in, under force of law, their firearms. The program was MANDATORY because they changed their firearms ownership laws, just like they want to do here. To be clear, this was not a “voluntary” program.  They didn’t say “Come on down, mate and we’ll give you some money for the firearms that you don’t want anymore”.  It was give us your guns, take the money, and be happy we didn’t lock you up.

“MILITARY STYLE” weapons were a class of banned firearms. They also outlawed all long guns, most rimfire rifles, most semiautomatic weapons, pump shotguns, most handguns including revolvers, and a host of other types. The buyback program cost the Australian taxpayer about $800.00 per gun confiscated in 1997. Let’s do the numbers, folks.  With inflation you’re talking almost double that amount in today’s dollars. The Washington Post keeps saying there are 357,000,000 guns in the US. When we update the $800.00 for the cost of inflation we will need to payout $1251.00 per gun to confiscate them. That would be almost HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS to buy them back.

You can read one of my previous post HERE and you’ll see that’s about what we allocate for all of MEDICAID.  So we just need another Medicaid sized debt expenditure.

HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS is peanuts, for those commie who have corned the market on all “common sense“.   All the devoted Pelosi-ites, Schumerites, Bernites, and Hillybobites hated the “crumbs” tax cuts.  Just raise taxes.  All American love to pay more taxes for good “progressive” causes.  Think of the children.  Makes “common sense” to me.

But that’s not what I came here to write about. I will present a few more facts, tomorrow, about the “Australian Buyback” and how it makes such wonderful LIBERAL “common sense”, if there is such a thing.