Wedderburn was a family murder/suicide (specifically excluded from the definition), Monash and Wright St were 2 vics each (also specifically excluded from the definition). Okay, two in twenty years - the buyback didn't quite get all the weapons obviously - and the perps in Darwin (winter in Australia) and Hectorville were not licensed gun owners, who obtained their guns illegally BEFORE the buyback. Max of 4 vics, as opposed to the massacres that occur weekly in the US - entirely due to the ubiquitousness of firearms, thanks to the second amendment. I actually don't know that there's a solution in America. Guns are so much a part of everyday life .
Wedderborn the victims were a family but the perp was not a member of that family.
The one with 2 deaths had 5 injuried...counts in my book. (We can not count if you want) So does US get to not count ours if the gun purchase was illegal? And no we do not have a weekly mass shooting.
And again, mass killings by gun decreased. But you have many mass stabbings. Same with suicides rate is higher than now. But instead of a gun the method changed....hanging is prerfered method.
Suicide is another irrelevant statistic, their increase having nothing to do with guns or the lack of them. Check the locations - almost entirely rural. Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in recorded history (despite your orange god's assurances that global warming is a Chinese hoax). Many farmers haven't been able to plant or harvest a crop for five years, they've culled the livestock that were too unthrifty to sell because there's no fodder - and no improvement in sight. The bank has just foreclosed on them and there's nothing left ...
True. But not irrelevant. Suicide prevention is often used as a reason to take law abiding citizens firearms.
Are we switching to climate change? You want to battle man made climate change....the go after China and India. They are the worst polluters. The rest of the world can get to zero carbon and if China and India do nothing....it will do nothing but crush economies. So that is not a Trump issue. So go after the problem.
China is already beginning to recognise that it must act on climate change. Its first efforts have been fairly minor - cars may only drive each alternate day in Beijing.
India is still in the grip of fighting over the issue. Some areas are starting to convert to renewable power on an absolutely prodigal scale - often with interconnected community solar rooftops. But in other areas, big businesses like Adani are still building massive new coal-powered electricity plants for ports and industrial areas.
India and China are both lagging, but they will catch up. They are already beginning to see the effects of climate change affecting their populations on vast scales. They have no choice.
On our parts, there is no moral excuse for saying we can't act unless everyone else does.
We have acted and continue to act. But we should not be do things that will destroy our economy. That will not help. If we do not have the financial ability to choice a better environmental product. When one is poor....one tends only choose by cost. And we loose what gains we have made.
Fair points, my2cents Although moving out of fossil fuels will create some inconveniences and hiccups due to human errors, there is no reason why it should create any economic hardship. For workers in the fossil fuel industries, there will be as many or more jobs in renewables. While it is difficult for the poor to transition to solar energy now, the costs are coming down dramatically and rapidly. They are already at a level where the average worker can afford to install solar power and immediately benefit from lower electricity bill, or none at all if they go off-grid. Solar thermal - which the USA already has a lot of - can supply power to industry far more cheaply than any fossil fuel. This lowers the cost of production and increases productivity. For too long people have seen going green as a threat. The truth is it's a life saving and creative opportunity.
This post was edited by inky at December 11, 2019 7:23 PM MST
That argument is not used by the pro-gun lobby in Australia. Farmers are among the people most easily granted licences because they must be able to put injured animals quickly out of their misery. But also, if a person wants to die, there are countless ways to do it without needing a gun.
However, after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, our government (right-wind at the time) did act quickly to impose very strong restrictions on gun licences and the types of guns permitted. It used a voluntary-gun-buy-back scheme to collect up and destroy as many weapons as possible and almost the entire nation contributed. People argued that criminals would still manage to smuggle in arms and they'd only end up in the hands of those most likely to offend. But it didn't turn out that way. Our border patrols are tight. Terrible incidents do still occur, but statistically, there was a significant drop in the rate of gun deaths across the country. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) indicates the rate of suicide by firearm fell by 67 per cent from 2.1 deaths per 100,000 of the population in 1996 to 0.7 deaths in 2014. The Australian Institute of Criminology reported that homicides from gunshot wounds fell from 0.5 per 100,000 people in 1990 to 0.18 in 2012. Recent relaxing of the laws has seen corresponding increases in deaths caused by gunshot.
This post was edited by inky at December 11, 2019 2:28 AM MST
I can not speak as it if AU used it as an anti-gun talking point or not. But I know they use it in the US and even quote the exact stat you just did as of to back themselves up. Of course suicide by firearm went down. But the fact that the suicide rate increased moots that point. The method is the onlt thing that changed.
I do have to disagree with the term "voluntary buy back"....it was not voluntary. The laws made the firearms illegal so it was a "mandatory sell off" to the government.
This post was edited by my2cents at December 7, 2019 7:19 AM MST
my2cents 