sundin13 said:
That doesn't really mean too much when the question is more about the rate of decline than the decline itself. If naturally the homicide rate would have dropped to 1.5 and with the firearm ban it dropped to 1.0, that is still a significant change. That is why I am saying that you can't really make any determinations based on the homicide rate alone. There are also certain factors in, for example, the United States which aren't seen in Australia in relation to that drop. The United States had a large peak in crime from about 1970-1990. 1996 in the United States was the middle of a steep drop in homicide rates, which were largely returning to the normal after that large peak. In Australia, homicide rates were steady and fairly low for several decades before the mid '90s, so there wasn't really a spike to come down from. Further, the relative rarity of firearm crime in Australia before the ban makes it a fairly poor comparison point for the United States. That said, I am not arguing that causal factors resulted in this decline, just that looking only at homicide rates will not really prove any point. I should also add that I am not in favor of a policy similar to Australia's gun ban in the USA. I think it would be a significant overreach, and due to the differences in the two countries, I think the only things that it is really useful in showing is that the fear of a criminal haven without guns is likely unrealistic and severely overblown, and that restriction of legal firearms does impact the availability for criminals. |
The other factor that you will notice if you go through that website on the other pages is that Aboriginal homicides bump up our numbers average. Especially in domestic homicides.
Stranger homicides is what we should really be looking at, that is the telling tale if a gun restriction worked. Which in our case it did have an impact.
