Australia’s Bias Driven Laws
The first victim of Firearms Control in Australia was truth. Proponents of the present system usually ignore overall crime rates and disingenuously claim that because it reduces the availability of firearms to the law abiding person that this reduces gun crime and the community is therefore safer. In fact as Don Weatherburn, Director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research accepted “the introduction of those laws did not result in any acceleration of the downward trend in gun homicide”. Gun homicide rates simply fell in line with homicide rates generally. Weatherburn at that time also decried “popular prejudice”. (Australian Gun Laws a Waste of Resources) Anti-gun zealots rarely talk in terms of overall crime rates, instead they use selected statistics, disingenuous talk and twisted logic to serve their purpose.
Biased Former Prime Minister – John Howard
John Howard, the Prime Minister who proposed Australia’s Gun laws subsequently revealed that he was biased against guns when he said; “I hate guns. I don't think people should have guns unless they're police or in the military or in the security industry…”. (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/17/1019020661190.html) Note: See the photo at bottom of this page.
John Howard further showed his ignorance in an opinion piece published in the Melbourne “The Age” Newspaper on 1 August in 2012. He commented on the USA second amendment; “The Second Amendment, crafted in the immediate post-revolutionary years, is more than 200 years old and was designed to protect the right of local communities to raise and maintain militia for use against external threats (including the newly formed national government!).”
In 2008, four years prior to Howard’s statement, the Supreme Court of the United States found in the landmark and much publicised Heller case that the Second Amendment codified an existing individual right. Keep in mind that Howard was by profession a lawyer who should have been aware of the Heller case. Was Howard being dishonest or disingenuous or is he just incompetent in his bias? Below are the words from the US Supreme Court opinion. How could Howard not have known of that? You be the judge.
“Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” (my underlining) (DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al. v. HELLER [554 U. S. 570 (2008) at 592])
The complete judgement of the U.S. Supreme Court in Heller can be seen here.
Howard provided a good example of disingenuous zealotry when he went on to write in that same piece; “These national gun laws have proven beneficial. Research published in 2010 in the American Journal of Law and Economics found that firearm homicides, in Australia, dropped 59 per cent between 1995 and 2006”. How could Howard not have noticed that this very same research paper in the very same paragraph stated that the non-firearm homicide rate also dropped by 59 per cent in the same period? In other words the firearm homicide rate dropped no more than the non-firearm rate thus making a nonsense of Howard's claim. (Leigh & Neill; American Law and Economics Review V12 N2 2010 (509–557) at 518)
Howard also ignored the fact that in the same time period Australia had suffered from non–gun mass killings, they being; Childers Backpacker June 2000 fire 15 dead; Churchill fire February 2009 10 dead; Lin family July 2009 5 dead; Quakers Hill nursing home November 2011 up to 14 deaths.
Australians Vilified for Contrary View
On January 30, 2013, the Al Jazeera English media network produced a program entitled “Can Australia teach the U.S. about gun control?”. Don Weatherburn, Director of the N.S.W. Bureau of Crime Statistics took part in the program. He made it clear that he was “not one who owns a gun or wants to own a gun or supports the gun lobby”. He decried the biased nature of the debate on gun control in Australia. He said; “You tend to be vilified if you offer a contrary view. Some colleagues of mine for example, just statisticians going about their business, came to the conclusion they couldn’t find any evidence the gun buy back worked and I asked them, ‘why aren’t you doing some follow up research on this area’ and they said because they couldn’t stand the criticism. Now, maybe that’s a bit soft skinned but really it’s interesting to see the contrast between the U.S. where you’re vilified for suggesting there ought to be tighter gun controls and Australia where if you stick your head up above the trenches to suggest that the evidence is not clear cut there’s an overwhelming rush of criticism today”. See at the 27.58 minute point of the Youtube video in the following link. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNBF2cD-Bvs)
Hypocritical Newspaper
The Melbourne “The Age” newspaper provides a good example of the corrupt media bias that has hindered honest, evidence based debate on Australia’s gun laws. “The Age” editorial of 6 April 1995 included the statement; “Who, apart from police and farmers, actually needs a gun? This newspaper believes that no guns of any kind should be permitted to be privately owned in metropolitan areas..”. Yet later that year “The Age” advertised for a Security Officer with a pistol licence; (page H3, Employment Section, 23 September 1995).
Firearm Registration Just a Political Tool
In 1986, a Victorian Police College lecture paper prepared by S.W. Waterman for the Inspectors Course No. 51 found that “There can be no doubt that firearm registration is ineffective and that education of the firearm user of paramount importance”. That paper contained a paragraph 109, headed “Political Motives”, it included; “I find conclusively that firearms registration is an exercise in futility. I believe that the present registration system is a Political tool that was implemented in order to fulfill an election promise”. (Click here for a copy of Waterman's Paper)
Ignorant Australian National Broadcaster
The ABC, Australia’s National Broadcaster, ever ready to be part of anti-gun media bias, was forced to make three corrections to firearm matters it erroneously claimed in October, 2015. (http://ssaa.org.au/news-resources/politics/abc-admits-it-got-it-wrong-on-adler-story)
On 6 January 2016 during the ABC TV program, "7.30", after a previous question mentioning "guns used in crime" in the USA, the host asked a further question in which he said, "there are 30,000 deaths from gun-related violence every year". The fact is that the number of gun homicides in the USA per year (2013) is 8,454 and the remainder of the 30,000 are suicides with a small number of accidentals. (https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2009-2013.xls)
Gun control zealots deliberately mislead by quoting the suicide inflated figure to falsely emphasize their case. For many years it has been acknowledged by Australian and international researchers that suicide is unrelated to gun control.
Biased Former Deputy Prime Minister - Tim Fischer
Tim Fischer was Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party at the time the National Firearms Laws were introduced. An example of his biased rhetoric is him saying, “You are 15 times more likely to be shot dead in the USA than in Australia per capita”. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-03/fischer-wants-travel-advice-to-us-changed-over-gun-violence/6997870)
Note that Fischer only quotes shooting deaths and not overall homicide rates. The overall homicide rates as recorded by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime for 2013 are USA 3.8, Australia 1.1 (https://data.unodc.org/#state:0/).
This is a relationship of 3.45 to 1 not the 15 to 1 that the biased Fischer wants people to think.
Biased Former Prime Minister – John Howard
John Howard, the Prime Minister who proposed Australia’s Gun laws subsequently revealed that he was biased against guns when he said; “I hate guns. I don't think people should have guns unless they're police or in the military or in the security industry…”. (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/17/1019020661190.html) Note: See the photo at bottom of this page.
John Howard further showed his ignorance in an opinion piece published in the Melbourne “The Age” Newspaper on 1 August in 2012. He commented on the USA second amendment; “The Second Amendment, crafted in the immediate post-revolutionary years, is more than 200 years old and was designed to protect the right of local communities to raise and maintain militia for use against external threats (including the newly formed national government!).”
In 2008, four years prior to Howard’s statement, the Supreme Court of the United States found in the landmark and much publicised Heller case that the Second Amendment codified an existing individual right. Keep in mind that Howard was by profession a lawyer who should have been aware of the Heller case. Was Howard being dishonest or disingenuous or is he just incompetent in his bias? Below are the words from the US Supreme Court opinion. How could Howard not have known of that? You be the judge.
“Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” (my underlining) (DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al. v. HELLER [554 U. S. 570 (2008) at 592])
The complete judgement of the U.S. Supreme Court in Heller can be seen here.
Howard provided a good example of disingenuous zealotry when he went on to write in that same piece; “These national gun laws have proven beneficial. Research published in 2010 in the American Journal of Law and Economics found that firearm homicides, in Australia, dropped 59 per cent between 1995 and 2006”. How could Howard not have noticed that this very same research paper in the very same paragraph stated that the non-firearm homicide rate also dropped by 59 per cent in the same period? In other words the firearm homicide rate dropped no more than the non-firearm rate thus making a nonsense of Howard's claim. (Leigh & Neill; American Law and Economics Review V12 N2 2010 (509–557) at 518)
Howard also ignored the fact that in the same time period Australia had suffered from non–gun mass killings, they being; Childers Backpacker June 2000 fire 15 dead; Churchill fire February 2009 10 dead; Lin family July 2009 5 dead; Quakers Hill nursing home November 2011 up to 14 deaths.
Australians Vilified for Contrary View
On January 30, 2013, the Al Jazeera English media network produced a program entitled “Can Australia teach the U.S. about gun control?”. Don Weatherburn, Director of the N.S.W. Bureau of Crime Statistics took part in the program. He made it clear that he was “not one who owns a gun or wants to own a gun or supports the gun lobby”. He decried the biased nature of the debate on gun control in Australia. He said; “You tend to be vilified if you offer a contrary view. Some colleagues of mine for example, just statisticians going about their business, came to the conclusion they couldn’t find any evidence the gun buy back worked and I asked them, ‘why aren’t you doing some follow up research on this area’ and they said because they couldn’t stand the criticism. Now, maybe that’s a bit soft skinned but really it’s interesting to see the contrast between the U.S. where you’re vilified for suggesting there ought to be tighter gun controls and Australia where if you stick your head up above the trenches to suggest that the evidence is not clear cut there’s an overwhelming rush of criticism today”. See at the 27.58 minute point of the Youtube video in the following link. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNBF2cD-Bvs)
Hypocritical Newspaper
The Melbourne “The Age” newspaper provides a good example of the corrupt media bias that has hindered honest, evidence based debate on Australia’s gun laws. “The Age” editorial of 6 April 1995 included the statement; “Who, apart from police and farmers, actually needs a gun? This newspaper believes that no guns of any kind should be permitted to be privately owned in metropolitan areas..”. Yet later that year “The Age” advertised for a Security Officer with a pistol licence; (page H3, Employment Section, 23 September 1995).
Firearm Registration Just a Political Tool
In 1986, a Victorian Police College lecture paper prepared by S.W. Waterman for the Inspectors Course No. 51 found that “There can be no doubt that firearm registration is ineffective and that education of the firearm user of paramount importance”. That paper contained a paragraph 109, headed “Political Motives”, it included; “I find conclusively that firearms registration is an exercise in futility. I believe that the present registration system is a Political tool that was implemented in order to fulfill an election promise”. (Click here for a copy of Waterman's Paper)
Ignorant Australian National Broadcaster
The ABC, Australia’s National Broadcaster, ever ready to be part of anti-gun media bias, was forced to make three corrections to firearm matters it erroneously claimed in October, 2015. (http://ssaa.org.au/news-resources/politics/abc-admits-it-got-it-wrong-on-adler-story)
On 6 January 2016 during the ABC TV program, "7.30", after a previous question mentioning "guns used in crime" in the USA, the host asked a further question in which he said, "there are 30,000 deaths from gun-related violence every year". The fact is that the number of gun homicides in the USA per year (2013) is 8,454 and the remainder of the 30,000 are suicides with a small number of accidentals. (https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2009-2013.xls)
Gun control zealots deliberately mislead by quoting the suicide inflated figure to falsely emphasize their case. For many years it has been acknowledged by Australian and international researchers that suicide is unrelated to gun control.
Biased Former Deputy Prime Minister - Tim Fischer
Tim Fischer was Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party at the time the National Firearms Laws were introduced. An example of his biased rhetoric is him saying, “You are 15 times more likely to be shot dead in the USA than in Australia per capita”. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-03/fischer-wants-travel-advice-to-us-changed-over-gun-violence/6997870)
Note that Fischer only quotes shooting deaths and not overall homicide rates. The overall homicide rates as recorded by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime for 2013 are USA 3.8, Australia 1.1 (https://data.unodc.org/#state:0/).
This is a relationship of 3.45 to 1 not the 15 to 1 that the biased Fischer wants people to think.