Do Gun Bans Reduce Violent Crime? Ask the Aussies and Brits BY GLEN TSCHIRGI 3 years, 5 months ago (H/T Instapundit) Nothing original to add here, but this posting I picked up from Instapundit is well worth passing along, particularly in light of the typical, knee-jerk, Statist reactions to the horrific Aurora CO shootings:
Actually, if the Australian Bureau of Criminology can be believed, Americans would be insane to concern themselves with what non-Americans think about American gun rights.
In 2002 — five years after enacting its gun ban — the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent), says the D.C. Examiner.
Even Australia’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:
In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent. Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent. Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
Moreover, Australia and the United States — where no gun-ban exists — both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:
Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America’s rate dropped 31.7 percent. During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent. Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent. Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent. At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent. Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.
So, if the USA follows Australia’s lead in banning guns, it should expect a 42 percent increase in violent crime, a higher percentage of murders committed with a gun, and three times more rape. One wonders if Freddy even bothered to look up the relative crime statistics.
The International Crime Victims Survey, conducted by Leiden University in Holland, found that England and Wales ranked second overall in violent crime among industrialized nations. Twenty-six percent of English citizens — roughly one-quarter of the population — have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized. The United States didn’t even make the “top 10" list of industrialized nations whose citizens were victimized by crime.
Now all this statistical and factual information isn’t going to mean anything to Lefty’s and Statists, but it is always good to know that reality backs up the conservative position on gun rights and the 2nd Amendment.
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