GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, OR DO THEY?

[Blindgreed1]

You'd think the Australian papers would be less interested in lecturing America, and more interested in addressing Islamic extremists shooting up police stations.

One 15 year old kid was given one, yes one, handgun by somebody yet to be determined and managed to shoot one guy out the front of a police station.

I'd say we're still winning the whole gun argument.

Just a further to this, it's come out in the press here this morning that the cell who brainwashed and armed this kid had been trying to source weapons since March this year and had hoped to get some kind of semi-automatic rifle. The best they could do was one handgun in six months.

I say we're still winning on guns.

Winning? Here are the stats: 354 homicides in Australia in 1996 when guns were banned. In 1999 there were 385 homicides. At last count (2007) homicides were down to 282, but over that 11 year period the numbers rose and fell consistently averaging about the same rate of homicides as those prior to the ban. I realize that we live in a world where mediocrity is often celebrated, but I personally don't call that winning. It's closer to standardization of homicide numbers without guns in the picture