As they took the guns away what limited info we have showed that legislation prevents it ever happening again*

Using planes to crash into building will remain an anomaly as well as they changed the law to make sure it never happens again – though of course this will have no effect / insert creative yet tenous straw man / non sequitor here and then say cars kill more people

* Just playing the game of murdering to death an extreme view no one really holds and then proving my logic is awesome…that is what we are doing ?

I understand the Australian gun law of 1996 also prevents deaths due to tigers and lions. If only they had such laws in Asia and Africa.

Do I need to point out that is a strawman?

You like your straw men but was it not you that has banged on about road deaths yet introduce your straw man when it suits.

In the 9 years to 1996 there was an average of 86 gun deaths a year.

In the 9 years from 1997 there was an average of 47 guns deaths a year.

54% reduction.

54% reduction.

Er, no.

Sorry, 46% reduction.

OK, so take out 1996 which was anomalous, with something which had never occurred in the previous 200 years of Australian history and what do you get? How about the 5 years either side of 1996?

introduce your straw man when it suits.

I introduce my straw man when somebody else does.

I introduce my straw man when somebody else does.

Ah well there you go I believe you are the only one to use it in this thread?

Removing 1996

2001: 47
2000: 57
1999: 50
1998: 57
1997: 79

1995: 67
1994: 76
1993: 64
1992: 96
1991: 84

You still have a quarter less gun homicides. Do you want to remove 1992 as that looks a little high and everything after 1997 as they are a little low?

It appears you don’t need a gun to have a massacre.

Nope, but it certainly helps. Otherwise our military would still be fighting wars with sharpened sticks.

Ah well there you go I believe you are the only one to use it in this thread?

A strawman? Well there was this one:

I guess they need to sort out their traffic issues, drugs, falling pianos, industrial accidents before they actually get around to this?

You still have a quarter less gun homicides.

So not 50% then? Can we stop now? I refer you to iwb’s paper above which talks about standard errors and con?dence intervals if you want to get an idea of how accurate any estimate is.

No not 50% however still rather significant with your selective data sets.

I guess they need to sort out their traffic issues, drugs, falling pianos, industrial accidents before they actually get around to this?

Was in response to your banging on about road accidents therefore would that not make it your very own straw man.

Are you guys interested in arguing proper stats or bullshit?

Was in response to your banging on about road accidents therefore would that not make it your very own straw man.

Er, no, because I didn’t mention pianos or industrial accidents. I mean I even gave an explanation when I first pointed out that was a strawman.

I’m quite happy to argue proper stats, iwb, if everybody else can stop with introducing spurious ones.

You just as well have

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuxSl_4yLz4[/video]

I’m quite happy to argue proper stats, iwb, if everybody else can stop with introducing spurious ones like the actual number who actually died

FTFY

Well have any of you actually bothered to look at the journal articles me and aracer have posted, they don’t entirely agree with one another but the statistics are a far cry from being a cut and dry issue.

So I’m going to side with Aracer here, I don’t think he had made his points in the best of fashions but you guys are bordering on being dicks here – mobbing him for his opinions instead of making reasoned debate.

I think a far more interesting conversation would be “What else apart from legislation has led to a decrease in gun related deaths”. I have a hunch that would lead to more philosophical, sociological and psychological introspection into the kind of world we want to live in.

I’ll make my thoughts about this subject clear in a couple of days, right now I’m preparing for an exam and applying for a space physiology course (I decided I want to be blasted at escape velocity towards Mars so I can escape this shit) so I have better things to be doing.

I read your link and the conclusion was pretty clear tbh as to what it found and the more guns handed in the greater it fell. *

I dont think anyone thinks banning guns stops it but it would seem [rather obvious and backed up] that freely available guns does tend to make it worse.

As for guns the best line i heard was americas relationship to guns is like our relationship to booze. – others have higher rates but nothing like our problems so there is more to it than numbers and clearly some psychology or socio economic or cultural factor is at play.

* given how many pages it was i would be surprised if you read it all as I skimmed it – I commented on the article as well iirc.

1994. No one died.
1995. No one died.
1996. No one died.
1997. No one died.
1998. Someone died.