I am sympathetic to gun control but is it possible that the falling homicide rates in Australia are just part of the general world-wide fall in crime?
Well, you don’t have to buy them back, but providing a collection and disposal is kinda important if you don’t want to inadvertently make a bunch of felons.
But the point is that the laws making the weapons illegal was far more instrumental in controlling the situation, versus a gun buy-back program without the accompanying laws. Of course that’s harder to compare, since we don’t have a case of Australia implementing the same buy-back sans laws. American buy-backs sans laws aren’t very effective, according the the article.
Perhaps this article explains the reduction in violent crime better than buy-backs. Australia has the advantage in that their gov’t can ban a type of gun, so buy-backs would appear to be more effective. The problem in the USA is that these guns are lawful to own and possess (and to transport).
From Wikipedia: “Two-thirds of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. are suicides. In 2010, there were 19,392 firearm-related suicides, and 11,078 firearm-related homicides in the U.S.” I think that it would be cheaper and far more effective to just establish a proper mental health care system in the USA than it would be to even try and pass gun-control legislation.
It certainly could be.
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What defines a mass shooting? Has this definition stayed constant over this period?
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When you say one per year, do you mean there was literally a very steady rate of one per year, or were there 3 this year, 0 for the next few years, 2 this year, etc, making it much more clumpy and inconsistent than you suggest?
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In a country of over 20 million people, one crime per year is the tiniest statistical blip. Would it be that surprising if such a tiny drizzle just happened to stop?
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Assuming this change was brought about by policy, are there bigger policy changes than the gun buyback programs? Stricter enforcement of gun laws, greater access to mental health care, more restriction on who can own or buy guns, that sort of thing?
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If it really is a consistent 1 per year trickle as you suggest, then you assume that we should’ve had 18 new killers over the last 18 years. Do you think that every one of them, 18 for 18, happened to think selling their guns to the state was a good idea thereby preventing their crime? That seems like a bigger coincidence.
IIRC, most of these buybacks only offer $50 to $100 per gun. This average household that wants to sell a gun could do much better by selling it at a gun show or the local Ad Pad or equivalent. The stories I’ve heard are that most of the guns that are turned in for the $50 are rusted out hunks of crap that no longer function.
Even worse, most of these buybacks are “no questions asked.” What a wonderful way to get rid of a gun just used to commit a murder. The police are complicit in helping me conceal evidence.
Yes, the idea seems to be that getting the guns off the street is more important than knowing anything about where the gun came from, how you acquired it, etc. They don’t want to discourage gun buybacks, so they don’t ask questions.
Theoretically, they could at least do a ballistics test and record on each gun before shipping them for disposal. At least the functional ones. I realize the nonfunctional ones they get wouldn’t be very good at that. Practically, that’s going to cost a lot of money, mostly in time for workers to do the data collection and management.
This is certainly an instance where evaluating the actual effectiveness of gun buybacks might be useful to evaluate whether that policy is worthwhile. But who is going to do that?
Also, jtgain, per bolded word, how many felonies are you covering up? Oh, better not answer that. 