A question for Autrailians from a curious American Mate

Do we really want our Police to have to treat every incident as a potential mass shooting? Think about how they behave now if they think guns are involved, and then realize that is how they'd have to behave all the time. It's why so many US folk 'think' their government is out to get them, because they are too daft to realize the Police 'need' to have a firepower advantage to tackle crime because they need to end things fast, and most usually breach defended sites with all its inherent risks.

Ok then. Why do Australian police carry guns, and the police in the UK don't?

 

More foreign reports. Were is your Australian data? You are continuing to spout the deceitful misdirection of the anti gun lobby. Number one, Port Arthur was an anomaly, there was nothing like it before so seeing nothing like it afterwards is just a continuation of normality, nothing to do with any gun laws. The anti gun lobby try to pretend that because we have not had another Port Arthur style shooting the gun laws have prevented it, this is false reasoning. The anti gun nuts go on about 'gun crime' and 'gun deaths'. Their prattle about these subjects is deliberately deceitful for two reasons, they do not put their spiel in context with ALL crime or violent crime and ALL deaths or homicides and they do not acknowledge the fact that these crimes had already been falling for decades before the introduction of gun laws in Australia.
Don't get me wrong, I do agree with some aspects of Howards gun laws, it just that the pollies went completely overboard on this one.

 

I gave you something better - a meta-analysis of data across countries. When you do that you reduce external factors such as government programs to address suicide

Sorry old chap you lose

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Ferals

Don't know the rate of feral dogs in the UK but here quite a few discharges of police weapons are out of control dogs known to have bitten more than one person

 

Sorry old girl but you have failed to provide any substantiation of the Australian 1996 gun laws achieving anything meaningful in Australia.

 

But I did - my second paper was Australian - however I stand on the fact that an international longitudinal study beats any study from a single nation

Now since you have not bothered to supply counter research or information other than "I don't think so" I refuse to supply further research

 

Here are the actual figures for Australia.
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/australia

You will note that not one list of statistics supports the contention that the gun laws did anything in Australia. Every measure apart from suicide was falling long before we got the gun laws and continued falling after the gun laws. Total suicides have actually risen since 1996 while gun suicides have been steadily declining since 1988 (as far back as the stats we are given) and you will see there has been little change in the number of gun suicides since 2003. Percentage of homicides committed with a gun is an interesting one, it rose after 1996 then dropped for a few years and then rose again back to 1995 levels in 2010, 11 and 12.

 

Brains? Weapons come in all shapes and sizes, a handgun is the most versatile device for the upper end of mainstream policing. In the US it just includes a likelihood of assault rifles as well the hugely higher amount of handguns.

 

You still didn't answer the question sufficiently. Why do Australian police carry guns, and the police in the UK don't? Can you demonstrate any evidence that Australian police are more likely to encounter hostile activities and situation; whereby they need to protect themselves using guns, but the UK police are not?

Can you point to the specific section in the Australian constitution, where say's, Australian police are allowed carry weapon and use those weapons against their own citizens? I have read the Constitution, and I cannot find it anywhere.

Therefore, changing the law, to change the fundamental demographics and "meaning" of the Australian Constitution, should have been done via a citizens referendum.

 

Why would it have to be in the Constitution.... anyway, it's not based on a difference in threat. It's just a different country made different decisions.

It's pretty evident that a handgun is an effective choice of last resort to respond to the widest range of likely threats. If you've got a ice'd up nutjob charging around swinging a machete and brushing off tasers, the police officer needs something to protect themselves - else we'll have the situation like in the UK were you get officers being stabbed and shot to death with no counter. The real question is why doesn't the UK arm its officers with handguns!?

 

Not to be intimidating to criminals ?

 

Doctor Who,

The average Australian gives little thought to gun control because for the most part we don't have much of a problem. The number of people killed by guns in Australia each year sits in a range between about 25 & 50. This has been the case since the early 2000s. Over the previous 20 years the average was double that. There isn't much of an issue.

Historically firearms ownership has never been high in Australia and it has been steadily dropping for over 40 years (along with the proportion of homicides committed by guns). I don't have an exact figure, but I'm pretty sure under 10% of households have a gun - I think it is closer to 5%. Support for our restrictive laws is very high, and the gun lobby (we have one, funded in part from the US) has been reduced to tinkering on the edges when no none is looking. People here generally feel safe without one.

I'll use myself as an example. I have lived most of my life in 2 places. One was a rural city - about 40,000 people. Very white, very suburban/semi-rural (I could see farms from my bedroom), the sort of place people think of as 'safe'. Firearms ownership in the rural area was much higher. Numerous friends, family & neighbours owned guns and went shooting (and probably still do). During my 6 years of High School I can think of at least 3 occasions where there were shootings or similar within 100 meters of the school - one fatal (bloke shot his wife as she ran from the house with their child). For the past 25 years I have lived in a primarily non-white inner city area close to the middle of Melbourne. Out my back window I can see 'the projects' - giant housing projects. Twice a day I walk past one of the busiest open drug markets in the city. I know half the dealers & users by sight. People shoot up drugs in the laneway behind my house & in cars parked out the front. In America this would be a 'no go' area (I have a little experience of this). In those 25 years there have been maybe one or two shooting incidents, only one fatal (and that was indoors). I actually feel safer here than I did in the country.

A person such as you describe in your post could most certainly own a gun in Australia. The number of guns & the type would be heavily restricted, however, and the process would not be easy. Most of us are very happy with that.

 

Not sure what the Constitution has to do with this. We aren't the USA & we don't use the Constitution in the same way they do. Different system & not relevant to the discussion. Legislation & legal precedent are much more important (for example, abortion has effectively been legal in Victoria since the Menhennitt ruling in 1969, but was still illegal according to statute until 200.

As for why British police don't carry & ours do - different history. Firearms have historically been more widespread in Australia than the UK. Police forces here weren't originally armed, or at least not routinely. It wasn't until the 70s in most jurisdictions & even the 90s in some that it became routine for police to carry weapons on duty. As this period corresponded with higher percentages of firearms ownership & firearms homicides I suspect there was a link. I believe State Police forces sometimes lobbied Governments to allow them to carry more routinely. The paper below has some information:

http://crg.aic.gov.au/reports/sarre.pdf

I'm not sure what the point of comparing with the UK is, but Australia has higher rates of murder & I think violent crime. That isn't necessarily the reason why our police are armed, however.

 

Perhaps, but those who need a handgun drawn against are probably not very rational to begin with. It's hard enough to get it through peoples heads to not resist arrest, let alone don't attack a police officer, so there are always going to be the looney bins who will act violently and the officer needs to protect themselves, their partner and the public.

 

Then there are the time's it is only against knives. I remember once when it was 4 to 1, but all 4 police got to have a shot.

 

They all probably reacted at the same trigger. It's what the training is for. If it were 2, and one had a misfire, then you can see why they operate their weapons according to danger being presented, rather then some unrealistic retrospective ideal example of force minimization.

 

All 3 guns misfired at the same time? What are the odds of that happening - a billion to one?

Stop trying to defend the indefensible. You know cops stomp about thinking their shyte doesn't stink, and this GOD like power comes form them wearing guns, with them having the power of life and death over ordinary citizens.

 

Your clearly didn't understand my point. I don't know how to dumb it down any further so I'll just have to leave you hanging I guess... sorry.

 

1. There are various, usually onerous ways for you to get a firearm. You can go to a club, be an active member for 6 months, join the SSAA, and pay a lot of money for a sporting license - that gets you an O/U shotgun, bolt action rifle, or semi automatic handgun. Your gun can only be transported to and from the range and toy have to buy a safe that fits their standard, with a separate locking mechanism for ammunition. No semi auto or pump action rifles or shotguns under any circumstances.

You can also get an open license for varmint hunting on private property. 28 day wait, signed permission from someone with a lot of rural land. You can only get rifles and shotguns this way.

No hunting on public land in my state.

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2. I am very much so opposed to it. I support concealed carry permits, licenses for automatic rifles, hunting in state and national parks, and the abolition of the WA police firearms branch. Deregulate ammunition.

 

I always wonder, in America, there is a growing segment of the population that commits most of the crimes, sells illegal drugs, have long criminal records, yet, advocates of gun control have no other way of dealing with those criminals than to further restrict the people that do obey The law ?

 

The US is a lost cause in regards to gun control... there is just too many already in circulation both legal and illegal. The suburban arms race has seen the legal common long rifle to now be a semi-auto assault rifle!!

It's the only reason the US Police have become paramilitary. All the nutters in the US blame conspiracy theories of government control, but its just simply that the Police have to have a firepower and protection advantage over the firepower on the street.

You don't solve the problem by increasing the lethality of the legal weapons, because that just drives the lethality of the illegal ones up as well, while increasing the baseline lethality of the legal weapons to be stolen by criminals who cannot access illegal weapons.

All the US can do is increase the protection available to government and public facilities and services, and support affordable protection solutions, so defensive options become realistic in protecting oneself from armed crime instead of making people believe they can shoot their way out of it.

 

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And there in reference to American policy, you are mostly wrong, in England, way before America, there was a so called Gun culture, the NRA was invented by England as well as shooting sports and organized hunting.

It took a long time for America's Police to transition from 6 shot revolvers to semiautomatic handguns, I was originally issued a S&W model 10 service revolver, 4 inch barrel, .38 special caliber, no magnums allowed.

The Police demand for increased firepower was not due to increased threat, only a perception, in NYC, the transition was to issue Glock and other semiautomatic handguns to replace the in service revolvers, the rank & file Officer not having access to long arms other than a patrol shotgun, a Remington 870 loaded with 00 shot.

As far as people shooting it out, accounts from all over the U.S. prove civilians to excel at protecting themselves, with few exceptions.

 

I don't think about our gun laws, and I have no desire to own a gun (although I could if I wanted to).

 

It would seem perhaps, the definition of a gun may vary, to some, a gun is a stick of wood you put up in a locked cabinet or safe, basically useless.

To me a gun = a holstered service sidearm, an accessible shotgun and or rifle.

I have hunted from an early age, rode a horse to hunts, doves, quail, guinea hens on sugar plantations, with shotguns, a holstered revolver.

 

Ziggy is simply reflecting a common Australian attitude to guns - something not to think about. We might want a gun to go shooting feral pigs and wildlife but most of us could not be bothered. Certainly none of us want a society where you feel the need to be armed whilst in the toilet

 

If you are at toilet, you may have other more pressing concerns.