>Hmmm. Let's see. For the 25 years preceeding Australia's gun
>confiscation, gun homicide was declining. In 1997, the first year
>after confiscation of 640,381 personal firearms at a cost to taxpayers
>of $500M, we see:
>
>- Homicide is up 3.2%
Homocides does not necessarily equal firearm homicides.
>- Assaults are up 8.6%
Irrelevant. How many assaults are committed with firearms?
>- Armed-robberies are up 44% (!!!)
Irrelevant. Armed robbery includes knives and almost any other form of weapon. How many were with firearms? How does this compare to the years preceeding?
>- Unarmed-robberies are up 21%
>- Unlawful entries are up 3.9%
>- Motor vehicle thefts are up 6.1%
Unless you're seriously saying that large numbers of firearms in our community would have lowered these rates of crime (and have something vaguely resembling statistical evidence to back this up) then gun ownership has nothing to do with rates of crime. Al of the statistics you've given are completely meaningless. One would need to analyse these results over a few years, and then exclude any other factors, before it could be determined whether gun ownership has any relationship between rates of crime in Australia.
>Data from Victoria are particular "frightening":
>
>- Firearm homicides are up 300%
This is actually partially relevant. What other factors were affecting firearm homicides in Victoria?
Alister