"Stephen Heyer" writes:
When confronted with the fact that "In the last 16 years the number of guns
owned in Australia has quadrupled. The number of firearm deaths have
dropped by 46% in that period and guns are being used less in crime."
What bothers me is that this bogus "fact" has been repeated several
times and nobody has noticed how wildly incorrect it is.
I looked in the reference you cite: "How Firearm Crime is Declining"
It claims that the number of firearms owned in Australia has increased
from about 2.5 million to about 4 million (Graph 1). I do not believe
that "quadrupled" is the appropriate way to describe this increase.
In any case, the number of guns around is not a measure of the rate of
lawful gun ownership. As far as gun ownership rates go this appears
to have declined along with the firearm homicide rate. According to
the 1975 General Social Survey 25% of Australian households possessed
firearms, while the 1989 International Crime Survey got a figure of
20%. It doesn't necessarily follow that the decline in gun ownership
caused the decline in gun homicides, put it's certainly possible.
With the exception of the most psychopathic, people automatically adjust
their level of force so that they achieve their desired outcome with
whatever means they use. If they do not intend to kill, and are using a
gun, then they will be careful not to kill with the gun. If they intend to
kill, and only have a knife, they will just try a bit harder.
Really? So how come assaults with large calibre guns have larger
fatality rates than with assaults with small calibre guns? Are you
seriously suggesting that someone who shoots someone with a 22
believes that it has no chance of killing?