Australia

Say Uncle suggests that I am "anti-gun" and implies that I "favor more gun control in the US". I am not "anti-gun". Here is a picture of me (on left) with a gun. Unless you think that Lott is some sort of gun, criticizing him is not being "anti-gun". Nor do I favour more gun control in the US. I have never written anything saying what I think the laws in the US should be---I don't think that is any of my business. As for Australia, I felt that the laws before 1996 were about right and I do not think that the 1996 laws were a good idea. (Not that there is the slightest scrap of merit to…
Ross Wilmoth writes: Thanks for the stats Tim. Do you think that the reduction between the 1975 and 1989 surveys could be due to them being either side of the registration legislation? In 1975 it wasn't illegal to own a gun so long as you were licenced (in states which had licencing) but in 1989 Victoria at least had registration and so people with unregistered guns may have kept quiet about it. Of course those "few quiet ones" would be illegal but do you think it's the reason for the difference? Unlikely. Victoria has only about 1/4 of the population, so a change there won't affect…
Mark Addinall writes: Tim Lambert writes: 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. I have graph 1. 18" from my hose and I'm sure that bar 1. is less than 1.5 million. The thing's right in front of you and you STILL can't read it correctly. Sad. Graph 1 shows the firearms homicide rate AND an estimate of the numbers of firearms owned. It has two scales,…
"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…