Australia: More violent crime despite gun ban

It is a common fantasy that gun bans make society safer. In 2002 – five years after enacting its gun ban – the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. In fact, the per cent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 per cent), says the D.C. Examiner.

Even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:

In 2006, assault rose 49.2 per cent and robbery 6.2 per cent.

Sexual assault – Australia's equivalent term for rape – increased 29.9 per cent.

Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 per cent.

Moreover, Australia and the United States – where no gun-ban exists – both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:

Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 per cent decrease; without a gun ban, America's rate dropped 31.7 per cent.

During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 per cent and robbery 6.2 per cent.

At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.

Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

While this doesn't prove that more guns would impact crime rates, it does prove that gun control is a flawed policy. Furthermore, this highlights the most important point: gun banners promote failed policy regardless of the consequences to the people who must live with them, says the Examiner.

Source: Howard Nemerov, Australia experiencing more violent crime despite gun ban, D.C. Examiner, April 8, 2009.

For text: http://www.examiner.com/x-2879-Austin-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m4d8-Australia-experiencing-more-violent-crime-despite-gun-ban

For more on Regulatory Issues: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=38

FMF Policy Bulletin/ 21 April 2009