Here’s the deal with the Australian gun control law that Obama is talking about

[SecularMotion]

In an interview with comedian Marc Maron that aired Monday, President Obama cited Australia's gun laws as an example the United States should follow. Australia established strict gun control in response to a massacre in Tasmania that left 35 people dead in 1996. Since then, Australia hasn't witnessed any mass shootings.

So what have the Australian laws actually done for homicide and suicide rates? Howard cited a study by Andrew Leigh of Australian National University and Christine Neill of Wilfrid Laurier University finding that the firearm homicide rate fell by 59 percent, and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent, in the decade after the law was introduced, without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicides. That provided strong circumstantial evidence for the law's effectiveness.

The paper also estimated that buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people resulted in a 35 to 50 percent decline in the homicide rate, but because of the low number of homicides in Australia normally, this finding wasn't statistically significant.

What is significant is the decline the laws caused in the firearm suicide rate, which Leigh and Neill estimate at a 74 percent reduction for a buyback of that size. This is even higher than the overall decline in the suicide rate, because the gun buybacks' speed varied from state to state. In states with quick buybacks, the fall in the suicide rate far exceeded the fall in states with slower buybacks:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/23/what-happened-after-australia-banned-lots-of-guns-after-a-massacre/

[gejohnston]

1. about the suicide rate

It was 65 percent, and researchers found that it had more to do with the demonization of firearms instead of access. Also, there were the same number of gun owners and who uses a semi auto or pump long gun to commit suicide? BTW, while the firearms suicide rate dropped 65 percent, suicide by other means grew 65 percent.
IOW, the suicide rate remained the same.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-01-18/opinion/chi-the-failure-of-gun-control-in-australia-20130118_1_gun-control-mandatory-gun-gun-deaths

[SecularMotion]

2. Correlation, not causation

It's quite possible the suicide rate by all methods would have been even higher with the availability of firearms.

[gejohnston]

3. not quite

there is no evidence to support it. BTW, correlation not causation works both ways. Your argument was based on attempting to make a connection. I simply pointed out what the researchers assumed. They actually have no idea. The claim that "oh I don't have a gun so I won't off myself" is absurd.

[SecularMotion]

4. It been shown that the availability of a firearm increases the risk of suicide

[center][/center]

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine-features/guns-and-suicide-the-hidden-toll/

[virginia mountainman]

5. How do you explain South Korea,.....

and Japan?

There suicide rate far exceeds ours, yet have some of the strictest gun control in the world?

[SecularMotion]

6. Would their suicide rates be even higher with the availability of firearms?

[gejohnston]

8. no, actually Japan's

reported murder rate would be higher if they reported murder/suicides the same way we do. There, if dad kills wife and three kids before offing himself, Japanese authorities count them all as suicides.

[jimmy the one]

25. life insurance payouts for suicide

VA mtn man: How do you explain South Korea,..... and Japan? There suicide rate far exceeds ours, yet have some of the strictest gun control in the world?

wiki: Japanese society's attitude toward suicide has been termed "tolerant", and in many occasions suicide is seen as a morally responsible action

Japan life insurance co's pay out for suicide, whereas not so in America. It's considered 'morally responsible' as per above, or honorable, to hari kiri high building style to provide for family:
Consumer loan companies have much to do with the suicide rate. The National Police Agency states that one fourth of all suicides are financially motivated.
Japanese banks set extremely tough conditions for loans, forcing borrowers to use relatives and friends as guarantors who become liable for the defaulted loans, producing extreme guilt and despair in the borrower. Rather than placing the burden on their guarantors, many have been attempting to take responsibility for their unpaid loans and outstanding debts through life insurance payouts. In fiscal year 2005, 17 consumer loan firms received a combined 4.3 billion yen in suicide policy payouts on 4,908 borrowers — or some 15% of the 32,552 suicides in 2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan

The Supreme Court of Japan ruled in March 2004: “Even if the reason for suicide was to collect insurance money, if it falls past the {~3 yr} exemption period, the company cannot refuse to pay.” http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/02/03/national/media-national/japans-suicide-statistics-dont-tell-the-real-story/#.VYw8jFLbKUl

[gejohnston]

7. The problem with Hemenway's methodology

besides having a poor reputation in the criminology world, and being a gun control activist.

June 14, 2012

David Hemenway received Distinguished Honoree Award from Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence
David Hemenway received the Distinguished Honoree Award at the 19th Anniversary Dinner of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence on June 14, 2012 in San Francisco “for his work exposing the complexities of the relationships between gun violence and self-defense, schools, homicide and more. His research, teaching and writing have provided critical resources to the gun violence prevention movement and thus, to the effort to reduce death and injury due to firearms.”

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/

The study is also an example of correlation vs causation aka post hoc ergo propter hoc, or at least an attempt at it. If you didn't realize that, then your critical thinking skills are, well, poor.
What it really shows is that rural areas have higher suicide rates than urban areas, which is equally true in Japan and UK.

[SecularMotion]

9. But you just said in the post above that Japan wrongly records murders as suicides.

Your refusal to accept widely accepted statistics smacks of climate change denial.

[gejohnston]

10. it isn't proven facts

you don't know how the study did in peer review and you don't know of any counter studies, therefore it is not proven fact. It is a proven fact that suicides in rural areas everywhere in the world.

However claiming that Hemenway "debunked" Kleck would be smack of climate change denial because
it did so well in peer review, the study won an award from the American Society of Criminology, and verified 15 previous studies and has been verified since.

I said suicide rates are higher in rural areas, and that is true everywhere in the world including Japan and UK.
What I said about murder suicides in Japan and Japan pencil whipping cold cases has nothing to do with, nor does it contradict, what I said. A thinking person would reasonably assume that suicide and violent crime in general, and Japan in particular, is a complex issue that requires solutions, not easy answers.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/02/03/national/media-national/japans-suicide-statistics-dont-tell-the-real-story/#.VYsxcnUVikp
Also, it isn't wrongly as it is a different distinction, but is reported to UN and InterPol as suicides
http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/social_trends/20040107_trends_s65/

[gejohnston]

11. one more thing

a single study being published doesn't mean it is proven fact. All it means is it didn't suck too much and there was space to print it.
"widely accepted" only means most people don't know the context.

[SecularMotion]

12. The only ones disputing the fact that the presence of firearms increases the risk of suicide

are a minority of RW gun activists.

[gejohnston]

13. the only ones claiming that

are a handful of public health types, who have no training in the scientific method and are not scientists, who use a lot of assumptions and assume it to be fact. Even then, almost all of them are funded by Bloomberg or the Joyce Foundation. That includes Hemenway's department in Harvard. Think of those two as the Koch Brothers of gun control.
How many cases of "linked to cancer in rats" became "causes cancer" only to be found that the link was simply a coincidence? Quite a few. While it is true that a suicidal person will likely use a gun if one is there. However, not always the case. One example one of my brother's high school friends who chose drinking battery acid instead of using a gun. Perhaps he didn't want to leave a mess for his mom, I don't know know. Nobody knows. While there is a positive correlation with firearms suicides, but there is none with suicide as a whole. Until 1997 out of thirteen studies on the subject, none showed what you claimed. I doubt the scholarship has changed since then.

If that is the basis for your personal choice for not owning a gun, fine I respect that. That might be rational decision for you. That isn't, however, a valid reason to infringe on the Constitutional rights of tens of millions of other people.

[SecularMotion]

14. Please explain how posting public health information on the risks of gun ownership

is an infringement "on the Constitutional rights of tens of millions of other people."

[beevul]

15. Thats what you and the informations authors are using it in an attempt to do, isn't it?

Thats what you and the informations authors are using it in an attempt to do, isn't it?

To change the way people exercise their rights - specifically, to try to nudge them in the direction of not doing so, by convincing enough people to petition government to deem it so?


No?

What then?

[SecularMotion]

17. So, your fear is that people will learn the facts and pass reasonable gun legislation?

[gejohnston]

18. we don't fear people learning the facts,

You might if you realized what the objective facts are. Please define "reasonable" what is "reasonable" for someone with no sweat in the game is different than those of us who do. Australia is not reasonable. Even anti gun people in Australia doesn't think so, because they are screaming for even tighter restrictions even though the Australian Federal Police have no idea how many illegal guns have been smuggled and made there.

[beevul]

21. Nope. Just a well grounded suspicion that you will not tell the whole story...

Nope. Just a well grounded suspicion that you will not tell the whole story, and will likewise rely on those who agree with you and hence don't tell the whole story.

Kinda like they, and you, do here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=169721

As far as "reasonable" gun legislation, yeah, keep pushing magazine limits and semi-automatic firearm bans and trying to claim its "reasonable".

Tens of millions of politically active gun owners will continue to point and laugh while you pour unleaded all over the ashes of your credibility in an effort to get it to burn on its own.

[gejohnston]

16. I didn't say anything about posting

I said forcing your decision on others through legislation. Also, the public health information you post is about as scientific as NRA propaganda and climate change studies funded by American Petroleum Institute and the Koch Brothers. IOW, it is sloppy at best. That isn't according to me, it is according to leading sociologists and criminologists.

"advocacy based on political beliefs rather than scientific fact." "little is cited from the criminological or sociological field,
"assumptions are presented as fact: that there is a causal association between gun ownership and the risk of violence, that this association is consistent across all demographic categories, and that additional legislation will reduce the prevalence of firearms and consequently reduce the incidence of violence." They concluded that "incestuous and selective literature citations may be acceptable for political tracts, but they introduce an artificial bias into scientific publications. Stating as fact associations which may be demonstrably false is not just unscientific, it is unprincipled."

University of Illinois sociologist David Bordua and epidemiologist David Cowan describing public health "research" on guns at the American Society of Criminology's 1994 meeting

"Generally the level of analysis done on each side is of a low quality. The papers published in the medical literature (which are uniformly anti-gun) are particularly poor science."

State University of New York at Buffalo criminologist Lawrence Southwick at the same meeting.
Not much has changed in the past 20 years.
But then, all of this is likely to fall on deaf ears or blind eyes because I don't think your views on guns are based on reason, facts, or evidence. It really does seem like it is based on ideology or some other subjective basis. Of course your confirmation bias makes you believe otherwise, but your inability to discuss what I actually said instead of creating strawmen out of things I didn't say points to a couple possible reasons. Regardless of which one, it isn't productive for either of us. I will say that you don't seem very confidant in your debating ability. If you overcome that, you might be a good spokesperson for your cause.

[SecularMotion]

19. As I said, the facts are disputed only by a minority of RW gun activists.

and your fear is that public knowledge of the facts will result in reasonable gun legislation.

[gejohnston]

20. sorry,

mainstream criminology is on my side. The only ones who agree with you are the Bloomberg/Joyce funded shills.
I have no fear of the facts, because they are on my side. I also have no fear because most people are starting to wake up to the logical fallacies strung together with penis remarks that gun control activists call arguments. Then there is the former Monsanto executive who gets her lies called out by politifact.
I bet you won't post this in your safe haven.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/getting-a-gun-legally-in-europe-may-be-hard-but-terrorists-have-little-trouble/2015/02/19/9eb6bce2-b78b-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html

Ever read Australian papers? Did you know Sidney had 100 drive by shootings in 2013? Did you also know that cops and contractors sold many of those confiscated guns on the black market? There was a big scandal in Queensland. I'll have to see if I can find a link for it.

[jimmy the one]

30. fact check australia homicide

johnston: Ever read Australian papers? Did you know Sidney had 100 drive by shootings in 2013?

Sydney news: Most of the 100 instances, which included drive-by shootings as well as other instances of gun crime and included three deaths, took place in south-west and western Sydney

Three firearm deaths in a large city Sydney with ~4.5 million people, equated to any large city in the USA would make it one of the safest cities in America. Transplanting Sydney here would make it 2nd or 3rd largest city. An American city could have 100 drive by shootings with no fatalities, in a week or two.
Are we supposed to read Australian papers, Johnston?

GJ posted a Chicago trib article re uni of Melbourne report which challenged uni of Sydney: .. a 2006 analysis by scholars at the University of Sydney concluded that gun fatalities decreased more quickly after the reform. Yet another analysis, from 2008, from the University of Melbourne, concluded that the buyback had no significant effect on firearm suicide or homicide rates.

Fact Check: In 1996, {Australia} banned some types of guns, instituted a buyback program and imposed stricter licensing and registration requirements. Gun ownership rates in Australia declined from 7% to 5%. Another law in 2002 tightened restrictions a bit more, restricting caliber, barrel length and capacity for sport shooting handguns.
Australian crime statistics show a marked decrease in homicides since the gun law change. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, the number of homicides in Australia did increase slightly in 1997 and peaked in 1999, but has since declined to the lowest number on record in 2007, the most recent year for which official figures are available. http://www.factcheck.org/2009/05/gun-control-in-australia/

2012, Australia {~20 million peeps} saw 40 murders by firearm, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This was a five-year high. Australia's gun homicide rate for the year was .20 per 100,000..
Compare that to {USA} saw 11,622 homicides by firearm in 2012. The U.S. gun homicide rate for the year was 2.2 per 100,000 residents...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/15/gun-violence-australia-sydney_n_6329158.html

Johnston: mainstream criminology is on my side. The only ones who agree with you {secmo} are the Bloomberg/Joyce funded shills.

Suicide (attempts) with gun is successful ~80% of the time, all other means combined only about 15% successful. You need reword your contention.

[gejohnston]

31. half truth

show a marked decrease in homicides since the gun law change.

a trend which started before the NFA, and continued to drop at the same rate. I didn't say the Australia's murder rate didn't drop, I said NFA had nothing to do with it since all of the Australian states had at least licensing and some had registration before hand. Remember, it was only registered guns that were confiscated from licensed owners. Many of those were sold on the black market by cops and contractors. Queensland had the worst case. Of course, it did not affect firearms mostly used in street crime, nor did it affect those already in criminal hands, were smuggled in the country, or were made in underground factories.

The AFP have no idea how many illegal guns there are.

My contention about suicide is accurate. Your interpretation of of the statistic isn't.
Wake me up when you have an honest argument and a valid point.

[jimmy the one]

34. an honest argument

Johnston: My contention about suicide is accurate. Your interpretation of of the statistic isn't. Wake me up when you have an honest argument and a valid point.

Which statistic I noted is invalid? The 80% firearm to 15% all others? This measures rate of success:

wiki: .. suicide rates have been found to be greater in households with firearms than those without them

Harvard: The (2001) table below illustrates the significantly higher likelihood of death in a suicide attempt using a firearm versus other methods. The “Percent Fatal” column shows the suicide “case fatality rate”: of those who attempt suicide using a given method, the percent who die in that attempt.

............................Fatal ..Nonfatal ..Total .....% Fatal
Firearm ...................16,869 ..2,980 ..19,849 .. 85%
Suffocation ................6,198 ..2,761 ...8,959 ......69%
Poisoning/overdose .....5,191.. 215,814 ..221,005. 2%
Fall.............................. 651 ..1434 ......2,085 ...31%
Cut/pierce ....................458 ..62,817 ..63,275 .....1%
Other........................ 1,109 ..35,089 ..36,198 .....3%
Unspecified ...................146 ..2097 ......2,243 .....7%
Total .......................30,622 322,991 ..353,613 ....9%
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/case-fatality/

This table covers all U.S. suicide deaths in 2001 and estimated visits to the emergency department (ED) for nonfatal self-harm (based on a nationally-representative sample of emergency departments). “Case Fatality Ratio” (% fatal) is the proportion of cases recorded in a year that are fatal. The ED estimate overstates ED-treated suicide attempts because non-suicidal self-harm cannot be disaggregated from actual suicide attempts; at the same time, it underestimates nonfatal suicide attempts since many suicide attempts do not result in care.

Since the predominance of suicide attempts are non fatal, the 'success' rate for 'all other' suicide attempts is the combined rate of all those attempts below 'firearm', which appears to be less than 10%, even below 5%. While firearms rank highest at 85% success rate.

[gejohnston]

35. a nonpeer reviewed shill study by

Hemenway.

[blueridge3210]

37. That data could just as easily indicate

that those who are serious about committing suicide use a gun (and, to a lesser degree suffocation); while the other "attempts" are more of a cry for help than a serious attempt at ending one's life.

It also goes to culture; in the U.S. males tend to use a gun when serious about committing suicide because guns are legal and available. In other countries, other methods are used based on culture and availability. The study does not establish a causal relationship between firearm availability and suicide; at best it establishes a weak correlation due to numerous other factors such as isolation (ability to summon help in a crisis) and availability of MH treatment (less so in rural areas and the help, if available, may be some distance away).

The U.S. has a serious issue regarding MH treatment and has a long way to go regarding recognizing that many MH issues are an offshoot of other medical problems.

[jimmy the one]

38. dominican masochists

blueridge: That data could just as easily indicate that those who are serious about committing suicide use a gun (and, to a lesser degree suffocation); while the other "attempts" are more of a cry for help than a serious attempt at ending one's life.

On closer scrutiny I agree. I wrongly reported 'all others' outside firearms, as suicide attempts, when a good portion are not, just people trying to hurt themselves for attention or some masochistic joy. Dominican man practicing self flagellation on good Friday is generally not a suicide attempt - he's just tryin' to empathize, ends up in critical care.
This explains why the non fatal percentage about 5% is much lower than what I first wrote 15%, so I retract what I wrote but I still believe the 15% suicide attempt success rate from all other causes outside firearms, is close to valid.

Harvard: The (2001) table below illustrates the significantly higher likelihood of death in a suicide attempt using a firearm versus other methods. The “Percent Fatal” column shows the suicide “case fatality rate”: of those who attempt suicide using a given method, the percent who die in that attempt.

............................Fatal ..Nonfatal ..Total .....% Fatal
Firearm ...................16,869 ..2,980 ..19,849 .. 85%
Suffocation ................6,198 ..2,761 ...8,959 ......69%
Poisoning/overdose .....5,191.. 215,814 ..221,005. 2%
Fall.............................. 651 ..1434 ......2,085 ...31%
Cut/pierce ....................458 ..62,817 ..63,275 .....1%
Other........................ 1,109 ..35,089 ..36,198 .....3%
Unspecified ...................146 ..2097 ......2,243 .....7%
Total .......................30,622 322,991 ..353,613 ....9%
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/case-fatality/

This table covers all U.S. suicide deaths in 2001 and estimated visits to the emergency department (ED) for nonfatal self-harm (based on a nationally-representative sample of emergency departments). “Case Fatality Ratio” (% fatal) is the proportion of cases recorded in a year that are fatal. The ED estimate overstates ED-treated suicide attempts because non-suicidal self-harm cannot be disaggregated from actual suicide attempts; at the same time, it underestimates nonfatal suicide attempts since many suicide attempts do not result in care.

Huh? ..... I'm sure there's no intentional padding, just that I read it wrong. Mea culpa.

[blueridge3210]

39. Absent a rigorous follow-up interview process

I'm not sure how you would tell the difference. Or be able to tell how many "attempts' that were intended to be a "cry for help" were unintentionally successful.

One of the risks of flagging people who seek MH treatment as being forever barred from F/A ownership is the law of unintended consequences; how many people may avoid seeking treatment due to a fear of permanent disenfranchisement? Some college student seeks therapy to deal with a bad semester and finds out 10 years later they cannot purchase a shotgun to shoot trap because they tried to get help with their difficulty. The devil, as always, is in the details.

[Duckhunter935]

22. funny the only ones in DU that seem to be afraid

are the ones that need and post only in your "safe haven". I do give you and EM credit, at least you post over here where other opinions and facts can be posted. I am glad at least in this thread you are actually discussing the topic instead of the near 1000 drive by Google dumps you have posted here with no comment at all.

[clffrdjk]

23. by what method do guns infiltrate the brain and cause a person to chose to kill themself?

[Human101948]

26. They make it quick and easy...

though there is often a mess to clean up afterward.

[clffrdjk]

29. So what you are saying is that the person was already suicidal.

[krispos42]

33. So, how are are economies and social services in those states?

The divorce rates, the poverty rates?

Domestic abuse rates? Teen pregnancy rates?

How clean is the water and air from brain-damaging chemicals?





There is more than one variable, yanno.

[Kelvin Mace]

27. Hmmm... to quote from the article

the firearm homicide rate fell by 59 percent, and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent, in the decade after the law was introduced, without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicides.

[gejohnston]

32. different article

I'll have to find it. However, not all guns were confiscated (only 20 percent were banned. Those firearms have since been replaced) but the number of gun owners did not drop, and the number of privately owned guns are the same or more now than then, since those guns have been replaced. There are also more legal owners. Since gun ownership there is 8-11 percent, any claim that the NFA had anything to do with it is coincidence. Claiming otherwise is a prime example of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Here is what it looks like in context

[ileus]

24. Hopefully we can remain a progressive nation for the world to look to.

and not go down the crapkitty like so many others.


Together we can fight to keep all our rights intact.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

28. And for those finding this option attractive...

...I'd like to point out: http://www.virginaustralia.com/au/en/bookings/flights/make-a-booking/#

LAX->SYD was about $1150 when I looked.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

36. Any thoughts about Tunisian gun control laws? I believe they are stricter than Australia's.