Gun Crime Soars in Run Up to New Laws

The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday, October 28, 1998

Crime involving the use of guns is on the rise despite tougher laws - but
gun control lobbyists maintain Australia is becoming a safer place.

The number of robberies with guns jumped 39 per cent in 1997 to 2,183,
according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, while assaults involving
guns rose 28 per cent to 806 and murders by 19 per cent to 75.

Almost half of firearm killings in the seven years to 1997 involved weapons
which are now prohibited or restricted following the slaughter of 35 people
at Port Arthur in 1996, according to Australian Institute of Criminology
research.

But gun groups say the new controls have created a thriving black market.

"Before registration, there was no illegal market for long arms and
semi-automatics," the president of the Firearm Owners' Association of
Australia, Mr Ron Owen, said. "Now the black market of pistols has increased
tenfold, and both criminals and non-criminals seek them. And the black
market of machine-guns has at least tripled." However, the national
spokesman for the Coalition for Gun Control, Mr Roland Brown, described the
$500 million gun buy-back scheme which has taken 640,000 weapons out of
circulation as an "unqualified success". "Australia is a safer place," he
said.

But the 1997 statistics were "next to useless" because the new national laws
were not in force completely until July this year.

"Figures for 2000 or 2001 will be more useful," he said.

"It can take five or 10 years for these laws to become fully effective and
for the results to show. A good performance indicator is that there has been
a change in the composition of arsenals of guns.

"No longer are most people able to own semi-automatics or pump action
shotguns.

"Rapid-fire weapons are just about finished in Australia - and this has
reduced the prospect of mass killings significantly."

The gun control lobby also says crime statistics can be misleading. Latest
research shows that a third of all firearm murders involve intimate partners
and a fifth is followed by the suicide of the offender.


OzOne wrote in message ...
On 20 Jan 2005 09:44:26 -0800, "Joe"
scribbled thusly:

Hey Martin,

Can you not read?
I said " to bad the sorry fat ass slob MF Moore was not packing"

I did not say they should arrest the sorry MF because his idiot moron
body guard was packing without a permit at an airport.

They need to lock up his body guard, not the trud breath, super sized,
fat ass, low down, hunk of ****, un-American liar Moore, just the
idiot that give a **** if someone takes him out.
Sheeeeeze your as swift, as a Kerry supporter.

Joe

Yep, that's our Joe....If you don't like someone, murder em....If you
don't like their politics....Murder em.

Saddam had the same idea!


Oz1...of the 3 twins.

I welcome you to crackerbox palace,We've been expecting you.