RetreadRand said:
... While the gun laws in illinois and NY are stricter than most states, I believe they should be...OKlahoma and Texas don't have the issues with gun violence that Chicago does and that New York did...
Oh yes. WASHDC has banned gun ownership (all types, some limited grandfathering)since the early 1970's. Basically, only criminals have the guns, and all guns they do have are already illegal, AND DC is considered the Murder Capitol of the nation. Soooo.... the DC council is talking about repeal or "a holiday" for gun ownership, in that the need for self defense by law abiding citizens has be repeatedly demonstrated.
Following is an interesting excerpt of a report of Australia's firearms ban and confiscation.
" .....Be that as it may, at a cost of $500 million, out of an estimated 7 million firearms (of which 2.8 million were prohibited), only 640,000 guns were surrendered to police. What has been the result? Same as in England. Like in Great Britain, crime Down Under has escalated. Twelve months after the law was implemented in 1997, there has been a 44 percent increase in armed robberies; an 8.6 percent increase in aggravated assaults; and, a 3.2 percent increase in homicides. That same year in the state of Victoria, there was a 300 percent increase in homicides committed with firearms. The following year, robberies increased almost 60 percent in South Australia. By 1999, assaults had increased in New South Wales by almost 20 percent.
Two years after the ban, there have been further increases in crime: armed robberies by 73 percent; unarmed robberies by 28 percent; kidnappings by 38 percent; assaults by 17 percent; manslaughter by 29 percent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
And consider the fact that over the previous 25-year period, Australia had shown a steady decrease both in homicide with firearms and armed robbery --- until the ban.
Australia, a semi-arid, isolated continent, and a vast nation-state, in many ways parallels the history of the United States. In the 1850s and 1860s, it had gold rushes and pioneering settlers, reminiscent of our own western migration. In World War I and World War II, it fought with the allies. Australia remained a subject of Great Britain until 1986, when the last ties with the British crown were dissolved. With only 19 million people, Australia has an impressive fauna that includes plenty of varmints, marsupials, dingoes (that wreak havoc on livestock), as well as large rats and other rodents. Yet, hunting has become prohibitively difficult for all but a handful of Australians with private lands and the usual connections. Now, the ban on firearms and the disarmament of ordinary Australians has left criminals free to roam the countryside as they please. Bandits, of course, kept their guns. Like in America, only the law-abiding, by definition, obey the law. Yet, the leftist Australian government has responded by passing more laws; in 1998 Bowie knives and other knives and items including handcuffs were banned.
Licensing is difficult. Self and family protection is not considered a valid reason to own a firearm. The right to self-defense, like in Great Britain and Canada, is not recognized in Australia, Like Americans, Australians loved and possessed firearms --- that is until the ban. Freedom has been extinguished. A way of life has ended. Please, don't tell me it cannot happen here!
Dr. Faria is the Editor-in-Chief of the Medical Sentinel. His e-mail is
hfaria@mindspring.com.
Originally published in the Medical Sentinel 2000;5(3):107. .... "
