Gun Control - Comparing Apples & Oranges

Seattle WA

Description

Advocates for more gun restrictions point to Australia as "proof" that if the U.S. would adopt gun restrictions like those of Australia's National Firearms Agreement, then homicides will decline. "Exhibit A" is usually the fact that homicides have decreased in Australia since 1996 when the new legislation was adopted in Australia. There are at least two problems with these claims. First, homicide rates have been in decline throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States since the early 1990s. The fact that the same trend was followed in Australia is hardly evidence of a revolutionary achievement. Second, homicides were already so unusual in Australia, even before the 1996 legislation, that nothing can be learned from slight movements either up or down in homicide rates. Australia is a small country, with only a few more million people than Florida spread out over an entire continent. In the relatively high homicide days of the early 1990s, Australia's homicides totaled around 300. This means in a bad crime year, if homicides increase by only 20 or 30 victims, it could swing overall rates noticeably. The numbers are just too small to allow us to extrapolate meaningful data. But this doesn't stop many reporters for mainstream outlets from claiming that any decline in homicides can, with certainty be attributed to whatever the most recent gun control restrictions are. But it rarely works in the opposite direction. For example, during the 1990s, many American states liberalized gun laws considerably, allowing more concealed carry provisions and lessening controls in general and murder rates went down. Needless to say, The New York Times doesn't point to this and say "American homicide rates decreased in response to loosening of state gun laws." Faced with a lack of evidence that the 1996 law caused Australia to follow the same trend in homicides as both the US and Canada, advocates for laws like Australia's then fall back on the strategy of pointing out that Australia's homicide rates are lower than the US's. The problem with this strategy, of course, is that Australia's has always had a lower rate, even before 1996. So in reality, the experience in Australia, while interesting, should not be held up and compared to that of the United States.