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→WorldNetDaily reference: Longer-term trends are relevant. What is meant by "demographics"?
:: It does not show an increase in gun crime in the years following the new laws!! 1996 was the year of the Port Arthur massacre that led to the new laws. 35 people were killed that day, accounting for the large total seen in 1996 - so you should not be using 1996 as a post-gun-control-laws year. The following two years saw 75 deaths (up on 1995) and 54 deaths, slightly below the 1995 figure. The trend has been downwards ever since, to about half of what the prevailing rate was at the start of the table. So unless you are hanging your argument on the 75 deaths in 1997, which is just one data point out of the 11 given, I'm not sure what you are doing. (Note - over the period 1996 to 2005 the Australian population grew by about 14%, making the downward trend all the more marked.) [[User:Ferret|-- Ferret]] [[User talk:Ferret|<sub>Nice old chat</sub>]] 00:13, 27 December 2007 (EST)
:: It does not show an increase in gun crime in the years following the new laws!! 1996 was the year of the Port Arthur massacre that led to the new laws. 35 people were killed that day, accounting for the large total seen in 1996 - so you should not be using 1996 as a post-gun-control-laws year. The following two years saw 75 deaths (up on 1995) and 54 deaths, slightly below the 1995 figure. The trend has been downwards ever since, to about half of what the prevailing rate was at the start of the table. So unless you are hanging your argument on the 75 deaths in 1997, which is just one data point out of the 11 given, I'm not sure what you are doing. (Note - over the period 1996 to 2005 the Australian population grew by about 14%, making the downward trend all the more marked.) [[User:Ferret|-- Ferret]] [[User talk:Ferret|<sub>Nice old chat</sub>]] 00:13, 27 December 2007 (EST)
:: I agree. Any "increase" that one might see is by being selective with the figures, picking out an atypical year. The trends are what is important, and the trends are generally downward. (I had meant to point out, as Ferret has now done, that the figures don't allow for population growth, so the downward trend is greater than shown.) Andy, I don't understand what you mean by "worldwide declines in crime ''due to demographics'', not gun control". What "demographics" are you talking about?
:: Also, you (Andy) have been making the point that widespread availability of guns reduces ''all'' (or most? or violent?) crime, and here you claim that the figures show an increase in "violent crime". But the figures don't show "violent crime" at all—they only show homicides. That is, the figures do not include rapes, assaults, armed robbery, etc. Just homicides. So they don't show ''anything'' about "violent crime" per se.
:: Furthermore, the introduction of gun restrictions in 1996 did not mean that all guns were handed in overnight. It took time, and as you noted, there were further restrictions introduced in 2002. So one would expect that the results of gun control legislation would take some time to show up, and eight years (1996 to 2004 for the robbery chart a few sections above) seems quite a reasonable time to me.
:: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 05:03, 27 December 2007 (EST)