Where did the England's decency go?.....

Official government info shows a significant drop in murder.
http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.aspx
The figure shows that although there have been fluctuations from year to year, the number of homicide incidents has shown a steady decline since the inception of the NHMP in 1989. 2006-07 saw the second-lowest number of homicide incidents in the collection period.

 

The theft took effect in 1990. Look at your link -- the Australian government is using charts specifically designed to hide data from before 1990.

Compare that data to the before and after chart:



And in fact, look at your own chart, which clearly shows the murder rate rose for three years after 1990 -- only to lower after 1995 as a result of other factors.



I mean seriously, look at this utter bullshit:

That could as equally be written as:

They are cherry picking a few good years -- which took place 13 years after the theft of the rights and property of Australian citizens. That's pure propaganda and it's being produced and promoted with your taxpayer dollars.

 

Australians are allowed to own guns, it's just harder for anybody to get them, and now they're not just sitting in the back cupboard of every second house where they used to be. Here, you need a reason to own one which could simply be the fact you belong to a shooting club or you work in the police, security etc. Ergo, you hang around with others and hopefully they'll keep each other sane or let the right people know if there's a crazy amongst them (is my theory).

I read somewhere a while ago (possibly on DP) about a guy who had been around guns all his life had spun out when another guy that hadn't been around guns was doing stupid things with them (like pointing them at him). I agree with the poster that keeping guns away from us does make us spin out (and do foolish things) moreso when, or if, we finally get to play with them.

Personally I don't own a gun. My family was against them and according to my parents we were never allowed one in the house. Today as an adult I agree with that philosophy. Guns are used to kill stuff, there's no other reason you need a gun so personally I still don't like them. I go to the butchers for steak so I don't need a gun. Hey, I'd be a buddhist if I had to describe my beliefs on a well known religion and I don't think we have the right to kill things we're not going to eat, so, a gun is useless to me, especially with the supermarket down the road.

Today I live on a farm in the middle of a forest where the animals are free to come and go as they please. I get kangaroos every night, echidnas in packs every season and an amazing array of birdlife all year round. NO guns allowed on MY property. As a kid I went out shooting with friends but as I grew up I worked out how bad I was and in reality 'cruel' for the sake of being cruel. I never ate anything I shot. Now I even take spiders outside rather than squashing them on sight.

 

Except the stats don't support your theory.

People do stupid things with cars, bicycles, computers, vacuum cleaners, cell phones, and pretty much anything else they can get their hands, feet, or mouths on.

I went shooting in Denver with some Australian athletes who were training in Colorado a couple of years ago. It was their first time shooting, but they took to it like ducks to water. They were good. Many of the same things that make a person a good athlete make a person a good shooter.

Mine were similar, but I grew out of that sort of bad thinking.

Killing stuff is often a good thing -- and it's not always so easy to tell in advance when you are going to need to do it. It is far better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.

Well, I am not generally a cannibal, because humans are filthy animals.

Many farmers and ranchers use firearms to protect their crops and livestock from predators.

 

So funny. I used to describe myself in exactly the same manor. Of course I always described myself as a "well armed buddhist" but hey, I try to look for what we all have in common.

So you live in a zoo, of sorts. Again, I've had a similar experience living in the Rainforest in Central America. Macaws, parrots, tucans, sloths, monkeys, jaguars, spiders that gallop, and all sorts of snakes. Like most people in the region who had a pot to piss in, I carried a loaded weapon on me at all times. I made it known I carried a weapon. I made it known if you somehow or other accidentally stumbled past my locked gate uninvited and accidentally wandered down the kilometer of road to my house you stood a reasonable chance of getting shot and buried in an unmarked grave in the jungle. Unlike some of my neighbors, my house didn't get burglarized once in nearly a decade.

When Australian criminals can count on an unarmed populous, they'll be onto your farm to sodomize your beloved Kangaroos while you are forced to watch. When your government can count on an unarmed populous, they will sodomize you, your children, and the children of your children. It is question of when, not a question of if.

 

Bushranger:

Join the Pink Pistols.

 

That was below the belt

 

LoL, nah, I took it as fair comment given the convo, but i've stated my position and no guns for me, even if they're pink. Others think they need them, fair enough too, each to their own. When you create yourself enemies you need to protect yourself. I can see a need in some circumstances for guns but personally i've done all the shooting I'll ever do. A weapon is something the enemy is more likely to use against me and i'm not the aggressor type. If someone really wants to blow me away then so be it, off to try again...

There's definitely a huge decrease in people with guns here so there would have to be less gun related deaths. I think those stats show a reduction not an increase (the line does trend down) but we get what we like out of stats. In reality I may know 5 people who 'may' have a gun today but in the old days that would have been fifty people.

Where's the gay ninja animal care website? that might suit me more.

 

If Australia was like Zimbabwe or Somalia I'd probably be armed to the teeth but we're a pretty peaceful lot in general. I live far enough away that the crims don't bother me here as they can't afford the petrol. Most rural towns are the same, too far away for real trouble.

I do get a range of other wildlife here every now and again, had a koala drop in last year. Central America sounds nice.

 

Are you saying the US is a society where people don't spend their time robbing and murdering each other?

 

Huh? I'm a big fan of those guys!

So a woman defending herself against a rapist only needs to do it if she's caused him to be her enemy?

I suppose that gifting your life and the lives of your family to a violent criminal or totalitarian government does have a certain sad beauty to it.

Personally, I am more inclined to agree with Marcus Tulius Cicero, "There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right."

Except that's didn't happen. Disarming law abiding citizens only makes them easy victims for violent criminals. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

 

I've got to look that quote up, but it is awesome specifically in consideration that it was uttered nearly 2000 years ago. A pity the Romans imploded. I'm rather partial to the Italian language.

 

Can you see the irony of quoting old dead people...whilst continuing to argue against Mahumed's philosophy? Not that I agree with either.

It would be better to find more recent quotes relevant to today's society.

 

Maybe P.Diddy, or were you thinking Beyonce?

 

What about Boy George: Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?

 

Except for humorists like P.J. O’Rourke, the only really quotable people alive right now are Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. Politics has become the art of the platitude, where public figures attempt to maximize air time while minimizing message.

So let's see what's in my database....

"Today’s liberals wish to disarm us so they can run their evil and oppressive agenda on us. The fight against crime is just a convenient excuse to further their agenda. I don’t know about you, but if you hear that Williams’ guns have been taken, you’ll know Williams is dead." — Walter Williams​

 

Most successful men have not achieved their distinction by having some new talent or opportunity presented to them. They have developed the opportunity that was at hand. (Bruce Barton)

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes. (Henry J. Kaiser)

 

Thomas Jefferson wrote it, but he wasn't the first.

He borrowed it from Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria, who wrote something similar in Chapter 40 of "On Crimes and Punishments": http://www.constitution.org/cb/crim_pun40.htm

Credit where credit is due and all that.

 

The thing with this is that a lot of students voted for a certain party in the UK (Liberals) who stated that other parties would increase tuition fee's. Now that the Liberals are in coalition with the Conservatives... the Conservatives have decided to bump up costs of going to University. Thus those who voted for the Liberals, think they were cheated out of voting... as essentially their votes in-turn have gone towards helping the increase that the Liberals at the time before the election were saying they would fight against.

Which is why they are angry. The 'promise' or whatever the Liberals stated before the election, well... they've totally changed their mind on this. You can understand why a lot of students are angry.

His party is going to face further downhill votes because of this in the next election, so it is in turn a detriment to his own party for allowing this.

I don't agree with the violence. However if you actually look at the bigger picture, most of the protesters who did indeed protest, were non-violent. It seems only violence finds its way into the news, because it gives people something to talk about.

 

I promised my daughter a flying pink pony and a landscape of lollipops and cotton candy about the house. She is understandably upset.

I have to give your liberal leaders credit. In California, the liberals who still dominate our governance have not changed course at all. We have been unable to pay our bills for two years, and it is only getting worse. I guess they think the Federal government will bail us out. Unfortunately, the liberal leaders in our Federal government are in the same boat. I guess they think the taxpayers without jobs can bail them out. I think you see where this is going.