Stay curious. Challenge ‘facts‘. Ask for sources. The information floating around the internet about Australian crime statistics is more than BOGUS — they are a big fat lie.
Below is a very popular image floating around at moment, which I’ve marked as ‘BOGUS sez Bill4DogCatcher.com’.
Much like our own FBI and its Crimes Reporting System, the Australians have a very public crime tracking system. Australia also publishes its crime information, and provides historical data back to the early 1990s. Here is the most recent report: 2011 Crime Statistics for Australia.
Whereas the above bogus chart would have you believe that crime is rampantly growing, it just isn’t.
Below is a chart from the annual Australian crime stats report for murders — the short version: murders have fallen 10% just since 2006 and that is raw numbers. Overall murders on annual basis have dropped almost 25% since the late 1990s gun ban.
From page 16 of the 2011 Australian Crimes Statistics Report.
Australia did see an increase in violent crime during the 1990s which leveled off after 2001, with exception to a slight rise from 2005-2007.
This chart is from page 6 of the 2011 Australian Crime Statistics Report.
FIREARMS USAGE & CRIME
As for firearms usage in crime or violence, the 2011 Report notes:
- Over the past two decades, an average of 19 people per year have been killed by offenders using firearms.
- The number of homicide victims killed by offenders using firearms decreased from 14 percent in 2008–09 to 13 percent of total homicides in 2009–10.
- The proportion of homicide victims killed by offenders using firearms in 2009–10 represented a decrease of 18 percentage points from the peak of 31 percent in 1995–96 (the year in which the Port Arthur massacre occurred with the death of 35 people, which subsequently led to the introduction of stringent firearms legislation).
Stay curious. Challenge ‘facts‘. Ask for sources. The information floating around the internet about Australian crime statistics is more than BOGUS — they are a big fat lie.
And if you are really curious you can read the most recent Australian crime statistics for yourself — where all crimes are presented in raw numbers so you can actually calculate the statistics for yourself: : 2011 Crime Statistics for Australia.
One last note: if you hear about some letter from Australian policeman that is horrified at how crime has increased: read SNOPES for their factchecking of what appears to be another popular but generally bogus information concoction.
Full Disclosure: I am a gun owner, and an owner of a real assault weapon that comes complete with bayonet. I do not want my guns banned or regulated to the point that I can’t use them. However, it bothers me greatly that inventing reasons out of thin air to justify why we must protect our right to bear arms is also wrong. I tolerate bending facts well but BOGUS is bogus.
Bill Golden's Bill4DogCatcher.com 
Actually this is a news report that you can watch right on youtube its called “watch what happens when guns are banned in Australia” and from my research is true.
Real facts have sources. They show the numbers. The sources allow people to do their own calculations.
As my math teachers always said: Don’t show me the answer. Show me the math as to how you got your answer.
The numbers in the graphic are bogus. The Australian government has published its raw numbers and provided a history of those numbers across the years.
If there is disagreement then please show the math.
What the Australian statistics show is that the removal of legal guns is neutral when it comes to crime, their numbers track EXACLTY like ours. There are more guns in the United states than ever, and the ratio of guns that are semi auto and or “assault weapons” here has really jumped and our murder rate and crime rate a dropped the same amount.
Australian prison population has increased by 25% in the period since they banned guns, the imprisonment ratio O(another way of counting) has gone up 11%. putting all those criminals behind bars for longer reduced their murder rate
I’d be interested in some federally funded (perhaps by a tax on criminal defendants) study of the impact of the fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth amendments on crime and unnecessary deaths. People on bail for crimes against persons are much much more likely to commit murder than the general public. If we are going to attack the constitution in the name of preventing crimes and death, let’s go after the whole thing.
First amendment protection of religious freedom kill more American children than assault weapons each year (see estimates of deaths directly arising from circumcisions, as well as deaths from withholding of medical care against physicians advice by Christian scientist parents, etc)
I was just turning your attention to where the graphic came from. Did you happen to watch the video? The stats arent only on the video though there are alot of sites that show about the same thing I will post some on here in a little bit.
Heres a few of the many links that say about the same thing as the video I told you about.
http://www.examiner.com/article/australia-experiencing-more-violent-crime-despite-gun-ban
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847
http://www.wnd.com/2000/03/1933/
Have reviewed these links and many others. Almost all of these articles provide statistics without the first shred of discussing the raw numbers behind them, or they use numbers from the late 1990s … as if those numbers represent anything more than what Australian crime looked like immediately after the gun ban.
The one statistic that I find to be a good illustration is from the article
from WND that claims “In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent” … but gives no idea as to what that means in raw numbers. The article was written in early 2000 and there was indeed a crime spike from 1998-2000. The Australians (and the chart that I published) document that crime spike. And then crime and murder started dropping. By 2003 the murder rate dropped below 300 people year and and has continued to drop ever since, and it the total number of murders in the entire country are now getting close to just 200.
I am not arguing for a gun ban. I am a gun owner. I even own several of those dreaded assault weapons.
What we need is a conversation based upon facts and not scary charts that represent no level of reality.
I believe, the statistics that this page is calling bogus were actually constructed of a number of years before the Gun ban to the years since the Gun ban. It is true.. it just depends on how you look at it. If you look at specific sets of years compared to other specific sets of years you can conclude just about anything your wanted to prove. Either way, comparing the US to much much smaller island nations like the UK – Australia and Japan is just astronomically flawed. One big reason is Border security in our nation vs. an Island nation. Then our Culture is much much different. Either way kudos to actually researching something, even if you did pick a selective amount of years prior to the gun ban.
Agreed. I suspect the stats may have represented truth at one point but probably not the history since then. This is certainly not the case with most other places — particularly the UK, where homicides by gun have decreased but violent crime IS massively up since they banned guns.
It’s only a matter of time before someone in the UK figures out they can make a buttload of money making guns in their garages, and then their murders-by-gun will go back up again, along WITH all the violent crime they already have…
But you do have to be honest with your stats, regardless, and the graphic appears to be questionable in the light of official documentation. Unless you can show some credible challenges to the government’s reporting of those stats, one tends to have to go with the stats.
Really you own “assault weapons”? U r a liar, because no one who defends the 2nd amendment uses that clinton esque stupid term of art which is meaningless in describing firearms except for the context of banning them.
The Polish M-60 version of the AK-47 which I own is classified and used as an assault weapon. It was standard issue among various militaries around the world. I also own an assortment of other weapons. The others, to include four kinds of rifles and carbines, are not assault weapons.
The most concerning crime that has went up after gun bans looks like Sexual Assaults. and all other forms of assault has risen quite high since. Overall Homicide in Australia is pretty much stagnant. There is not really a significant enough of a change to say anything ( less than 10%) Gun Homicides have went down but overall Homicide has remained the same- which means people simply just use different tools to do the same thing.
From the report:
An increase in recorded sexual assault among younger Australians is thought to have contributed to the rise in sexual assault. In the 10-year period between 1995 and 2005, the incidence of recorded sexual assault for children aged 0-14 years accounted for around 40 percent of all recorded sexual assaults. Since the early 1990s, the increase in rates of sexual assault for this age group was the same as for people aged 15+ years (23% compared with 24%). However, scrutiny of the period where much of the increase occurred (between 1999 and 2003) shows the increase among the 0 to 14-year-old age group was more than double that of people aged 15+ years (37% compared with 17%).
=== So the solution is to arm 0-14 year olds?
This crime spree against children seems totally irrelevant to the gun ban discussion.
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/341-360/tandi359/view%20paper.html
This is my source.. Australian Institute of Criminology- The only BOGUS part of the graphic your calling bogus is the Gun murders portion, that has went down on average since the gun ban, but not by much. However, overall homicide remains unchanged. It rises and drops each year like an accordion.
Also, Look at the Unarmed Robbery statistics.. it has went down drastically since the gun ban. However, ARMED robbery has risen dramatically since the Gun ban. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology
What are you talking about? The armed robbery rate stats peaked one year after the gun ban and dropped by at least 20% by 2006. According to AIC. At your link.
The other obvious second point is that crimes by gun are irrelevant to the second amendment in the USA. “Crime” has nothing to do with the explicitly stated reason for the amendment, and, if you want to change the rules, you need to change the Constitution, not try and mandate it by various FIAT mechanisms that bypass that.
The 2nd Amd, may not mention crime, but it does mention “a well regulated militia” and so its not a “fiat” to regulate individuals, even considering the Supreme Courts invention of an individual right in 2008.
There usually are ‘regulations’ with something that is ‘regulated’ …
Australia has had zero mass shootings since the gun control measures were enacted. Zero. Before that, they were handily keeping pace with U.S. mass shootings. I’m guessing most mass shooters are legal gun owners.
Now if only the Aussies could control knives. If someone wants to kill they will find some way to do it and taking guns is only a stop gap aspirin. If they take way the knives, they will get Cricket sticks. And the list goes on. The real question is how much of our rights are we going to let the government take away?
I’ll let you know when there’s a massacre in Australia involving some of these bladed or bludgeoning implements. So far, in the decades since the gun control laws, it hasn’t happened. Don’t see it happening, what, with being able to run away and all.