Latest data from the Australian
Bureau of Statistics proves once again that Licenced Firearms Owners are not the
ones committing all the gun crimes.
President of The Coalition of Law
Abiding Sporting Shooters, Peter Whelan is quoted as saying,
“The latest figures from ABS, as well
as data recently issued by the Australian Institute of Criminology, support the
view long held by most Australians, that Gun Control is not Crime Control”.
Whelan went on to explain that,
“making law abiding firearms owners suffer with gun buy backs, tough
registration requirements, compulsory club attendances and the like, has
consumed valuable resources which should have been used to tackle the causes of
crime and apprehending the real criminals”.
“Since the 1996 Gun Laws, in excess
of one billion dollars was been wasted; assaults have increased by 40%, sexual
assault by 25%. Most murders were committed by knives and brute force. We have
the medical profession to thank for saving many crime victims, who would in
previous years have become murder statistics. That is one reason for the murder
rate not having climbed at a similar rate to assaults.
So called “tough gun laws” didn’t
affect the real criminals, who by definition, don’t obey the law!”
Whelan continued, on the topic of
suicide. “Even the ABS has acknowledged that, although suicide but firearm has
reduced, that decrease has been matched by an equal increase in suicide by
hanging”.
“Australia still has mass murders,
such as Childers (QLD) where 15 backpackers were murdered and the Snow Town
(S.A.) case, involving 12 deaths. In both suicides and mass murders, we have
simply seen method substitution”.
“It is timely for the head of the
Bureau of Crime Statistics, Don Weatherburn, to admit that gun laws have not had
any effect on crime.”
In conclusion Whelan pointed out that
New Zealand, which had not introduced such gun laws, was a very safe society,
but countries such as U.K. which introduced gun bans in 1997, had experienced a
dramatic increase in crime, especially gun crime.
Australia
would have become a much safer and healthier Country if the money and other
Government resources, wasted on Gun Control, had been spent on Mental Health, or
improving Hospitals or Roads.
