"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

This Should Make the Aussies Safer

by Lee

The Australian government has reacted to a recent shooting there by banning 250 types of handguns.

The Australian government is about to considerably tighten the laws on handgun ownership following a deadly shooting last month on a university campus.

Federal and state ministers meeting to discuss the issue have backed a range of new measures, but critics accuse the government of trying to impose “social revenge” on law-abiding gun-owners after the double murder.

Two students at Monash University in Melbourne were shot dead last month by another student, who was a licensed gun owner.

Among the steps under consideration is a federal government proposal to outlaw some 250 types of handguns that are not used in law enforcement or in recognized shooting competitions, coupled to a “buyback” scheme to facilitate recovery of the newly-banned weapons.

When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.  I know it’s a cliche, but those words have never been more true.  This is similar to the recent shooting at the University of Arizona, in that it took place at a college in which two people were killed.  As Clayton Cramer pointed out the UA campus was a “gun free zone,” which obviously worked wonders in protecting the students and staff there.  Australia seems to think that a “gun free country” will work the same sort of magic.

Update: I have been doing a little more thinking about this issue.  If I remember correctly there were roughly 60 gun deaths in Australia last year.  According to the CIA World Factbook Australia’s population is just under 20 million.  That’s an insignificant amount of deaths by guns.  The Australians should be heralding the success of their gun control policies, that in a country of 20 million people they only have a paltry 60 gun deaths per year.  I have no figures to back this up, but I would be willing to bet money that more than 60 people die there each year from insect and animal bites.  From a strictly numerical standpoint their existing gun control laws are working exceptionally well for them. 

So why the hysteria every time someone gets shot?

They appear to be trying to achieve the unachievable—a country in which nobody dies from a gunshot.  And they are willing to do anything to achieve that goal, including taking pistols away from sportsmen.  As anyone who has done even the most cursory evaluation of gun control statistics in this country can tell you, this is going to do absolutely nothing to solve what miniscule gun problem they have there.  All it is going to do is deny sportsmen the instruments with which to shoot, and provide incentives for ciminals to increase their activity against an unarmed population.

I recently blogged on an article that appeared in the Melbourne newspaper The Age.  Australia would be wise to take heed of the message contained therein.

It is thus not clear that more gun control laws designed to reduce rates of gun ownership will make Australians safer. While they may reduce the availability of guns for the commission of crimes, they simultaneously reduce the availability of guns for defence, reducing the ability of private citizens to stop crimes during their commission and reducing the deterrent effect received from the likelihood of criminals facing armed victims. To evaluate the Prime Minister’s proposals, we need to consider these potential costs as well as their potential benefits.

Although anecdotal stories are widely available on both the costs and the benefits, these are not sufficient to evaluate the Prime Minister’s policies. Unfortunately, there is very little systematic evidence available on the relative magnitudes of these costs and benefits in Australia. Contrary to the claims of some recent opinion columns and news articles, the suggestive evidence from the gun control laws passed after the Port Arthur tragedy is that crime has subsequently risen. [Emphasis added]

I have no problem with Australia having tough gun control laws.  They’re a sovereign nation and there’s not as much of a gun culture there as we have here.  I do think, however, that these type of asinine bans will do nothing but deny law-abiding sportsmen the right to enjoy themselves, and cause the crime rate to rise.  It’s nothing but hasty, emotional, feel-good legislation, and I think the Australian people deserve better from their government.

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