[118249] in Cypherpunks
Fwd: Aussie Gun Control
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jean-Francois Avon)
Wed Sep 22 19:51:02 1999
Message-Id: <199909221723.NAA28040@cti06.citenet.net>
From: "Jean-Francois Avon" <jf_avon@citenet.net>
To: "Cypherpunks" <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 13:13:23 -0400
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Reply-To: "Jean-Francois Avon" <jf_avon@citenet.net>
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From: "Dave Gosse" <dgosse@cable-lynx.net>
>COLUMN: Vin Suprynowicz
>Unintended consequences of gun control
>
> Can gun control reduce crime?
> One year ago, Australian gun owners were forced to surrender for
>destruction 640,381 personal firearms (including semi-automatic .22 rifles
>and shotguns). This program cost the Aussie government more than $500
>million and produced heart-stopping photos as veritable boneyards full of
>Browning A-5 shotguns and other beloved collector's items were surrendered
>up to be crushed by steamshovels in a kind of steel-and-walnut charnel
>field.
>Now, Keith Tidswell of Australia's Sporting Shooters Association
>reports the results are in. Drum roll, please. Mr. Tidswell reports, based
>on a full 12 months of data:
Australia-wide, homicides up 3.2 percent.
Australia-wide, assaults up 8.6 percent.
Australia-wide, armed-robberies up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent.)
In the state of Victoria, homicides-with-firearms are up 300 percent.
(Up until the government gun grab, figures for the previous 25 years had
shown a steady decrease in homicides with firearms, as well as armed
robberies, Mr. Tidswell notes.)
> Although at the time of the victim disarmament order, the Aussie prime
>minister decreed "self-defense is not a reason for owning a firearm," there
>has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly,
>now left with no means to protect themselves. (One wonders whether the prime
>minister's personal bodyguards gave up their military-style weapons.)
> Mr. Tidswell reports: "Australian politicians are on the spot and at a
>loss to explain how no improvement in 'safety' has been observed after such
>monumental effort and expense to successfully 'rid society of guns.'"
> Meantime, efforts to systematically remove such weapons from the
>hands of the unruly, untrustworthy commoners of England have been underway
>at least as far back as the end of World War II. (By 1946, most of the
>valuable private rifles donated by American NRA members in response to an
>emergency call after the 1940 military disaster at Dunkirk had been rounded
>up from the British "home defense" auxiliaries and either dumped at sea or
>else poured into new concrete foundations, where -- Londoners confided to me
>on my last visit, in 1998 -- their steel outlines still occasionally surface
>out of well-traveled concrete walkways.)
> Thus, the recent effective outlawing of handguns for civilian Britons
>after some nut killed schoolchildren in Dunblane, Scotland (the government
>teacher charged with their safety was, needless to say, unarmed and thus
>useless), was only the last straw.
> Given that the English peasant populace has thus been unarmed somewhat
>longer, are there any trends developing there, to which the Australians can
>themselves now look forward?
> In an article by Helen Searls, titled "Trial by Fury" and scheduled
>for release in the October issue of Reason magazine, we learn:
> "In recent months the British government has unveiled an array of
>measures that promise to change the legal system profoundly. This spring,
>British citizens learned that Tack Straw, the home secretary (the rough
>equivalent of the American attorney general, though with more political
>power), plans to abolish trial by jury for all but the most serious crimes.
>He is also considering lifting the rule against double jeopardy, which
>prevents a defendant from being tried more than once for the same crime, and
>is thinking of criminalizing offensive language even when it is spoken in
>the privacy of one's home. ...
> "These days, defendants' rights are under attack. The right to silence
>is now severely qualified, trial by jury is under review, legal aid is being
>wiped out, defendants now have to disclose their defense strategy to the
>prosecution well in advance of trial, and in rape cases the
>cross-examination rights
>of defendants have been drastically restricted.
> "All of these measures have been introduced in the name of victims'
>rights. It seems that when we worry too much about ourselves as victims, the
>price we pay is our right to a fair trial. ..."
> But here in America, we're assured that those who would cling to the
>right to bear arms are nothing but psychiatrically disturbed Neanderthal
>throwbacks, clutching at the last talisman of 19th century male privilege
>and power, a kind of combination surrogate penis and security blanket which
>they hope will magically protect them from the stresses of a changing world.
> Yeah, that must be it. There's no practical reason to cling to such an
>outmoded, violent and dangerous technology. It's not as though, were we to
>give up our guns, armed criminals would take advantage of the situation to
>commit more violent crimes against us, or the ever-beneficent government
>that brought us Ruby Ridge and Waco would take the opportunity to start
>eroding any of our other rights. Unless you're some kind of paranoid, black
>helicopter conspiracy nut, where on earth would you get ideas like those?
-----------------
Mr. Gosse, thank you for sending in this column.
I would only add, to those who have not read Mr. Suprynowicz
before, his recent columns can be found at the Vinyard:
http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm
and his older work can be found at the Vindex:
http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/
Furthermore, he recently released a collection of his columns,
entitled _Send in the Waco Killers_. A review of the
book can be found in the May 12, 1999 issue of SpinTech:
http://www.spintechmag.com/9905/sm0599a.htm
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+++++++++++++++++++
Bill Donaldson
Oslo, Norway
22-46-02-29
donaldson@c2i.net
ICQ: 48766053
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