News Australia to ban laser pointers

Increase in price = lower availability to the public. Or do you see people drive as many Porsches as Fords? Making weapons more expensive makes them less available to the garden-variety punk-ass criminal.

Incorrect. While the number of crimes involving firearms in England and Wales increased from 13,874 in 1998/99 to 24,070 in 2002/03, they remained relatively static at 24,094 in 2003/04, and have since fallen to 21,521 in 2005/06.

Meanwhile, the US has by far the highest rate of school shootings of any country (about 34 out of 45 school shootings over the last decade occurred in the US). It also has the most easy access to firearms.

 

your point was that the availablilty lessens with increase of price - im just saying you are wrong, the availability doesnt change with cost, just the preferable source.

the effects of the ban directly after 97 equalled a huge increase in firearms related crime, almost double by your own figures - the fact that in the last couple of years there has been a drop is solely down to the increased policing of the issue and a drop in airgun usage - illegal firearm use still increased during that period (albeit a very low 0.1% increase)

so year on year since the handgun ban there has been an increase in firearm crime

 

The illegal supply is dependent on the legal supply. If anything, more expensive legal guns = even more expensive illegal guns.

Whoa now. Are you suggesting that banning guns resulted in an increase in gun crime? Care to explain that one?

Depends on how you choose to read the figures (0.1% increase is not exactly statistically significant). The figures I mentioned include 3,275 crimes involving imitation firearms and 10,437 involving air weapons, compared to 566 and 8,665 respectively in 1998/99.

This means that of the 13,874 crimes in 1998/99, 9231 (67%) involved imitation or air guns, and 4643 (33%) real, hard firearms.
Of the 21,521 crimes in 2005/06, 13721 (64%) involved imitation or air guns, and 7809 (36%) real, hard firearms.

That would tell me that imitation/airguns increased a bit during that period (or arguably, stayed roughly stable), rather than dropped as you suggest. Only those "firearms" positively identified as being imitations or air weapons (e.g. by being recovered by the police or by being fired) are classed as such, so the actual numbers are likely to be higher.

Since 1998, the number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales increased by 110%, from 2,378 in 1998/99 to 5,001 in 2005/06. But the number of homicides committed with firearms has remained between a range of 46 and 97 for the past decade, standing at 50 in 2005/06 --a fall from 75 the previous year.

I think that you also have to consider the alternative. What do you suggest: un-ban firearms? We are seeing how well that is working out for the US. I do not think that it is going to reduce gun crime. The idea that criminals will be more careful if they know that there is a reasonable possibility that their potential victim is armed is a fallacy --they just get bigger guns. They simply escalate. They are the one with the mindset and predisposition to do violence.

What we are seeing around us is a society that, by and large, fails to meet its adult responsibilities time and again. People drive recklessly and engage in road rage. They get drunk and get into fights on Friday nights. They run up massive financial debts. Sexually transmitted disease is on the up again. Parents fail to parent their kids appropriately. Give people laser pointers, and they appear to use them to blind drivers and pilots for kicks. Should we give them access to firearms too? I think not.

 

i am of the same opinion as you Nexxo.... but it seams that there is a place in the USA were they have made people guy guns and crime dropped... it appears that the robbers don't want to enter a house thinking there is a shotgun in there....

it has some logic... but it wont happen the same way everywhere...

 

The USA has had guns for a long time (or forever, I'm not exactly sure), If us Brits were suddenly allowed guns, i can see a lot of problems

Then again, anything that would lower the chav population can only be a positive thing

 

or a negative... imagine chavs with guns.

 

they'd probably get them the wrong way round and shoot themselves

 

good point!

 

it's quite right to ban high power laser pointer, it's dangerous to use.

 

They should only ban the laser pointers that are bright enough to cause eye damage.

 

2 and a half years!

Welcome to forums anyway

 

It seems to be an incredibly simplistic and clunky way to try and put a law around the act of shining lasers at aircraft. Obviously this class of laser has genuine applications. Instead of trying to regulate their import, license their sale and distribution and bolstering sentences on interfering with the operation of an aircraft, they have been lobbed in with fire arms. Scientists and the like now have to apply for fire arm license to get the tools that they need. It's just genius. The approach (if it is indeed true as I haven't bothered to fact check the story) is truly moronic.

EDIT: OOPS THE THREAD IS FROM 2008!