CRIME UP DOWN UNDER Since Australia's gun ban, armed robberies (increase 45%)
[ Upstate Backwoods NY Goober Shep will say prove those armed robberies were committed with guns. ]
Since Australia banned private ownership of most guns in 1996, crime has risen dramatically on that continent, prompting critics of U.S. gun control efforts to issue new warnings of what life in America could be like if Congress ever bans firearms.
After Australian lawmakers passed widespread gun bans, owners were forced to surrender about 650,000 weapons, which were later slated for destruction, according to statistics from the Australian Sporting Shooters Association.
The bans were not limited to so-called "assault" weapons or military-type firearms, but also to .22 rifles and shotguns. The effort cost the Australian government about $500 million, said association representative Keith Tidswell.
Though lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:
Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;
Assaults are up 8.6 percent;
Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;
In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;
In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily;
There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.
At the time of the ban, which followed an April 29, 1996 shooting at a Port Arthur tourist spot by lone gunman Martin Bryant, the continent had an annual murder-by-firearm rate of about 1.8 per 100,000 persons, "a safe society by any standards," said Tidswell.
But such low rates of crime and rare shootings did not deter then-Prime Minister John Howard from calling for and supporting the weapons ban.
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Moreover, a black market allegedly has developed in the country. The report said about 1 million Chinese-made semi-automatics, "one type of gun specifically targeted by the new law," have been imported and sold throughout the country.
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