[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

Freeper comments? It would be nice to rebut the rebuttal, if possible.

[lowbridge]

bump

[The Duke]

I've just got one question - how can you shoot tyrants if you don't have a gun?

[NittanyLion]

Snopes' analysis looks accurate to me. Moral of the story: gun owners need to rely on appropriate statistics when attempting to condemn gun control, lest we end up like Michael Bellesiles.

[lowbridge]

Online Rumor Mill Spins Its Own Myth(Snopes.com's leftwing bias undercuts its credibility)

[Always Right]

Funny, Snoopes didn't contradict anything that was said, but just did not like the spin of it. In this case, Snoopes wasn't discrediting the item as much as it discredited itself. All Snoopes did was try to respin the numbers, exposing his/their own gun-grabbing agenda.

[COEXERJ145]

Three kinds of lies:

Lies

Damned Lies

Statistics

[Old Sarge]

Snopes.com is a Leftist site, run by Leftists, and supporting a Leftist agenda.

They have gone to great lengths to de-bunk the Clinton Body Count, and have posted a Bush Body Count on their site.

Their "coming out" party was the combat phase of Iraqi Freedom, when their webblonde tried to justify their anti-war/Bush/US stance with lib-jargon.

I urge all FReepers not to give these pathetics the Web hit they so desperately need.

[Zeppo]

This is easy - although it does cast some doubt on whether certain assertions are supported by the statistics, the Snopes piece is not actually a rebuttal. It is a valid discussion of how to understand statistics in context. The Snopes piece, for example, does not disprove the assertion that the gun buyback may have been a causal factor in the increase in crimes or the increase in homicides in Australia. It does provide sound advice for interpreting statistics given by anyone in support of any assertion. So, the same techniques may be used to dissect all sorts of looney claims made by leftists, such as the "George Bush has the worst job creation/loss record since Herbert Hoover" lies.

[longtermmemmory]

Snopes did not dispute it, just spun it. It looks like they were just trying to muddy the waters with even more numbers to dispute the situation of "criminals are better armed".

Someone at snopes must be antigun.

Will snopes do an analysis of "thereagans" from CBS.

[Travis McGee]

BANG!

[CzarNicky]

Then we have the claim that "In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent." This is another example of how misleading statistics can be when the underlying numbers are not provided: Victoria, a state with a population of over four-and-a-half million people in 1997, experienced 7 firearm-related homicides in 1996 and 19 firearm-related homicides in 1997 (an increase of 171%, not 300%).

If an increase from 7 to 19 homicides happened in a pro gun state the calls for something to be done (gun control) would be deafening.

[go star go]

his own numbers show a 21 percent increase in three years. he says that's no dramatic. i saw he's goofy.

[Travis McGee]

Does Snopes have any rebuttals of the insane and absurd Million Mom March and VPC "statistics" such as "39 children die every day from handgun accidents" and so on?

It seems to me that the anti lies are 1000 times for flagrant than ours.

[RedMonqey]

"the old adage says that "Figures don't lie, but liars figure," those who seek to influence public opinion often employ a variety of means to slant statistical figures into seemingly supporting their point of view:"

Completely irrelevant. Context has never been a problem with the anti2nd amend folks.
The anti gunners here always use gun related homicides statistics that INCLUDE suicides, accidents and dangerous felons lawfully killed by cops when THEY want to scare the population into thinking there is a tidal wave of gun induced violence. Go figure.

"....even before the 1997 buyback program, handgun ownership in Australia was restricted to certain groups, such as those needing weapons for occupational reasons, members of approved sporting clubs, hunters, and collectors. "

So what did the government accomplish taking these few guns other than insure criminals were alone in having access to weapons?

Given the "before and after"crime figures this "bloke" triumphs as proof of successful government action, it seems to me that the $500 million dollars spent to take guns away from law abiding citizens was a TOTAL waste of taxpayer money that could have been spent to combat REAL CRIMINALS.

[Luke Skyfreeper]

I read the analysis above and consider it, on the whole, to be right on target. It's not as in-depth as one could desire, but there's a very, very good reason for that: it is not, and does not pretend to be, a full analysis of the results of the Australian gun ban laws. It is merely a critique of some (quite ill-founded) claims made by pro-firearms / pro-self defense people. It that, it does a very good job, on the whole. The information presented is highly flawed, and snopes here does a good job of pointing out many of those flaws. No, I don't think they overstate their case.

A full analysis of the effects of the Australian gun laws (and how lessons resulting might apply to us) is much more complex than the simple (mis-)analysis presented.

I don't pretend to fully understand the trends and effects, but I'll make a couple of comments here in regard to Australia. Note that I am quoting from memory of my impressions and understanding from past reading. I will not be presenting evidence here, just my impressions.

1) Crime generally trended upward following the more restrictive gun control laws. It is unclear to me whether these increases in crime were caused by the gun control laws (lower fear on the part of criminals of encountering armed civilians), or whether they were merely a continuation of a previous trend of crime increase that had already begun due to other (cultural change?) factors.

2) What does seem fairly clear to me is that the Australian gun control experiment, like all other restrictive gun control measures of which I am aware, is a spectacular failure. At best, it has accomplished nothing - and all at a tremendous cost to the Australian taxpayers and a widespread denial of one of the most fundamental rights of Australian citizens - the right to self-defense. At worst, Australian citizens may literally paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the "privilege" of experiencing increased crime, including increased violent crime, in their society.

Sorry if that's not as strong as some might like, but as far as I'm concerned, it's strong enough. And I have this "thing" about truth.

One of the reasons why I'm not a Democrat.

[Servant of the 9]

Snopes normally makes a concise non preachy refutation of things.

When we see this wordy and squishy soft on the numbers fluff piece we know Snopes is preaching not reporting.

So9

[Luke Skyfreeper]

People, just because you wish something to be so does NOT make it so, and it doesn't make someone who observes the truth either an idiot or a leftist.

Some of you are acting like liberals, taking the attitude "truth is what I want it to be."

You'll hardly find anyone on this board who, in any practical terms, is more pro-firearms than I am (search through past bang threads and especially the ccw ones if you don't believe me). But this isn't a leftist attack on gun rights. It's a lesson in how NOT to use statistics.

[backhoe]

The Great Australian Gun Law CON!

HCI Aussie Style (read it and weep-or laugh)

Statistical Facts Gun-haters Run From

-Empty-Barrel Gun Policies-A legacy of nonsense from Clinton, Blair, and the Left--

[Indie]

Snopes is a leftist spin machine.

[robertpaulsen]

"... even before the 1997 buyback program, handgun ownership in Australia was restricted to certain groups, such as those needing weapons for occupational reasons, members of approved sporting clubs, hunters, and collectors. Moreover, the 1997 buyback program did not take away all the guns owned by these groups; only some types of firearms (primarily semi-automatic and pump-action weapons) were banned."

So only certain groups ... and not all guns. And still, 640,381 firearms were surrendered.