Posted on 02/26/2014 7:37:09 PM PST by Nachum
Jonathan Turley: We are now at a constitutional tipping point in our system February 26, 2014 www.FreeBeacon.com
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
The impression I have is that you wouldn’t want to come here because of our gun laws, and they aren’t going to change, so it’s stalemate. Mind you, we are not taking into account the hundreds of thousands of US expats who live and work here quite happily, and the many thousands of visitors from your country.
I would say our discussion is a very small sample.
Telling you about our health service and unemployment benefits isn’t taking a dump. We appreciate them both, you say your citizens would reject them. Yet you’ve got a large precentage of citizens on government hand-outs, larger than we have. Stop deluding yourself. It sounds like you think we are a socialist country and you are the land of the brave and the free.
We are the ones who have just elected a CONSERVATIVE Prime Minister.
You haven’t been brave nor free since 2004, as far as I’m concerned, and I am concerned. The direction you are heading in is more like marxism that socialism, and soon you’ll be the poster child of the UN, if what you have for a president isn’t impeached.
My very best wishes to you all. I’m sorry for you. it’s been downhill year after year since I joined.
I find you a funny sort of fellow. Why on God’s green earth are you on an American forum, with a rather unkind attitude to boot?
I am asking a serious question. I have friends in your country and not one of them would take the time and effort to engage anyone on this forum, what would be the motive??
And just to be clear, your reference to the glory of your country is interesting. I have heard quite a different point of view. Seems you guys have some of the same issues, in that not everyone is enamored with your healthcare and minimum wage. Good thing you guys got a hold
of the looney greenies you have running wild there.
I’ve noticed your posts in other threads, alot in the last week or so, and you tend to come off rather snarky. Just an FYI. Not really presenting a positive face for your country. Kindness goes much further.
OK. I'll agree with you, the wise owl shuts their pie-hole first.
My problem is purely that when I mention where I am from and suggest it’s a nice place to live the very first reply I always get is BUT CAN I CARRY A GUN!?
And when I reply, and try to explain, you need a permit, and a safe place to store a weapon, usually I am told that’s why our gun deaths have gone through the roof. Which isn’t true.
So this time, I didn’t reply directly, I suggested that our demographics were different, our history was different, but that didn’t do it, it still came back to BUT CAN I CARRY A GUN.
For the last time. We are nor a GUN CULTURE. We did not have a civil war, not a wild west, nor a war of independence, and our estimation of ourselves isn’t that we are the best people in the whole wide world, we weren’t brought up with any idea of being exceptional. Just decent, down to earth, hardworking everyday average Aussies.
As for posting on a US forum, why not? It’s open to people from numerous english-speaking countries. Look at your flag line-up sometime.
Who Reads FR?
Over 300,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic since inception in 1996 and our forum is read daily by over two hundred thousand freedom loving citizens and patriots from all around the country, and all around the world. We’re currently delivering over twenty-five million pageviews per month to over six million monthly visitors
If that means only US citizens can obtain membership, then I’ve slipped through the radar for 10 years.
You know, the murder rate in Australia did drop after y'all lost your RKBA...2/10% more than it did here in the USA during the same time period, with no loss of our rights. Meanwhile, Down Under, all other categories of violent crime increased, while they decreased here in The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave:
AUSTRALIA: MORE VIOLENT CRIME DESPITE GUN BAN
I found this tidbit of information to be of particular interest:
"Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women."
Like wowsers, Scooby...I bet there are a whole lot of Sheilas down yonder that wish they'd had guns to defend themselves, so they wouldn't have been so deplorably violated, eh?
It depends on who's numbers you check, I guess. I know for a fact that some of your countrymen are complaining about your draconian gun laws, because I've read their articles and seen their videos. But that's y'all's business. I can only say that if they ever try to do to us what they did to you guys, the Second American Revolution will start immediately.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
http://muhammadanism.com/Canon_Sell/default.htm
ten years ago, I wrote a series of opinion pieces for IsraeliNationalNews, one of which was picked up and published on FR - and when I found the Google link to my article here, I liked what I saw, and registered.
My interest at the time was to try and warn people about islam, my motive was to publizise a book written by Canon, Edward Sell, published in 1913, which was a biography of the warlord muhammad.
The link is at the top.
And that’s what brought me here, funny fellow that I am. At the time I couldn’t think of anyone anywhere else who needed the warning more...
You will of course, provide a source for that comment. And I can bet you hands down it will be related to a pair of muslim brothers who went on a rape-spree in Sydney and who are now in jail for just about for-ever. Or, and this is a dreadful shame, the aboriginal men who rape children in the settlements in the Northern Territory while stupid drunk.
Neither having anything to do with gun laws. But be my guest, we are now back in the terroritory I am accustomed to. Inflated, false, manipulated data. Our stats are something like 1.6 gun deaths per one hundred thousand and the majority, 75% of those are suicides and accidents.
Rapes? No doubt you'll supply the sourced verified data.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
You're being critical of my data, when you use Wikipedia as your source? Holy cow, man...you do know that anyone can edit Wikis, don't you? At least the data in the article I linked to came from your own government. Sheesh...
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
How the NRA and pro-gun Americans abuse Australian crime stats
Jan 22, 2013 by Dr. Michael Brown
The Sandy Hook massacre and President Obama’s response to it has refocused attention on impact of regulation on American gun crime. Crime statistics before and after the implementation of gun laws provide a quantifiable measure of their impact. As a consequence, Australia’s gun laws and their impact have become part of the American gun debate.
In the wake of the Port Arthur massacre and Monash University shootings, the conservative government of John Howard introduced a series of gun laws. These restricted who could own guns and the type of guns they could own.
While the impact of the Australian gun laws is still debated, there have been large decreases in the number of firearm suicides and the number of firearm homicides in Australia. Homicide rates in Australia are only 1.2 per 100,000 people, with less than 15 percent of these resulting from firearms.
Prior to the implementation of the gun laws, 112 people were killed in 11 mass shootings. Since the implementation of the gun laws, no comparable gun massacres have occured in Australia.
Remarkably, American pro-gun advocates try to use the impact of the Australian gun law reform to make a case that reform “doesn’t work”. This seems amazing given the homicide rate in the United States is 5 per 100,000 people, with most homicides involving firearms.
When gun advocates use Australian crime stats, they sometimes employ a number of misleading tricks and sleights of hand. These tricks are common to several politically charged debates, and are a form of pseudo-science. Lets look at these tricks in action.
Cherry picking
The selective use of data, or cherry picking, is a commonly used method of extracting the “right” answer. This is true even when all the data tells a completely different story.
Cherry picking often exploits random fluctuations in data. Firearm deaths in Australia have declined over the past two decades, but from year-to-year one can see variations up and down. Bigger fractional fluctuations are likely if you shrink your sample size.
Leading US pro-gun lobby group, the National Rifle Association (NRA) was cherry picking when it’s publication, NRA News reported this statistic from New South Wales:
“In the inner west, robberies committed with firearms skyrocketed more than 70% over the previous year, figures show.”
Rather than giving the national trend over many years, the NRA chose one part, of one city, in one state and just two years of data. The NRA’s use of stats is misleading. Around Australia, robberies using firearms have declined from over 1500 per year in the 1990s to 1100 per year.
Look over there!
When the most relevant statistics give the “wrong” answer, advocates often switch to less relevant statistics that give the “right” answer.
In the Wall Street Journal, Joyce Lee Malcolm stated:
“In 2008, the Australian Institute of Criminology reported a decrease of 9% in homicides and a one-third decrease in armed robbery since the 1990s, but an increase of over 40% in assaults and 20% in sexual assaults.”
The implication is gun control has increased assaults and sexual assaults. This is completely misleading.
Weapons (including knives) are only used in 13% of assaults and 2% of sexual assaults in Australia. Firearms are rarely the weapon used, and only 0.3% of assaults in New South Wales used firearms.
Firearm use is almost completely irrelevant to assault and sexual assault in Australia, and cannot be driving changes in these crimes. Suggesting otherwise is deceptive.
Logical fallacy
Logical fallacies are very common in charged political debates.
Homicide rates in both Australia and the US have varied for a number of reasons. Since the decline in the US occurred without effective gun controls, does this mean gun control is ineffective? No.
While some gun laws may be ineffective (e.g., laws with grandfather clauses), it is wrong to conclude that all gun laws are ineffective. That’s like saying that because some cars are slow Datsuns, there cannot possibly be fast Ferraris.
Of course, this logical fallacy also ignores a gorilla in the room. Firearm deaths per capita in Australia are tiny compared to US firearm deaths per capita.
Making it up
If all else fails, there is a remarkably simple solution. Just make up some numbers. Over 300,000 people have recently viewed copies of an NRA tabloid infomercial which claims
“[Australian] gun murders increased 19%.”
This is just plain wrong.
However, inventing numbers is a remarkably effective approach, and isn’t limited to the Internet. If you lie, how many people will check your numbers? If the lie is caught, how will that be communicated to your audience?
For the record, in Australia firearms are now used less in robberies, homicides and kidnappings than they were in the 1990s.
Back to reality
So what is the reality? Homicide and suicide rates have declined in Australia since the 1990s. Deaths results from firearms have plunged even more dramatically. In Australia, mass shootings similar to Port Arthur, Hoddle Street and Strathfield have not occurred for over a decade.
Is this the result of the gun laws introduced by the Howard government? While some (particularly gun advocates) dispute their impact, several studies conclude the laws have made a difference.
Claims that Australian gun laws have increased crime are pure spin and deception. They say more about American partisan politics than about the reality in Australia.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
So why did you join? Seems that’s a pretty agressive move to join a group of which the vast majority don’t approve of those programs you embrace. How does approval of such craddle to grave government programs line up with conservatism.
I still don’t get your reason for not take up my proposal and posting about your love of those ‘conservative’ programs here on FR.
Again let me suggest that a conservative like you would be so much more better off hanging out over at DU. They too LOVE the same ‘conservative’ programs you embrace.
FROM YOUR LINK:
While this doesn’t prove that more guns would impact crime rates, it does prove that gun control is a flawed policy. Furthermore, this highlights the most important point: gun banners promote failed policy regardless of the consequences to the people who must live with them, says the Examiner.
Source: Howard Nemerov, “Australia experiencing more violent crime despite gun ban,” Free Republic, April 9, 2009.
For text:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2225517/posts
SO YOU’VE SENT ME A LINK THAT TAKES ME FULL CIRCLE BACK TO FR. THANKS BUT NO THANKS.
Australia experiencing more violent crime despite gun ban
Austin Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 8 April, 2009 | Howard Nemerov
Posted on Thursday, 9 April 2009 10:26:40 PM by marktwain
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2225517/posts
AUSTIN GUN RIGHTS EXAMINER
We have those programs because we can afford them, and taxpayers money going back to the taxpayer when the country’s coffers are full is not different to Alaska paying it’s citizens a royalty on the oil it sells. We just have a whole lot of mineral wealth, which, while the chinese are buying, is great. But it won’t last forever, and we know that.
That’s why we have a Superannuation scheme. Now, I’m finding this entire discussion negative and quite unproductive, so I’ll say cheerio, and thanks for all the fish.
"Violent crime rates compiled from Australian Bureau of Statistics and U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation sources."
Your own government, the very people who took your countrymen's guns away, admit violent crime is up. Deal with it.
2) If you put no credence in articles posted on Free Republic, why are you here in the first place? Are you just a troll, getting his jollies? Wow...I guess the USA doesn't have the market cornered on sad, pathetic, little men.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
YOUR LINK WAS FROM THE AUSTIN GUN RIGHTS EXAMINER.
Australia experiencing more violent crime despite gun ban
Austin Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 8 April, 2009 | Howard Nemerov
Posted on Thursday, 9 April 2009 10:26:40 PM by marktwain
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2225517/posts
AUSTIN GUN RIGHTS EXAMINER
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3127450/posts?page=271#271
AGAIN
How the NRA and pro-gun Americans abuse Australian crime stats
Do you ever answer a question that directed at you? I ask about how you think that the members of that forum would take your embracing socialist programs. I asked this question multiple times. Your reply was that you and the Australian people like them, but this forum is not about Australia it is about conservatism in the United States.
You do understand that at best your government and its programs are considered by most quasi Socialist and you do understand that this forum does not approve of socialism in
Is there any wonder then that this discussion is negative when you defend programs that this forum opposes while you speak ill of those core tenets for which this forum stands.
So why would you frequent a forum who is opposed to precepts that you embrace?
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