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Aussie ex PM John Howard cups Obamas’ balls.

January 18, 2013 0

From the New York Times:

“I went after gun control. Obama can too.”

John Howards writes for the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/opinion/australia-banned-assault-weapons-america-can-too.html?_r=0

“It is for Americans and their elected representatives to determine the right response to President Obama’s proposals on gun control. I wouldn’t presume to lecture Americans on the subject. I can, however, describe what I, as prime minister of Australia, did to curb gun violence following a horrific massacre 17 years ago in the hope that it will contribute constructively to the debate in the United States.”
 Howard goes on to say; “yada yada yada”, the Liberal Government kneecapped individual Australian State’srights with regards to control of it’s own firearm policy.

 “I was elected prime minister in early 1996, leading a center-right coalition. Virtually every nonurban electoral district in the country — where gun ownership was higher than elsewhere — sent a member of my coalition to Parliament.
Six weeks later, on April 28, 1996, Martin Bryant, a psychologically disturbed man, used a semiautomatic Armalite rifle and a semiautomatic SKS assault weapon to kill 35 people in a murderous rampage in Port Arthur, Tasmania.
After this wanton slaughter, I knew that I had to use the authority of my office to curb the possession and use of the type of weapons that killed 35 innocent people. I also knew it wouldn’t be easy.”
Oh fuck off.  These events are rare by any measure. JH was gifted a politically expedient course of action. He took advantage of the alignment of the stars following the Port Arthur slaughter. The question is what does JH stand to gain from being wheeled out for the benefit of the gun control lobby mouthpiece The New York Times. 
 Howard goes on to say:
“And today, there is a wide consensus that our 1996 reforms not only reduced the gun-related homicide rate, but also the suicide rate. The Australian Institute of Criminology found that gun-related murders and suicides fell sharply after 1996. The American Law and Economics Review found that our gun buyback scheme cut firearm suicides by 74 percent.”
However there is a evidence to suggest that suicide via other methods rose during this period. There is also evidence to suggest that gun control measures are ineffective in Australia:

“Subsequently, a study by McPhedran and Baker compared the incidence of mass shootings in Australian and New Zealand. Data were standardised to a rate per 100,000 people, to control for differences in population size between the countries and mass shootings before and after 1996/1997 were compared between countries. That study found that in the period 1980–1996, both countries experienced mass shootings. The rate did not differ significantly between countries. However since 1996/1997, neither country has experienced a mass shooting event despite the continued availability of semi-automatic longarms in New Zealand. The authors conclude that “the hypothesis that Australia’s prohibition of certain types of firearms explains the absence of mass shootings in that country since 1996 does not appear to be supported… if civilian access to certain types of firearms explained the occurrence of mass shootings in Australia (and conversely, if prohibiting such firearms explains the absence of mass shootings), then New Zealand (a country that still allows the ownership of such firearms) would have continued to experience mass shooting events.”[41]

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