Does Suppressing Gun Rights Cure Mass Shootings?

Authoritarians will have you believe that our bitterly clinging to our right to bear arms comes at a terrible price: mass shootings. They shout that countries like Australia prove repressing gun rights solves mass shootings. Moonbattery.com sponsor Ammo.com says not so fast:

At the center of Australia’s gun control policy following the Port Arthur massacre was the National Firearms Agreement of 1996.

Every mass shooting in the USA is immediately followed by Democrats screeching that we must emulate Australia’s NFA. Homicide did fall in Australia after NFA. However,

Homicide rates have been declining across Western Europe, Canada, and the U.S. since the 1990s. Australia was not exempt from this trend, and in fact, Australia’s falling crime was essentially the norm for industrialized countries in the West. Homicides were already a rare occurrence [in Australia] before the passage of the 1996 NFA.

Meanwhile, closer to home,

This same trend of declining violence was on display in the United States. American homicide rates reached a 51-year low in 2014. During this time period, there wasn’t a gun control measure as comprehensive as Australia’s NFA in America that we can point to in explaining this decline. In fact, American gun ownership per capita increased by 56 percent from 1993 to 2013. This was accompanied by a gun violence decrease of 49 percent.

Further undermining the belief that the NFA reduced crime,

According to gun researcher John Lott, homicide rates in Australia have been on a downtrend since 1969. During this timeframe, the only time homicide rates increased was from 1998 to 1999, not long after the NFA was passed.

The effect of gun control on gun crime is debatable. Not so with its effect on crimes facilitated by an unarmed population:

From 1995 to 2006 – a time when firearm ownership was reduced – Australia witnessed a significant increase in rapes and sexual assaults. In 400 Years of Gun Control, author Howard Nemerov specifically pointed to numbers indicating a 21.4 percent increase in rape and sexual assault rates during this period.

In contrast,

America saw increased gun ownership during this time, so it’s no surprise they fared better when it came to sexual assaults, which fell by 16.8 percent.

Feminists don’t seem to find this any more interesting than the treatment of women under Islam. The issue is never the issue; the issue is always more power for leftists. That’s why it doesn’t matter to progressives whether gun control really makes us safer.

Read the whole piece for more, including an interesting take on the futility of gun control in Britain. While you are there, stock up on discount ammunition.

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