Barrett,
I had found the following on John Wrisley's site a while ago (
www.wrisley.com). It is no longer there, and I'm not sure where it can be found now - but I saved it. The text follows.
Rich
The one-year results are in from the confiscation of 640,381 personal firearms in Australia:
OBSERVABLE FACT AFTER 12 MONTHS OF DATA
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Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2%.
Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6%.
Australia-wide, armed-robberies are up 44%. (yes, FORTY-FOUR PERCENT)
In the state of Victoria, homicides-with-firearms are up 300%!
The steady decrease in homicides-with-firearms that occurred during the previous 25 years became an increase in the last 12 months.
The steady decrease in armed-robbery-with-firearms that occurred during the previous 25 years became an increase in the last 12 months.
There has been a dramatic increase in breakins-and-assaults-of-the-elderly.
At the time of the ban, the Prime Minister said "self-defense is not a reason for owning a firearm".
From 1910 to present, homicides in Australia have averaged about 1.8-per-100,000 or lower, a safe society by any standard. The ban was not in response to any high rate of crime.
In 1996, the head of the gun registration bureau had testified that gun control "has not prevented or solved a single crime", and called for the abolition of his agency and his job.
The ban has destroyed Australia's standings in some international sport shooting competitions.
The membership of the Australian Sports Shooting Association has increased by 200% in response to the ban and in an attempt to organize against further controls, which are expected.
Australian politicians are on the spot and at a loss to explain why no improvement in "safety" has been observed after such monumental effort and expense was successfully expended in "ridding society of guns". Their response has been to "wait longer".
This operation cost the Australian taxpayers 500 million dollars!