I think the most serious problem relating to "mental illness control" (analogous to gun control) is profiling. The amount of data that big brother would have to amass to screen out the .0001% (made up number) who carry out heinous crimes would be scary.
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David R. Block Sent: Monday, December 17, 2012 10:55 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [RC] Gun control: After Connecticut shooting, could Australia's laws provide a lesson? "After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military."--William Burroughs Read more at <http://quotes.dictionary.com/after_a_shooting_spree_they_always_want_to#qob yWVqWE0Bv56d4.99> http://quotes.dictionary.com/after_a_shooting_spree_they_always_want_to#qoby WVqWE0Bv56d4.99 I think that the mental illness line would work, until they decide that conservatism and libertarianism are mental illnesses. Would not put that past the current administration. David "When a thing defies physical law, there's usually politics involved."--P. J. O'Rourke On 12/17/2012 2:37 PM, Chris Hahn wrote: After my recent visit to Australia to visit my son who lives and works there, I went away with the impression that Australia and the USA are remarkably similar. My guess is that something like what the Aussie's have done would scale to the USA. While control of assault-style and semi-automatic weapons may help prevent quickly-executed mass murders, attention to those with mental health problems is perhaps even a bigger opportunity to minimize the reoccurrence of the Connecticut-like shootings. But of course, that avenue of intervention also has its political drawbacks. Chris From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dr. Ernest Prabhakar Sent: Monday, December 17, 2012 1:19 PM To: Centroids Discussions Subject: [RC] Gun control: After Connecticut shooting, could Australia's laws provide a lesson? I'm not sure this would scale to the United States, but at least they have real data, unlike most of the people pontificating... http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/16/gun_control_after_connecticut_sh ooting_could_australia_s_laws_provide_a.html?utm_campaign=website <http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/16/gun_control_after_connecticut_s hooting_could_australia_s_laws_provide_a.html?utm_campaign=website&utm_sourc e=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email> &utm_source=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email After a 1996 Mass Shooting, Australia Enacted Strict Gun Laws. It Hasn't Had a Similar Massacre Since. By <http://www.slate.com/authors.will_oremus.html> Will Oremus | Posted Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012, at 10:00 PM ET 1473 John Howard at the scene of the Port Arthur massacre <http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/crime/2012/12/16/gun_control_a fter_connecticut_shooting_could_australia_s_laws_provide_a/57479967.jpg.CROP .rectangle3-large.jpg> Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard lays a wreath at the memorial site of the Port Arthur massacre on its 10th anniversary. The mass killing spurred Howard's government to pass sweeping gun control laws. Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images On April 28, 1996, a gunman opened fire on tourists in a seaside resort in Port Arthur, Tasmania. By the time he was finished, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_%28Australia%29> he had killed 35 people and wounded 23 more. It was the worst mass murder in Australia's history. Twelve days later, Australia's government did something remarkable. Led by newly elected conservative Prime Minister John Howard, it announced a bipartisan deal with state and local governments to enact sweeping gun-control measures. A decade and a half hence, the results of these policy changes are clear: They worked really, really well. At the heart of the push was a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-automatic shotguns and rifles, or about one-fifth of all firearms in circulation in Australia. The country's new gun laws prohibited private sales, required that all weapons be individually registered to their owners, and required that gun buyers present a "genuine reason" for needing each weapon at the time of the purchase. (Self-defense did not count.) In the wake of the tragedy, polls showed public support for these measures at upwards of 90 percent. What happened next has been the subject of several academic studies. Violent crime and gun-related deaths did not come to an end in Australia, of course. But as <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/02/did-gun-control- work-in-australia/> the Washington Post's Wonkblog pointed out in August, <http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/08/20/aler.ahq013.full> homicides by firearm plunged 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides. The drop in suicides by gun was even steeper: 65 percent. Studies found <http://jeffsachs.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Australia-Gun-Law-Reforms.p df> a close correlation between the sharp declines and the gun buybacks. Robberies involving a firearm also dropped significantly. Meanwhile, <http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/files/bulletins_australia_spring _2011.pdf> home invasions did not increase, contrary to fears that firearm ownership is needed to deter such crimes. But here's the most stunning statistic. In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn't been a single one in Australia since. There have been some contrarian studies about the decrease in gun violence in Australia, including a 2006 paper that argued the decline in gun-related homicides after Port Arthur was simply <http://moveleft.org/dog_ban/br_j_criminology_2006_.pdf> a continuation of trends already under way. But that paper's methodology <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/02/did-gun-control- work-in-australia/> has been discredited, which is not surprising when you consider that its authors were affiliated with pro-gun groups. Other reports from gun advocates have similarly <http://dailycaller.com/2011/01/19/america-dont-repeat-australias-gun-contro l-mistake/> cherry-picked anecdotal evidence or presented <http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp> outright fabrications in attempting to make the case that Australia's more-restrictive laws didn't work. Those are effectively refuted by findings from peer-reviewed papers, which note that the rate of decrease in gun-related deaths more than doubled following the gun buyback, and that states with the highest buyback rates showed the steepest declines. A <http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/files/bulletins_australia_spring _2011.pdf> 2011 Harvard summary of the research concluded that, at the time the laws were passed in 1996, "it would have been difficult to imagine more compelling future evidence of a beneficial effect." Whether the same policies would work as well in the United States-or whether similar legislation would have any chance of being passed here in the first place-is an open question. Howard, the conservative leader behind the Australian reforms, wrote <http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/brothers-in-arms-yes-but-the-us-n eeds-to-get-rid-of-its-guns-20120731-23ct7.html> an op-ed in an Australian paper after visiting the United States in the wake of the Aurora shootings. He came away convinced that America needed to change its gun laws, but lamented its lack of will to do so. There is more to this than merely the lobbying strength of the National Rifle Association and the proximity of the November presidential election. It is hard to believe that their reaction would have been any different if the murders in Aurora had taken place immediately after the election of either Obama or Romney. So deeply embedded is the gun culture of the US, that millions of law-abiding, Americans truly believe that it is safer to own a gun, based on the chilling logic that because there are so many guns in circulation, one's own weapon is needed for self-protection. To put it another way, the situation is so far gone there can be no turning back. That's certainly how things looked after the Aurora shooting. But after Sandy Hook, with the nation shocked and groping for answers once again, I wonder if Americans are still so sure that we have nothing to learn from Australia's example. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
