Thanks, that's useful. Now I understand where you are coming from on this.

To be clear, this is what I think of when I say "Australian-style gun control":

- Same laws across all states
- Photo permit required
- Must justify need and "self defense" isn't a valid reason
- Denial due to mental conditions (and more)
- Must apply for permit to buy each weapon; 30 day wait to get it
- Ban on most long firearms, semi-auto's included
- Buy back program
- Ban on import and manufacture of banned weapons and accessories
- There's more but I think that's the basics

Now, in Australia there was no constitutional guarantee of gun ownership. How plausible do you think it would be, given that it is nearly impossible to get rid of the second amendment, to pass Australian-style legislation in the US?

Their buyback program took out about 20% of civilian firearms (law-abiding citizens, I presume). In the case of the US, if we could pass such laws and achieve equivalent results, this would mean we'd have about 240 million guns in the hands of civilians rather than 300 million. Again, I presume this will exclude criminals, I think it is fair to say they, by definition, do not abide by our laws.

Let me propose we do a much better job than Australia and eliminate about 33% of guns. Guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, then would go down from 300 million to 200 million.

How much of an effect would you say this would have on gun violence in the US?

Would people, cops included, be able to feel safer anywhere they go kn the knowledge that there are only 200 million guns out there?

Do you think the mentally unstable will participate in the voluntary buy back program? If so, to what degree?

None of this addressed guns in the hands of criminals, gangs or those who own guns legitimately yet might be on the "edge", psychologically speaking. How will we deal with that problem?

When it comes to these issues it is all too easy to find data on pro and anti-gun sites to support any conclusion. I opted to go to the source and grab Australian government data here:

http://www.aic.gov.au/dataTools/facts/vicViolentCol.html

It's a neat little tool. You can click on the various categories to enable/disable their display. This is what I conclude from quickly looking at this:

- Homicide (all types) has remained pretty much flat before
and after the gun ban
- I'll call it 300 victims per year
- Armed robberies rose (doubled!) after the gun ban and, over
about 15 years, came down to slightly above pre-ban levels
- I'll call it at, say, 6,000 incidents per year

It's also interesting to see the trends in firearm and knife homicides, again, from Australian sources:

http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide/weapon.html

Quoting from that page:

"There has been a pronounced change in the type of weapons used in homicide since monitoring began. Firearm use has declined by more than half since 1989-90 as a proportion of homicide methods, and there has been an upward trend in the use of knives and sharp instruments, which in 2006-07 accounted for nearly half of all homicide victims."

I interpret this as meaning that access to guns might not deter those who, for whatever reason, want to kill. Of course, mass murders are far more difficult with knifes or sharp objects. Yet, I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people murdered are not killed in mass murders.

What are the roughly equivalent US stats today? Homicides, about 15,000/year; Robberies, about 400,000 per year.

That's a huge difference. In Australia the pre and post ban homicide rate was about the same. Robberies went up for several years and then settled close to the pre-ban rates.

The difference in population alone (we have about 13x more people) can't account for these numbers. I think the conclusion is that our crime rate is far greater as a percentage of population.

Might THAT be the actual "elephant in the room"?

If we enacted Australian-style gun control and, over time, achieved similar results the conclusion, I think, might be that fifteen years later we will still have about 15K homicides per year.

I think the homicide problem is a distributed problem. What I mean by that is: Mass murders are, thankfully, a very small percentage (about 1%) of the total homicides in the US. All lives do matter, of course, but, since we are talking about the elephants in the room, I think numbers show very clearly that mass murders don't qualify. Yes, they are dramatic, particularly when TV stations focus on them and hit you with the horror ad-nauseum over days. Yet, when you look at the numbers they are --and I feel HORRIBLE saying this-- a rounding error. In other words, I think we have a FAR greater problem elsewhere.

Do you think that, in the US, gun control alone would really cut down on the MASSIVE homicide rate we have?

This document, from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, is very interesting (link starts at page 27):

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf#page=27

My conclusion is that we have a real problem with violent young adults killing young adults. If we look at our crime rate being higher as the "elephant in the room", I wonder if we can conclude that young people with guns are a massive part of the problem.

And so I come full circle to "what do you mean by gun control?" and, perhaps, I can answer my own question.

I don't think Australian-type gun legislation will work in the US. The second amendment is nearly impossible to bypass. Let's get that out of the way first because proposing anything that would require altering the US constitution simply isn't sensible. If people are not moved to push for changes to the US constitution in the face of 15K homicides per year, well, I just don't think it will happen.

Not being a lawyer I could be completely off base here. My view is that it might help to setup a situation where you'd have to be, say, 30 years old, with a clean record and perhaps other requirements (not sure what is legally plausible) before you can own a gun. The constitution doesn't say WHEN you can own a gun. Meaning, at what age. Perhaps that's the loophole we need to investigate. It says you have the right to own arms yet it doesn't stipulate at what age. To me that is the opening we need to drive a truck through.

I don't personally have a problem with responsible older folks owning guns. Young folks, particularly those prone to crime, are too full of testosterone and stupidity to own a device that can be used to kill a dozen people from a lawn chair.

With this has to come a very hard-line approach to criminals with guns. I mean, a "shock and awe" kind of approach. Criminals, again, by definition, don't care about any laws we pass. You will still have 15 year old gang members with guns so long as a law is nothing more than words on a piece of paper. I can't suggest what form "shock and awe" should have but it has to be something strong enough to deter criminals from even thinking about using almost any weapon. This might be absolutely stupid, but perhaps something like a minimum of 30 years in prison for committing a crime with a gun or a knife/sharp object. Throw in another 30 years in prison for the possession of a firearm without a permit.

Then there's education. I'd rater spend $50K a year educating kids than throwing them in prison. Education is key.

It isn't a simple problem. Not at all. I find it hard to compare the US with other countries because culturally and legislatively we are very different. Our solutions will have to be uniquely American in ways I am not sure I can describe yet. What I can say is that we really need to get away from a shock-based approach to this and truly dive down into the data. Mass shootings of the kind that happened at schools and church are a rounding error in our crime statistics. We need to address the real problems because, obviously, we have them.

BTW, to add some levity, I fully agree with this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OZIOE6aMBk