<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>I'd like to see what the anti-gun control crowd things of this compelling article.<br><br>On Dec 18, 2012, at 4:05 AM, Art Deco <<a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr">
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/"><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo153x23.gif" alt="The New York Times" align="left" border="0" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a>
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<div class="">December 17, 2012</div>
<h1>In Other Countries, Laws Are Strict and Work</h1>
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Like other shootings before it, the Newtown, Conn., tragedy has
reawakened America to its national fixation with firearms. No country in
the world has more guns per capita, <a title="A pdf" href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32842.pdf">with some 300 million civilian firearms now in circulation</a>, or nearly one for every adult. </p>
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Experts from the Harvard School of Public Health, using data from 26 developed countries, <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index.html">have shown</a>
that wherever there are more firearms, there are more homicides. In the
case of the United States, exponentially more: the American murder rate
is roughly 15 times that of other wealthy countries, which have much
tougher laws controlling private ownership of guns. </p>
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There’s another important difference between this country and the rest
of the world. Other nations have suffered similar rampages, but they
have reacted quickly to impose new and stricter gun laws. </p>
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Australia is an excellent example. In 1996, a “pathetic social misfit,”
as a judge described the lone gunman, killed 35 people with a spray of
bullets from semiautomatic weapons. Within weeks, the Australian
government was working on gun reform laws that banned assault weapons
and shotguns, tightened licensing and financed gun amnesty and buyback
programs. </p>
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At the time, the prime minister, John Howard, said, “We do not want the
American disease imported into Australia.” The laws have worked. The
American Journal of Law and Economics reported in 2010 that firearm
homicides in Australia dropped 59 percent between 1995 and 2006. In the
18 years before the 1996 laws, there were 13 gun massacres resulting in
102 deaths, <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/files/bulletins_australia_spring_2011.pdf">according to Harvard researchers</a>, with none in that category since. </p>
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Similarly, after 16 children and their teacher were <a title="A Times article" href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/18/world/scottish-inquiry-s-focus-why-strict-gun-law-failed.html">killed by a gunman in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996</a>,
the British government banned all private ownership of automatic
weapons and virtually all handguns. Those changes gave Britain some of
the toughest gun control laws in the developed world on top of already
strict rules. Hours of exhaustive paperwork are required if anyone wants
to own even a shotgun or rifle for hunting. The result has been a
decline in murders involving firearms. </p>
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<a title="The Atlantic article" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-land-without-guns-how-japan-has-virtually-eliminated-shooting-deaths/260189/">In Japan</a>,
which has very strict laws, only 11 people killed with guns in 2008,
compared with 12,000 deaths by firearms that year in the United States —
a huge disparity even accounting for the difference in population. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt-nEl55eXU&feature=player_embedded">As Mayor Michael Bloomberg stressed on Monday</a>
while ratcheting up his national antigun campaign, “We are the only
industrialized country that has this problem. In the whole world, the <em>only</em> one.” </p>
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Americans do not have to settle for that. </p>
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<br><em>Read related editorials on gun control: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/opinion/the-gun-challenge-reason-for-hope.html">rethinking guns</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/opinion/the-gun-challenge-second-amendment.html">constitutional issues</a>.</em> </p>
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<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br><br>
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