1) after long guns were banned in australia (handguns were not, handguns are also semi-automatic), the crime rate dropped the following two decades by 42%! In america, it was closer to 50% while gun ownsership INCREASED by 50%. Gun laws have nothing to do with homicide rate. If you only look at australian number, then you are not making any point at all about numbers ANYWHERE else. You must look at the same numbers, during the same time in america before you make any conclusions from comparisons. Banning guns doesnt lower crime rate. Who cares HOW people are murdering other people (arson seems to be a popular choice in Australia), we want murder to be lower.
2) Mass murder. I believe that #1 is already known (by other people apparently), so the messaging and meming changes to Mass Shooting, which you yourself are now doing. If you take away guns, does mass murder stop? No.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia
in fact, the rate and body count are completely unchanged. Banning guns doesnt stop mass murder. Who cares HOW people perform mass murder, we want mass murder to be lower.
3) Other countries with way higher crime rates, have completely banned or heavily restricted guns. Shocking, (to you, not to me). While other countries have also banned guns with very low crime rates. Could it be that guns ownership has nothing to do with crime rate, and perhaps there are cultural, social, educational and economic factors that play a FAR bigger role?
4) Australian Suicide rates are currently back up to 1980 levels (https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/deaths-by-suicide-in-australia/suicide-deaths-over-time) and were rising again before covid and are still rising. In america suicide rates dropped 30% from 1950 to 2000, and have risen ever since, during the most dramatic changes to gun ownership laws, and the states where the laws are strongest have the highest suicide rates. Correlation? yes, but your whole article is one big one too. If you take away guns, people will still kill themselves. Who cares HOW people kill themselves, we want suicide to be lower.
5) america has a long history of allowing people of all ages, all races, all sexes, all religions (ok, some histories are longer than others), and only since 2000 have we really seen shifts in suicide rate. could it be that not everyone is sharing in the economy? Could it be there are technology changes that we as humans cant adapt to fast enough (we to centuries to adapt to the the internal combustion engine, we took millenia to adapt to the production of steel), could it be that the education system and lack of safety nets cause stress not seen in other countries? Shouldnt we fix all this before we do things that have no affect at all?
I fear for your other articles if you don't realize that if you are going to compare solutions for two countries, you better present data for both countries.
