CONTRADICTORY RESEARCH FINDINGS ABOUT GUNS FROM AUSTRALIA: With comments at the foot of the post

First one recent research summary:

Half a billion dollars spent buying back hundreds of thousands of guns after the Port Arthur massacre had no effect on the homicide rate, says a study published in an influential British journal. The report by two Australian academics, published in the British Journal of Criminology, said statistics gathered in the decade since Port Arthur showed gun deaths had been declining well before 1996 and the buyback of more than 600,000 mainly semi-automatic rifles and pump-action shotguns had made no difference in the rate of decline.

The only area where the package of Commonwealth and State laws, known as the National Firearms Agreement (NFA) may have had some impact was on the rate of suicide, but the study said the evidence was not clear and any reductions attributable to the new gun rules were slight. "Homicide patterns (firearm and non-firearm) were not influenced by the NFA, the conclusion being that the gun buyback and restrictive legislative changes had no influence on firearm homicide in Australia," the study says.

In his first year in office, the Prime Minister, John Howard, forced through some of the world's toughest gun laws, including the national buyback scheme, after Martin Bryant used semi-automatic rifles to shoot dead 35 people at Port Arthur. Although furious licensed gun-owners said the laws would have no impact because criminals would not hand in their guns, Mr Howard and others predicted the removal of so many guns from the community, and new laws making it harder to buy and keep guns, would lead to a reduction in all types of gun-related deaths.

One of the authors of the study, Jeanine Baker, said she knew in 1996 it would be impossible for years to know whether the Prime Minister or the shooters were right. "I have been collecting data since 1996 . The decision was we would wait for a decade and then evaluate," she said. The findings were clear, she said: "The policy has made no difference. There was a trend of declining deaths that has continued." Dr Baker and her co-author, Samara McPhedran, declared their membership of gun groups in the article, something Dr Baker said they had done deliberately to make clear "who we are" and head off any possible criticism that they had hidden relevant details. The significance of the article was not who had written it but the fact it had been published in a respected journal after the regular rigorous process of being peer reviewed, she said.

Politicians had assumed tighter gun laws would cut off the supply of guns to would-be criminals and that homicide rates would fall as a result, the study said. But more than 90 per cent of firearms used to commit homicide were not registered, their users were not licensed and they had been unaffected by the firearms agreement. Dr Baker said many more lives would have been saved had the Government spent the $500 million on mental health or other programs rather than on destroying semi-automatic weapons. She believed semi-automatic rifles should be available to shooters, although with tight restrictions such as those in place in New Zealand.

The director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics, Dr Don Weatherburn, said he was not surprised by the study. He said it showed "politicians would be well advised to claim success of their policies after they were evaluated, not before".

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And now a second recent research summary

The risk of dying by gunshot has dropped dramatically since the gun buyback scheme was introduced after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, a new report says. Dr Philip Alpers, a University of Sydney academic who helped write the report, said the buyback saw the number of gun deaths a year fall from an average of 521 to 289, "suggesting that the removal of more than 700,000 guns was associated with a faster declining rate of gun suicide and gun homicide".



The Prime Minister, John Howard, introduced some of the world's toughest gun laws after the massacre, forcing people to surrender semi-automatic rifles, which reload each time the trigger is pulled, and pump-action shotguns.

The new report, titled Australia's 1996 Gun Law Reforms: Faster Falls in Firearm Deaths, Firearm Suicides and a Decade without Mass Shootings, finds that in the 18 years before the gun buyback there were an average of 492 firearm suicides a year. After the introduction of the buyback scheme, that figure dropped to 247 in the seven years for which reliable figures are available. The report also found the rate of gun homicides fell from an annual average of 93 in the 18 years before 1996 to an annual average of 56.

The latter finding contrasts with a report published in October which found that half a billion dollars spent removing guns had virtually no effect on homicide rates. That report - by two Australian academics, Jeanine Baker and Samara McPhedran, and published in the British Journal of Criminology - said gun homicide deaths were falling well before the buyback and the rate of decline hardly changed with the new laws.

Dr Simon Chapman, another author of the latest study, agreed that the rate of gun homicide was falling before the buyback. He said that while the rate had risen since then, the numbers involved were so small they were not statistically significant. The most important impact of the buyback was that there had been no mass shootings. He said 112 people had been killed in 11 mass shootings in the 10 years up to Port Arthur, and removing the semi-automatic weapons used in those shootings was a principal aim of the policy. It was "bordering on academic dishonesty" for Dr Baker and Ms McPhedran not to have included that fact in their paper, he said.

The director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics, Dr Don Weatherburn, said that while the two papers might seem to be in conflict, they were not. "Both found that the rate of gun suicide declined faster after the gun buyback and neither found any significant difference in the rate of decline in gun homicide before and after the gun buyback," he said. "The Chapman paper points out that there has been no mass shooting since the gun buyback. The earlier paper should have mentioned this, but didn't. "The results on gun suicide and mass shootings are enough reason to be very cautious about reducing the restrictions on gun ownership."

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One look at the graph reproduced above tells you all you need to know. Despite clever use of colours, it is clear that the red line (gun deaths) could best be summarized by a straight line -- in other words no effect of the new gun restrictions. So the major conclusion of the research summarized immediately above is simply a statistical fiddle.

The secondary conclusions -- that gun suicides have declined -- tells us nothing useful unless suicides overall have declined -- and that is carefully not mentioned. If people now are more likely to suicide by jumping in front of trains, is that an improvement?

The third point about mass murders is based on a very small sample size and such samples very often produce unreplicable results. In my own research, I have seen hugely high (and statistically significant) effects drop to negligibility by moving from a small sample to a large one.

I might add that this study adds further to the reputation for medical journals in general and British medical journals in particular to publish results on the basis of their political correctness rather than for their statistical rigor. My Food & Health Skeptic blog repeatedly draws attention to dodgy medical statistics and it was another British medical journal that published the scientifically ludicrous estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths.

It might be noted that generalizations about guns from the USA to Australia and vice versa are risky. Unlike the USA, Australia does not have a large violence-prone black population so few Australians feel the need to own a gun for personal protection. Gun ownership or not does therefore not prove much in Australia. It might also be noted that the Australian gun laws have large loopholes so that anyone who really wants to own a gun can in fact do so legally. A certain Australian person I know owns three Browning machine-guns legally! Beat that!





The Australian Left moves Right on Immigration

Only days after Tony Blair did much the same in Britain

Learning English and getting a job will be the cornerstones of Labor's new approach to multiculturalism, which will emphasise integrating into Australian society over celebrating cultural diversity. Settlement services more tailored to new arrivals' needs, greater recognition of overseas skills and strategies to ensure skilled workers aren't forced into unskilled jobs are among the ideas being considered by the new Labor leadership.

The latest plan is another sign that new Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd is methodically dealing with potential political wedges that John Howard would have planned for him on issues of race or on Australia continuing to have troops in Iraq. Mr Rudd yesterday confirmed a more flexible version of Labor's commitment to withdraw troops from the troubled nation, laying out a timetable of up to six months if Labor wins the election due late next year.

In a speech to the Fabian Society in Melbourne last night, Labor's immigration, integration and citizenship spokesman, Tony Burke, said more needed to be done to make multiculturalism work. "The recognition we're making is that simply promoting diversity on its own isn't enough," Mr Burke said. The Government had "dropped the ball on integration", which was vital to the success of a multicultural society, he said. "The Government has been talking about integration as though integration and multiculturalism are mutually exclusive," Mr Burke said. "This is wrong. Integration is the way to make a multicultural society work. "There is an alternative to integration - and it's called disintegration."

The strategy comes as the Prime Minister pushes for stricter rules on citizenship and follows revelations in The Australian last month of government plans to scrap the use of the term "multiculturalism".

Mr Burke, whose southwestern Sydney seat of Watson includes the suburbs of Kingsgrove and Lakemba, said multiculturalism as a policy had changed significantly since its introduction. "A multicultural Australia has never been about people living in cocoons," he said. "It's about taking the benefits of the richness of people's diverse backgrounds and building a stronger community."

Mr Rudd said he supported the idea of putting integration and citizenship under the responsibility of the immigration portfolio and thought people should become citizens a reasonable time after coming to Australia. The move came after Mr Burke, Labor's immigration spokesman under Kim Beazley, suggested to Mr Rudd when he became leader last week that the title "integration" be added to the portfolio. "The shadow immigration minister, Tony Burke, is now the shadow minister for immigration, integration and citizenship, that is our position," Mr Rudd said in Melbourne.

Mr Rudd defended Labor's policy on multiculturalism, saying he did not believe that integration and having pride in your heritage were contradictory. "We also have a shadow minister for multiculturalism, we don't see these things as contradictions of one another," he said. "When I look at this great City of Melbourne what I find exciting about the city is its multicultural mix, its wonderful contribution from cultures from all over the world," Mr Rudd said in the suburb of Box Hill against a backdrop of Asian restaurants. "Mr Howard might see these things in absolute contradiction of one another, I do not."

The Labor leadership is wary of having the ALP divided over its policy of protecting people's right to maintain their national heritage and customs, while the Coalition is demanding more of immigrants on the question of citizenship and accepting Australian values. Although Mr Rudd on Tuesday formally dumped Mr Beazley's proposal for all visitors to sign off on Australian values before entering the country, he has not rejected the Government's plans for a tougher citizenship test demanding more knowledge of Australia and its history. In promoting integration as a pillar of the immigration portfolio, Labor has signalled that it supports the idea that migrants should expect to adopt citizenship and be involved in society.

Mr Burke also argued the Government was creating barriers to integration through its temporary protection visa scheme, which gives some asylum-seekers a three-year visa with an option to reapply. He has pledged he will try to scrap the scheme from Labor policy at next April's national conference. "The Government's use of consecutive temporary protection visas has sent a message to the visa-holders to not integrate," he said. "Labor believes it's better for Australia to make a decision ... if someone's leaving, they should get on a plane; if they're staying they should get on with a new life as part of the Australian community." Settlement programs also needed to be reviewed because they were run on a "one-size-fits-all model", which failed to address many needs of new arrivals

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Banned for a George Bush T-shirt

Leftists don't like it when their "must not offend anybody" gospel is applied to them



An Australian was barred from a London-Melbourne flight unless he removed a T-shirt depicting George Bush as the world's number one terrorist. Allen Jasson was also prevented from catching a connecting flight within Australia later the same day unless he removed the offending T-shirt.

Mr Jasson says Qantas and Virgin Blue were engaging in censorship but the airlines say the T-shirt was a security issue and could affect the sensitivities of other passengers. "The woman at the security check-in (at Heathrow) just said to me, 'You are not wearing that'," Mr Jasson, 55, said yesterday.

Mr Jasson, who lives in London and was flying to Australia to visit family on December 2, said he was first told he would need to turn the T-shirt inside-out before he would be allowed to board the Qantas flight. "I told her I had the right to express my opinion," he said. "She called other security and other people got involved. Ultimately, they said it was a security issue . . . in light of the present situation." After a prolonged argument about freedom of speech and expression, Mr Jasson said a Qantas gate manager said he could not fly at all unless he wore another T-shirt. Mr Jasson said his clothing had already been checked in and he was forced to buy a new T-shirt - this time with London Underground written on it - coincidentally the site of a terrorist attack last year. "I felt I had made my point and caved in," Mr Jasson said.

But after arriving in Australia, Mr Jasson said he put his Bush T-shirt back on and was again banned from boarding a connecting flight - this time a Virgin Blue plane from Adelaide to Melbourne. "It was argued other passengers could be offended," Mr Jasson said. "I said it was most offensive that I would be prevented from expressing my political views." Mr Jasson said the T-shirt often sparked comment from people in the street.

A Virgin Blue spokeswoman said the airline had a policy to ban offensive clothing and bare feet. "Most people use common sense and don't go out of their way to offend people," she said

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Blast from the past: Catholic conservative party (DLP) comes back from the dead

The Democratic Labor Party (DLP) has lost one of its Victorian upper house seats to Labor following a vote recount overnight, leaving it with one seat, its last anywhere in Australia. But the ALP has still failed to return a majority in the Legislative Council with the party losing another seat to the Greens.

The Victorian Electoral Commission announced early today DLP candidate John Mulholland had been replaced in the northern metropolitan electorate by the ALP's Nazih Elasmar. But Labor's Henry Barlow, who provisionally won the western metropolitan seat, conceded defeat to the Greens' Colleen Hartland after a recount.

The DLP held on to one upper house position in the electorate of western Victoria, which is the last seat the once powerful conservative party holds anywhere in the country.

The result gives the ALP 19 of 40 seats in the upper house, against the Liberal Party's 15. The National Party has two, the Greens has three and the DLP one. Ms Hartland said it had been an anxious wait. "We had no sense of what was going to happen and I think too because, you know, this has been such a rollercoaster the last two weeks, that I had really put myself in a mind that, you know, this was probably not going to happen," she told ABC Radio. "It is incredibly exciting."

The DLP originally claimed two upper house seats in a shock result that brought the party back from the political wilderness. A recount was ordered in the northern metropolitan and the western electorates after the ALP challenged the result amid concerns around 6,000 Liberal votes may have been double-counted. The Liberal preferences helped elect the DLP's John Mulholland ahead of a Labor candidate.

Recounts were also held in the western metropolitan region and the western region because "critical exclusions" - where candidates are eliminated - had occurred where the margin between candidates was 100 votes or less.

The ALP has come under scrutiny for its deal with the socially conservative DLP which helped former lawyer Peter Kavanagh win a berth in the western region with less than three per cent of the primary vote. Premier Steve Bracks, whose father was a former DLP supporter, sought to distance himself from the DLP deal yesterday, saying the result was an unexpected outcome of preference flows in new proportional voting system.

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Australian mathematics education lagging

Australia's ability to win contracts for drug research trials, logistics and other high-tech causes is at risk due to a looming shortage of mathematicians, a new report has warned. An Australian Academy of Science review released today says underinvestment in maths and statistics is jeopardising the competitiveness of Australian industry and could see Australia become a low-end provider. University of Melbourne professor Hyam Rubinstein, who chaired the review, said industry submissions to the inquiry revealed Australia was in danger of losing its competitive advantage in fields like data analysis, forecasting, finance and banking systems, IT and national security.

Prof Rubinstein said Australia's reputation as a leader in maths and statistics had drawn international experts here. "But this reputation ... is only being upheld by a handful of mathematical scientists who are now near retirement," he said. "When they are gone, our world-class reputation will likely crumble. "In universities, there are almost no permanent academic staff aged under 30 and few under 40 to continue the level or breadth of research required." Mathematics and statistics departments at Australian universities had lost a third of permanent staff since 1995 and were now producing less than half the OECD average of graduates, he said. Young researchers were discouraged from staying in teaching and research positions because of a lack of resources and because of better opportunities overseas. "The commonwealth [government] course contribution to universities is close to $5000 per student for mathematics and statistics while for most other sciences and engineering it's $12,300 per student," Prof Rubinstein said. "This is killing our departments - we can't run our programs on the available funding and Australia will be the loser.

"The real key to rebuilding our mathematical skills capability is providing permanent university teaching and research positions, so we have basic research to solve problems and teachers to teach three-year maths courses to skill primary and secondary school teachers."

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