Two police officers shot and injured at Glen Innes domestic incident (Australia) - Sensationalist Headlines

Two police officers have been shot and injured, one seriously, after attending a domestic incident at Glen Innes in New South Wales. One officer, a male sergeant, was shot in the face. The other officer, a female senior constable, was shot in the neck. The officers were responding to a domestic assault report at a house in Church Street, Glen Innes, north of Tamworth, about 9.50pm on Friday. Police said the officers were shot about an hour later. Both officers were rushed by ambulance to the Glen Innes Hospital, before being airlifted to the Gold Coast Hospital. The male officer is in a stable condition. The female officer is understood to be in a serious but stable condition. A third officer on the scene, a female probationary constable, was uninjured. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-19/two-police-officers-shot-near-glen-innes/10728822

I thought Wales had super strict gun laws? I hate the way that sounds, but what are Wales gun laws like?

The Newer more Southern Wales is in Australia,.

You can have the strictest gun laws in the world but that doesn't stop a criminal from getting some cheap pistol from the black market. I hope the officers recover well.

the entire country has some of the strictest gun laws in the world. Doesn't mean nobody will ever get their hands on firearms or use them maliciously. Last year a man in rural QLD acquired either an SKS or AK type rifle illegally and ambushed a police officer, killing him. He was later killed by a SERT sniper (QLD's equivalent of SWAT). Australia's gun control legislation since the port arthur massacre hasn't been the success it is frequently made out to be by politicians. In fact, some academics suggest it has had almost no impact on firearm homicide, the only statistically significant harm reduction coming up frequently is suicide. Never the less, Australians are all in on the belief it makes them safer, and what gun culture there was in australia died out with urbanization, so thats not going to change.

You can still own guns in Australia, you just need to fill out more paperwork explaining why you need them.

Citation required. All stats show gun violence decreased after these laws came into place.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/CICrimJust/2008/22.html http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/gunbuyback_panel.pdf Firearm homicide was already trending down in Australia from the 80s as it had in pretty much every developed country. Theres little evidence to suggest the 1996 buyback and subsequent legislation did anything to accelerate this trend, contrary to popular belief. The biggest, most obvious impact the laws have had is in reducing firearm suicide. So while it is technically correct to say there has been a decrease in gun violence, it is not correct to attribute it solely to changes in the law.

The common assertion is that Australia's incredibly strict laws stopped mass shootings and reduced violence, but according to a Melbourne Institute paper analyzing the trends before and after, "The results of these tests suggest that the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates." and a piece published in the Justice Policy Journal "[...]does not find support for the hypothesis that Australia’s prohibition of certain types of firearms has prevented mass shootings, with New Zealand not experiencing a mass shooting since 1997 despite the availability in that country of firearms banned in Australia." It may be hard for some to understand why, but in short, Australia was a safe place long before their increased regulation, and gun crime was decreasing long before the bans were implemented, and did not decrease at a more rapid rate afterwards. The reductions in firearm violence was not accelerated or significantly impacted by their stricter laws, so really they lost freedoms to no benefit. Saying that the low gun violence rate in Australia is due to those stricter laws is like saying that Donald Trump is responsible for our currently low rate of unemployment. The trends were set long before the gun laws were implemented, and before Trump took office. It does not make sense to give either of them credit. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1383/2e13675a-7936-4807-9e88-c5415aa4d690/image.png In addition, you can make a comparison between Australia and it’s close neighbor New Zealand. Both countries have an equivalent overall murder rate, while Australia’s murder with firearms rate is 19% higher. If one were to support Australian style gun control, they would think that New Zealand’s laws must be stricter for them to achieve that low gun murder rate, but the opposite is true. Not only does New Zealand have almost double the amount of guns per person, New Zealand’s laws are more relaxed across the board when it comes to firearms

How the hell can you determine that it isnt any correlation with the law, there are so many environmental and social factors that lead to the end statistics. Saying that the law had no effect on gun violence cannot be proven just by showing a downward trend, as if the only thing that has changed is the law. That homicide graph is also deceptive in that its homicides. It doesnt take a genius to realize that less guns in circulation mean less incidence of accidental or intentional harm done by firearms.

Because lots of people have looked at the stats over and over again and found no correlation.

Limiting the types of firearms people can get is just a feel good measure which does nothing to prevent the wrong people from acquiring firearms in the first place. Also you’re conveniently ignoring the point already brought up that a neighboring country has less gun laws yet nearly the same overall murder rate. Going by my country, I’d say social and economic factors are much more likely to influence homicide rates than gun control laws in their current iteration, since they only ban weapons based on features and ammo capacity instead of addressing any of the root causes of violence or making it harder for criminals to acquire guns at the very least. According to the CDC (who is actually a bit biased against gun ownership) New England has some of the lowest homicide rates in the country, yet some of those states have wildly varying strictness on firearms laws. New Hampshire, Maine, and (until recently) Vermont have very lax gun laws compared to our neighboring states of New York and Massachusetts. New York and Massachusetts both have some iteration of an assault weapons ban, yet Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire still have lower homicide rates despite having few firearms restrictions. Looking at states with much higher homicide rates, places like Alaska, Alabama, Maryland, and Illinois are among the top 10 in homicide rates. Alaska and Alabama both have fairly lax gun laws while Illinois and Maryland have much stricter laws like assault weapons bans. The only logical explanation for these wildly differing statistics is that assault weapons bans and ammo capacity restrictions are a negligible factor at best when talking about homicides.