20 dead in Orlando gay club shooting

[Aractus]

Okay, so finally another single-gunman massacre has occurred that was worse than Port Arthur. As big a tragedy as it is, and I don't want to give the impression I don't think it is, I'm pleased to finally have something else in the real-world to compare the 1996 massacre to. Also it is so far at least the most comparable massacre of a size to the Port Arthur event - the two other massacres carried out by individuals wither larger than 50 people dead were substantially different. But still provide useful information though, like Anders Breivik going to great lengths to obtain a pistol for the massacre (handguns are ideal for mass shootings, whereas rifles are not).

Some differences are immediately obvious:

* Gunman took a rifle AND a hand gun to the shooting,
* Police were quickly able to identify where he had obtained the murder weapons,
* He had been a person of interest to FBI but dismissed as a threat,
* He took hostages at the scene,
* More wounded than killed,
* Killer had clear motivation for the crime,
and there'll probably be more points of contrast too as the facts come to light.

Now despite my criticisms of the theory that Bryant was solely responsible for Port Arthur, I am still pleased with the sensible gun reforms that were passed by the Howard government. Howard was a career politician, and he's on the right of the Liberal party - right out on the right. So when he was prime minister, the reason his government was more functional than say the Abbott government is because he lead a cabinet government and the moderates kept him in check. I mean he's so to the right of the party's centre that he has publicly said he supports the Republican party in the US over the Democrat party! And both those parties are significantly to the right of mainstream Australian politics.

Anyway, I digress, His decision to push through gun reform was highly controversial at the time - and he was only fresh into the role of PM as it was. He did it in defiance of heavy lobbying, and he even had to wear a bullet-proof vest in public both at the time he announced the reforms, and for about a year after as well. He has consistently claimed ever since that it has reduced gun crime. He is probably right - and by that I mean almost certainly right. But, you can't prove it from "grade iv" evidence alone. The hard truth is that gun deaths were already declining prior to 1996 anyway, but they have been fairly flat since 2004. My take on it is that I think it has contributed to a culture shift away from unnecessary personal firearm possession, and while it's unlikely to be solely responsible for the declining trend in gun deaths, it could be quantified as a number somewhere in the range of 30-150 people per year or so. But it certainly hasn't had a positive effect on gun deaths rates - which is often the mindless rhetoric that we hear coming out of the US "if you ban guns then more deaths will happen" - no certainly not. As discussed you'd say with a good degree of confidence it's almost certainly had a negative effect on gun death rates in Australia, and that's what most qualified experts will tell you.