They do happen. Albeit, very, very rarely. Most shootings are linked to bikie gangs however, and they procure their weapons via the black market.
Yes - when you wrote that I googled it, and found a couple of incidents. But certainly it's not the phenomenon here that it is in the US.
I'm actually less concerned about guns and gun control issues than I am about the need for personal protection. I can understand wanting to protect ones home and family. What I'm curious about is the need to carry weapons. Is it fear or prudence?
Fear and moral panic. People have a propensity to believe that crime is becoming worse - you can find diatribes in Ancient Greek literature about youths in gangs with green capes and the waiting collapse of society, and the same rant about morals in the 1800s concerning children and the moral character of the younger generation. People are all too ready to believe that they will be attacked, and while being in a low socio-economic area makes one more prone to either being a victim or a witness to a violent crime, the reality is that guns make people feel like they are doing something. One could argue that the confidence it gives them is enough, since they won't actually use it.
But it still stands that crime in my town is -very- low, and its only been since the gun law was put into place.
I've heard about that law in that town - and crime is very low. However, there was a study about that town in a sociological research journal, and it was found that most people *had* guns already, the decrease of the crime rates from the 70's generally (which was western world wide) and the rates fluctuate anyway. And that there was no decrease attributed from the actual ordinance, but that crime rates were generally low and stayed consistently low.
PMBD
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