OZ - Action on False NRA Claims

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In response to this thread on;

Guns

I table a media release.

MEDIA RELEASE
Hon Trevor Griffin MLC
Attorney-General
Minister for Justice
Minister for Consumer Affairs
11th Floor
Mercantile Mutual Centre
45 Pirie Street
ADELAIDE
SA
5000

Tuesday April 4, 2000

ACTION ON FALSE NRA CLAIMS

Attorney General Trevor Griffin will today take action to try to stop the United States National Rifle Association from continuing to broadcast its offensive, false and misleading claims about South Australia.

Mr Griffin has today called on the United States Federal Trade Commission to consider issuing an order requiring the NRA to correct or stop publishing its outrageous claims that national gun law reform has resulted in an increasing level of crime.

He says the Federal Trade Commission can issue the order if it agrees that the NRA claims constitute an unfair or deceptive act in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. If a respondent fails to act on the order, the offender will face a fine of up to $11,000 for each violation every day the offence continues.

"I am disgusted and totally reject the statements made by the NRA about South Australia's crime level. It is reprehensible that the NRA is promoting an unjustified fear of crime in our and their communities by using statistics that are simply not supported by evidence," Mr Griffin says.

"The NRA video selectively quotes statistics, it takes events and interviews out of context and falsely portrays a number of people as holding views supporting the wide availability of guns.

"What is of great concern is NRA's plans to continue broadcasting this misinformation. An infomercial on the NRA website demonstrates that it intends to continue to show the video on US television on a high rotation basis.

"I have today written to the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Mr Robert Pitofsky, detailing the instances of deceptive and misleading practice engaged in by the NRA. The information will also be sent to the United States Congress and the Secretary of Trade.

"The NRA is a highly political lobby organisation which is seeking to promote its own pro-gun agenda in the US to build on its membership base," he says.

"It is patently clear to all but the NRA that an easy availability of guns has a direct relationship to a high level of gun violence. No democratic country has such a high level of gun violence in its community as the United States. The fact that the NRA would wish the same for Australia is an indication of the lengths it will go to further its cause - which is not one I support."

Media Contact: Sascha Brooker 8303 2500 0418 806 710

SA Government Ministers

---------end----------

Comment:
What some of us OZ pro-gun lobbyists think of your NRA's misusage of figures goes in no small way in affirming what we thought all along - that you Yankees are being brainwashed and are in thraldom to powerful forces.

Meanwhile check out zog's thread and realize you Yanks are in no position to preach to the world.

Regards from OZ

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), April 09, 2000

Answers

Good luck, suspect the FCC will blow you off (no pun intended). First Amendment, Free Speech, all of that sort of thing. There are pluses and minuses to all this freedom stuff.

-- E.H. Porter (Just Wondering@About.it), April 09, 2000.

What does the FCC have to do with this?.... for that matter, what would the FTC have to do with it? :-)

-- Netghost (ng@no.yr), April 09, 2000.

Yesssss Sir Reeeee, We can't take care of the piles of crap right here on our own doorstep, but we can sure meddle and poke our noses into everyone else's business.

Watch out, Charlton Heston (president of NRA) may just part the waters from the US to Australia, and walk on over to tell you how to run your business.

Don't worry Pieter, they won't get the guns here, too many of them, and if they tried, it wouldn't be a pretty sight.

-- Richard (Astral-Acres@webtv.net), April 09, 2000.


Gee, what's wrong? Can't anybody take a little spin? I get to hear it and see it twenty-four hours a day on tv on CNN & etc. A little spin in the other direction seems fair enough to me.

-- brock gannon (brockgannon@gnc.net), April 09, 2000.

Pieter, you said,

"Comment: What some of us OZ pro-gun lobbyists think of your NRA's misusage of figures goes in no small way in affirming what we thought all along - that you Yankees are being brainwashed and are in thraldom to powerful forces.

Meanwhile check out zog's thread and realize you Yanks are in no position to preach to the world."

Man, that's the second really angry-sounding thread in about as many days. Coming from you that's an oddity. Are they still putting LSD in you Aussies' drinking water like the NRA tells us Americans?

Well quit drinking it!

Wondering where the old Pieter went,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), April 10, 2000.



Frank, It's the nitrates in the water. That's the only common denominator in this part of purgatory.

On a more sobering note I am a one of a group of local tourism operators and we are going down by between 20% and 40% less business this past quarter. Meantime the cool dudes in the House of Assembly reckon that everything is rosy. My neighbour shot himself dead a week ago.

Ever notice how people begin to whisper when it happens closeby? We're in for more sorrow, and in a southern drought with rationing. This place is fraying at the edge and some foreclosures happening already with interest rates up every month for four straight months in a deregulated market. I shan't go on because I am losing my humour quickly. You see, I've been through it before, when the locksmiths join the process servers. You ain't seen nothing yet..., and sorry about my tone. I'm personally all right, OK.

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), April 10, 2000.


Pieter,

Sorry to hear about conditions there, and hope they improve. Remember, you WILL make it through somehow, people always do.

God bless,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), April 10, 2000.


Hi Pieter

You said "Comment: What some of us OZ pro-gun lobbyists think of your NRA's misusage of figures goes in no small way in affirming what we thought all along - that you Yankees are being brainwashed and are in thraldom to powerful forces. "

So are you saying that we are being enslaved by being tricked in to being armed well enough to resist tyranny? How does that work? That's like being imprisoned by being given the keys to the jail cell.

Still, any light anyone can throw on the origin of those stats' is helpful. It would be the first time I ever caught the NRA in a fib. Or a case of sloppy reporting.

Hope things get better down under. Take care.

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.2all), April 10, 2000.


Of Course, the NRA is a lobby organization. Although their statistics tell me what I like to hear, lobby organizations are in the very business of omitting the rest of the story. Just imagine the statistics one could collect in such a case, even with NO policy changes. Both proper uses and misuses of guns vary stochastically from time to time and place to place, so all you need to do is find those places where abuse went UP for a brief period, and all I need to do is find those places where it went DOWN for some brief period, and we both generalize and beat one another over the head with our numbers. All of which are correct! And equally meaningless.

Even if there has been a longterm trend, and even if it started (or took a big jump) when the law was implemented, this STILL doesn't rule out some underlying causality other than a change in the law. Statistics are slippery even in practiced hands, much less in the hands of those who set out to be slippery. We need solid numbers indeed, and embedded in a rich context indeed, to decide which of these advocacy groups more nearly approximates the reality.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 10, 2000.


eyes_open,
Link

I am annoyed at the NRA assertion that social issues in South Australia are directly the result of the gun-buyback disarming of people of certain rifles-n-guns. The link above presents a sobering point of view to change the debate focus slightly.

I'm sorry about the frustration coming out in my posts. It is so exasperating to see the change happening and these changes have nothing what-so-ever to do with the quantity of guns in circulation.

Flint,
Thanks for the saneness of your view. Statistics are made to twist. The NRA uses an old lady in Adelaide to push their agenda. Let me say this lady is deeply distressed by it all. She had been told it was film footage to be used for another purpose. It does no credit to the NRA to twist everything so. Neither has it brought credit on our own gun-lobby IMO.

Regards from OZ

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), April 10, 2000.



Flint

You said " Both proper uses and misuses of guns vary stochastically from time to time and place to place, so all you need to do is find those places where abuse went UP for a brief period, and all I need to do is find those places where it went DOWN for some brief period, and we both generalize and beat one another over the head with our numbers."

Correct. This is also what makes the Lott study significant. It included every county in the US.

You also said "Even if there has been a longterm trend, and even if it started (or took a big jump) when the law was implemented, this STILL doesn't rule out some underlying causality other than a change in the law."

That's correct as well, and means that the Lott study is not definite proof of the effectiveness of privatly owned guns to deter crime. It is, however, a strong indication of that.

James Madison and other framers

You said "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed"

You are also correct. Thanks. I will not forget.

Pieter

Thanks for the link. I'm saving it to read later. Good Luck and God Bless.

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.2all), April 10, 2000.


Pieter

Ok. So. I read it sooner rather than later. It was a link to a posting above.

Studies here and elsewhere indicate that a disarmed public will suffer from an increase in home invasion robberis after they are disarmed. However, you have to be HOME to defend your treasure. Owning a gun won't help much in the situation you describe.

Has mere gambling been such a bad influence on Aussies? It took sex, drugs and Rock and Roll (plus all the drugs and twenty years of preaching decadence didn't help) to do us in. Take it from a Yank whose seen it here, it's a lack of self-discipline.

Good Luck down under.

And keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.2all), April 10, 2000.


eyes_open,
Poker machines are now widely distributed and everywhere. Since the recent introduction of them for general public use we are seeing the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul etc charities stressed out. It's serious social engineering.

Drugs and the growing underworld currents that make them prevail are causing many to wonder where it will go. Somehow addressing the issue by getting everyone armed seems to me to blink the issues that visit us with such changes. They include multinational dominance of consumer goods and foreign ownership of our media. This week the (Aus)dollar falls further, yet we import so much in a deregulated marketplace. The accounts require to be paid. Did I mention petrol? The circle is getting more and more savage. Our infrastructure is patched-up to stretch it another year...anyway the story is complex. Yup. Discipline. Precious little shown of that by our visionless civic leaders.

Regards

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), April 11, 2000.


Pieter

Like I said. Being armed won't help here. I hear the incidents of people being attacked by ferel electronic poker machines is very low in Oz.

Welcome to the age of electronic addictions. I hope people find the will power to avoid dropping thier hard earned down the slots.

Keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.2all), April 11, 2000.


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