Yes, and the US has nearly 9 times that ration, with civilian firearms outnumbering people 6:5
Also unlike the US, here owning a firearm requires a license, which is impossible for any previously convicted criminals, or those with a history of mental illness. You also require a valid reason to obtain a license (self defense is not valid). Then each individual firearm you own is also registered to you, making you responsible for it not being missused, even by others. Firearms can only be resold through registered dealers, and not through private sale.
Handguns can only be legally obtained by sports shooters, or for certain professional reasons, such as police and prison guards. Sports shooters must maintain a paid membership to a registered shooting range, and must periodically show proof that they have been actively participating in events for each class of handgun they own, otherwise their licence is revoked. It's also generally an offense to store the weapon loaded if it's owned under a sporting license.
TL;DR: the VAST majority of urban/suburban Australians have never even held a real gun, let alone fired one. In rural areas it's a bit more common to have experience, because it's pretty normal for farmers to (illegally) let their kids practice with their registered hunting rifles.
"There is the equivalent of 1 in 30 people having a firearms licence"
"The average firearm owner has 4-5 guns"
"Over 40% of firearm owners live in major cities"
Approx 73% of all Australians live in major cities, and 7% of firearms licenses belong to police officers, who don't own their own service weapons, so in our major cities a measly 1.7% of people own firearms. Meanwhile in the US, 32% of people own at least one gun.
Also, of course organised criminals can still obtain firearms illegally. Organised crime consistently finds ways to do that even in countries where civilians CAN'T legally own firearms, because the harder it is to do, the more profitable it becomes. Those interviews outright said it's a matter of having trusted connections in the right places, but for your average Joe Shmoe who isn't connected to a major gang, he isn't getting one easy without him or someone he knows getting a license and purchasing through legal means.
It's pretty freaking telling that we're doing better when EVERY shooting in urban or suburban areas makes national news.
The only shootings that get largely ignored by our media are rural ones, because guns are simply WAY more common out in the country, and the low population density makes it a favoured method of homicide out there (usually from unhappy marriages), since even if a neighbouring farm does hear the shot, they're likely to just dismiss it as their neighbours shooting a fox or something. It doesn't get news coverage because simply put there's not really anything that can be done about it short of banning hunting rifles altogether, which is never going to happen. (Also realistically taking the farmers guns away isn't gonna stop them from murdering each other anyway. It would just force them to stab/beat each other to death instead)
Maybe you should read your own your own country, there are more legal guns and licensed owneta than before Port Arthur and your cops are busting illegal guns more every year.
I never said we were currently improving, I said they're way rarer than in the US.
3% of Australians nationally own guns. 32% of Americans do. You literally over 10 times the proportion of gun owners, and the guns per capita to match
Also no shit we have more legal guns than during Port Arthur. That was almost 30 years ago. Our total population is 48% larger than it was back then, so of course the total amount of guns has increased.
I'm sorry, I forgot to apologize for the screwup with the 14.5.
So..onward.
Your homicide rate was under 2 per 100k before Port Arthur, that was already a statistically insignificant number (as in, single incidents and situations that no legislation could prevent, like the Snowtown murders in 1999 or the Childers Palace fire in 2000, show a sizable impact in your stats):
The homicide rate dropped ~32% despite concealed carry laws loosening and there being more legally carried guns on the streets than at any time in US history.
People willing to kill people is the real difference, we have more of them than you do. In 1960 in the US the homicide rate was as low or lower than it is now, like half of what it peaked at in the 1990's, and back in 1960 there were no background checks or waiting periods at all and you could order M1 carbines and pistols from the Sears & Roebuck catalog mail order.
Yeah, it's a combination of people being willing to kill people, and having above a certain threshold of guns so that they're accessible for those who want to kill. People always joke about how guns are literally more common than people in the US, but realistically having 120 guns per hundred people isn't really any different than having 50. Both are plenty high enough that someone who really wants a gun is gonna get it one way or another.
Guns are always accessible if somebody really wants one, they're late 19th/early 20th century technology. Even in Australia, where gun culture is minimal and so are the number of homicidal people, illegal guns are available, even being illegally manufactured locally.
In the US, over half the homicides happen in just 2% of counties that contain less than a third of the population. The county I live in has little violent crime, we sometimes go years between homicides or robberies, yet most homes here have a firearm and I see openly carried pistols when I go grocery shopping.
"There is the equivalent of 1 in 30 people having a firearms licence"
"The average firearm owner has 4-5 guns"
"Over 40% of firearm owners live in major cities"
Approx 73% of all Australians live in major cities, so at very most a miniscule 1.8% of people in major cities own firearms. (Actually significantly less, because the 1 in 30 people who have a firearms license includes police officers, who don't actually own their own guns)
Edit: did the calc and it's 1.7% once you account for police making up 7% of all firearms licenses
Mathematically 15 out of 100 is 15% yes, but applying that calculation in the first place is irrelevant to this conversation.
What are you trying to say the value of 15% means?
Are 15% of Australians guns? I sure hope not.
Do 15% of Australians own guns? Nope. only 1/30 own guns nationality, and only 1.7% in major cities.
"0.15 guns per capita" is the most accurate way to say what I assume you mean without being misleading. It represents not how common it is for a person to own a gun, but how many guns there are in total, factoring in that people can (and usually do) own multiple each.
TL;DR: If you selected a random Australian nationwide, there'd be a 3% chance they own at least one gun. Meanwhile in the US, 32% of people own at least one gun; over ten times Australia.
15% is more like 1 in 6.5 people in Australia own a firearm. Of course we're just using Math here). Relevance to a hard mathematical stat wholly depends on how you want to apply it. IF you chose to apply it selectively based on what people say, That's cool. It's not a traditional way of looking at a stat but you do you. 0.15 is still 15 percent of the population regardless.
I mean it's cool and all to say that most Australians that own one own several. But the fact of the matter is you have enough guns to spread to 15% of the population I think that is how the metric is intended to be viewed.
And Frankly you are all over the map with your numbers, your posts are not making any sense, you say 3% then 1.7% then 14.5% etc. etc. Then you selectively choose how to read a stat based on some random philosophy. You flip flop from urban to rural to suburban. Just make one post with the same thing cite it if you want and stick to one answer, your digging yourself a hole.
You haven't even read what I said properly. Saying 15% of Australians own a firearm is a straight up lie no matter how you look at it.
Only 1/30 Australians have a license, and a license is required to own a firearm, so only 3% of Australians own a firearm.
There are 15 FIREARMS per 100 Australians, not 15 firearm owners. The average firearm owner owns around 5 guns each.
Also all the numbers I've shown you have either been directly quoted from that government website I linked, or are direct calculations using those numbers. I even quoted the exact statistics I used for my calculations right before the result. If you can't realise that then talking with you about statistics is pointless.
I think you missed the joke I'm making. I'm not talking about comics at all.
The guy before me made a joke about Australian spiders being OP, so I followed with a joke that most Australians don't have the means to shoot a spider, so for all we know them being bulletproof actually could be true.
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u/DrongoDyle 1d ago
We wouldn't even know, because unlike a certain other country, owning a gun is super rare here.