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Talk:Gun laws of Australia

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Lack of citation on sentence regarding attacks by Aboriginal peoples

"From the landing of the First Fleet there was conflict with Aborigines. Firearms were used to protect explorers and settlers from Aboriginal attack."

Given that the article already notes that a citation is needed, I would like to suggest that this line be removed unless a credible citation is sourced. It doesn't add to the article, as the information is essentially covered by the statement: "Firearms were also used for hunting, protection of persons and crops, in crime and fighting crime, and in many military engagements."

It is described with more detail in the European settlement section: "From the landing of the First Fleet there was conflict with Aborigines over game, access to fenced land, and spearing of livestock. Firearms were used to protect explorers and settlers from Aboriginal attack. A number of punitive raids and massacres of Aboriginals were carried out in a series of local conflicts. The history of these conflicts is contentious (see History wars)."

This is somewhat more nuanced but without citation it's unclear whether the inclusion of 'Aboriginal attack' as a rationale for guns was of such significance that it warrants particular mention. For example, as a penal colony, was there a greater (perceived or actual) threat from convicts? Also, Australia's first peoples are not referred to as 'Aboriginals'.

These statements are a superficial representation of an incredibly complex aspect of Australian history and introduces a bias favouring British settlers. The page also links to https://en.wikipedia.org/History_wars which I would also suggest is not an unbiased representation of that debate, with much greater emphasis given to what could be termed the conservative opinion, with the counter opinion included only for the appearance of balance or to be repudiated.

KPKnox (talk) 03:07, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

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Removal of section about 2017 study

A user has removed a whole section about a study considering state and territory compliance with the national firearms agreement. When I reverted this, i was reverted: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/Special:MobileDiff/809576852. Rather than get in an edit war, I'd be happy to discuss in this page. I disagree with the user that it is irrelevant to the article. Thoughts? Goldcactus (talk) 00:58, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, the section is rather long standing and relates directly to the gun laws in Australia. It should remain in the article. Stickee (talk) 01:34, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

The study was commissioned by a Gun control group, undertaken by a gun control advocate simply to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion and for their own gun control purposes. The report, along with the parties involved are highly biased, and not only does not represent a reputable / credible source, but the firearms industry, firearm owners as well as legislators disregard such material. The item relates to the National Firearms Agreement (NFA) with is crucially NOT gun law but a 15 page agreement reached upon, which state laws were to be 'generally' based and importantly there was no obligation to implement all, or indeed any of the provisions, this sentiment has been restated recently by the Minister of Justice in relation to the recently revised NFA. Hence where there is no obligation; 'compliance' to this brief agreement is not relevant to the actual legislation, certainly not a page describing gun laws. There are many reputable academic reports published in relation to the firearm laws and the post 1996 environment, that are more insightful, more credible, and certainly more relevant, but not entirely necessary for such a page discussing gun laws. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eatyoursoylentgreen (talk • contribs) 02:26, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

The study was reported by multiple third party sources, including the ABC, SMH and The Guardian. Here at Misplaced Pages, we says what sources say, not what our opinion is. You might think the report is "highly biased", but the reliable sources don't. Stickee (talk) 05:13, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm making further discussion regarding the additions to these sections. The edits are unsourced, and appear to be original research by the author. Stickee (talk) 12:06, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Primary sourced statements

There's a couple of statements that are entirely sourced by primary sources and show no evidence of notability, as per the WP:PRIMARY policy. As such I've reverted the addition. I see CamV8 also removed it too previously. Stickee (talk) 08:32, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

An interesting application by Stickee and CamV8 of the policy to remove an edit in this article which was under the sub heading "Statements by organisations". The edit removed contained extracts from the National Farmers’ Federation Submission to the Review of the National Firearms Agreements. That submission was published on the NFF's own website at The Misplaced Pages policy includes "A primary source may only be used on Misplaced Pages to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." In this case anyone may go to the NFF website and verify that the NFF did in fact make these statements because that organisation has itself published the submission.Antihypocritic (talk) 05:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. http://www.nff.org.au/get/submissions/5086.pdf
The problem with using solely primary sources is there's no way to establish notability about the information presented by the primary source(s). At this stage, there's no evidence that statement is notable at all. Other content in the article is republished in notable secondary sources. Stickee (talk) 01:15, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Notability applies to articles not the content in articles. The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article. Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article. The history of this article with respect to the NFF statement shows that on 31 March 2017 Stickee said "Statements by organisations: this is pretty much a COPYVIO. It'll need to be reworded into our own words". In other words Stickee then accepted that the statement was suitable for inclusion in the article. I answered this by saying on 2 April 2017, "With respect, not COPYVIO but fair use of a submission to government" and the NFF statement extracts were then continued without any further objection from Stickee until now. It appears that Stickee has misapplied the notability policy. Antihypocritic (talk) 07:32, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

As stated by WP:DUE (linked in your quote), it's republishing in reliable sources (aka notability) that's makes an item worthy for inclusion in an article. Stickee (talk) 10:28, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

The first criteria to note is that Misplaced Pages policies are in pari materia, that is, they are intended to be read and applied in conjunction. In attempting to paraphrase the WP:DUE policy, Stickee says; “its republishing in reliable sources (aka notability) that's makes an item worthy for inclusion in an article”. That may be the case in the positive sense but to rely on notability to exclude an item when the principle policy on notability states that “Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article” is perverse. In this last comment Stickee is again endeavoring to prevent the statements of the NFF from being included in the appropriate section of the article although as I showed above they are within the permitted use of a primary source. Stickee now claims the due weight policy should exclude the NFF statements but as I mentioned above the fact remains that from 2 April until 9 December 2017 Stickee accepted that the item was worthy of inclusion.Antihypocritic (talk) 02:01, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

"Stickee accepted that the item was worthy of inclusion." No, I never did. Stickee (talk) 07:20, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

On 31 March 2017 you objected to the inclusion of the item and on 2 April 2017 I answered your objection. From that date on until now you acquiesced in the items inclusion. Granted this is not the same as you making an outright statement that you accepted the item but you were a continuing editor of this article and you did not raise any further objections although you were otherwise constant in your vigilance of the article. I can only therefore assume that it did not occur to you to raise the worthiness of the item for inclusion, ergo you accepted it as worthy.Antihypocritic (talk) 08:57, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate your effort to read my mind. However, not noticing something does not mean I agree with it or "accept it as worthy". Stickee (talk) 14:03, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your appreciation of my mind reading efforts. If you missed the inclusion, you are of course correct when you state, “not noticing something does not mean I agree with it or "accept it as worthy"”. But on 31 March 2017 you did notice it and said, “this is pretty much a COPYVIO. It'll need to be reworded into our own words”. That is, you then positively agreed it was worthy of inclusion but in a reworded form and that was only to avoid what you thought was COPYVIO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Antihypocritic (talk • contribs) 07:23, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

I never said it was worthy of inclusion. But that's a pointless thing to argue anyway. Focus on policy-based reasoning for inclusion. Stickee (talk) 05:05, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Improvement of Article / Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Politics/Gun politics

This article should be improved, see Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Politics/Gun_politics#Gun_laws_in_Australia. Some proposals are already here on this disc some may come additionally. --Ｔｏｍ (talk) 20:12, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Sources for Improvements

Literature

other Sources

  • AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT: Commonwealth Position on Firearms, Submission 8325, Canberra 1991 Oktober, 9 / , No. 15879 Cabinet Minute
  • THE PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA, House Hansard, Thursday, 9 May 1996 Page: 766 f. Gun Control ("... Denison (Mr Kerr) proposing ... The need to give full support to the Commonwealth's initiatives to secure stricter gun control ...")
  • Barbour, Bruce (NSW-Ombudsman) 2006; Review of the Firearms Amendment (Public Safety) Act 2002, Firearm and Explosive Detection Dogs
  • NSW Police, Annual Report 2012-13, Page 99 "On 6 July 2012 the Firearms Act 1996 was amended to authorise police officers to seize licences and permits that are suspended, revoked or otherwise cease to be in force. Before the amendments, police only had the power to seize a person’s firearms. " source: online-PDF
  • THE PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA, HVP No 43 - 27 March 2017, Federation Chamber ILLEGAL FIREARMS TRAFFICKING (" Mr Goodenough ... this House: notes that while Australia has some of the strongest firearm controls in the world, illicit firearms continue to remain a threat to community safety ...")

The link number 56 to a pdf is no longer available. https://aic.gov.au/media_library/publications/mr/mr02/mr02.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.30.3.0 (talk) 06:28, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

* signing area for additions to calm the bot :-p --Ｔｏｍ (talk) 11:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Christchurch shooting and removal of McPhedran et al study

@CamV8:, even though it is no longer true that NZ has had no mass shootings, we should not remove the McPhedran paper as it is still valid as of the time of publication. I've added a note that the claim of no mass shootings is no longer correct as of 2019 but that may not actually invalidate the conclusions of the paper. We would need to find a RS that says the paper is no longer valid before removal. Springee (talk) 03:38, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks @Springee: for the clarification, yes I agree that at the time of publication this research was valid. However WP:10 year test is also important. The intent of this research section is to help inform the reader via wp:rs while maintaining a wp:npov of the analysis of data. I removed wp:bold this statement, as it may give the reader a misinformed view regarding the comparison of gun laws between the 2 countries. Your suggestion that we need to wait until a new RS that discounts this research is written is not something I would expect to see any time soon. Other relevant wp:rs such as NZ action on changing gun laws is a clear example of refuting the McPhedran paper. If the conclusions in McPhedran's paper stood the test of time the NZ gun law changes would not be happening. This discussion would be better suited to the Talk:Overview of gun laws by nation as comparison between countries is presented in that article. This article is about the Australian Gun Laws. Regards CamV8 (talk) 08:06, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

CamV8, I don't agree with the view that this isn't specifically relevant to Australian gun laws since the paper was comparing the two countries in context of the laws Australia implemented vs those in NZ. I also don't agree with refuting as justification for removal. In cases like this its common to have research papers on both sides. However, I think your 10 year test argument is harder for me to discount. Again I lean towards keep it as it doesn't harm the reader to have access but also keep the context of NZ has since had a shooting. Since I haven't read the paper I can't say how that single event changes the data in the paper. This is also an important point. For a while Norway lead the first world in terms of mass shooting casualties per capita, significantly exceeding the US, due to just one even. If I recall the study used a 10 year window. Once the Norway shooting was "too old" Norway once again dropped way down on the list. Anyway, I think you have made a good argument in terms of the 10 year test but I would rather qualify the scope of the study vs just remove it. Should we ping some other active editors on this page for a 3rd opinion? Regards to you as well, Springee (talk) 12:44, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Springee, lets stick to the question of whether the McPhedran paper is worthy (in the context of this article) of representing the position its conclusion states. I find this discussion a little perplexing as you have stated you haven't read the paper. Other incidents in other countries such as Norway have no context in this discussion on this article. As suggested earlier, if you would like the discuss the comparison of Australian gun laws with other countries then this discussion would be better suited to the Talk:Overview of gun laws by nation as comparison between countries is presented in that article. While I understand your point, I think this paper is no longer relevant to this article. Cheers CamV8 (talk) 14:40, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
I haven't tried to find the paper and there isn't a direct link. However, the paper is titled "Mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand: A descriptive study of incidence" so it seems relevant to this article. I would presume based on the Misplaced Pages text that the article was assessing the effectiveness of Australia's legal changes by comparing them to NZ's laws. I will try to get a copy of the paper to get more context for the conclusion stated in the Wiki article. Have you had a chance to read it? Springee (talk) 15:00, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Research section in chronological order

Presenting the research section in chronological order helps the reader understand the progression of research prepared by the academic community. Rolling this up by author presents this research as a series of wp:primary papers with wp:or conclusions making a wp:synth situation which leads the reader away from wp:npov. @Stickee: I disagree with your edits rolled up by author on this basis and will reordered these papers by date. CamV8 (talk) 10:08, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Also, as mentioned above many of the research papers cited in this section are wp:Primary papers with wp:or author conclusions with no wp:secondary cites. Obviously we should be citing wp:secondary wp:rs. With many examples of this problem in this section it is not ideal and needs a cleanup. I will continue to challenge content that is not adequately cited in an effort to improve this article. I welcome some help. CamV8 (talk) 10:08, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

@CamV8:, you should ping the editor who made those changes so they can see the discussion here. Springee (talk) 10:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, done. plus new section may help discussion.CamV8 (talk) 11:25, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Definitely disagree. WP:WEIGHT states that conclusions need to given weight in accordance with their prominence. Giving triple the paragraphs in an article because they published three times in not in accordance with policy. You can't override policy because it "helpds the reader understand" better. Stickee (talk) 00:56, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
gday @Stickee, I see your point, I was looking for a way of editing the research section that didn't read like a list of wp:pov statements on both sides. However as you have pointed out this leads to difficulties balancing wp:weight. For example how many McPhedran articles should be cited, she has published many more articles. Can I expect a complete list in this section? Are these articles considered rs or should we be citing other secondary rs sources?
Another example is the statement from McPhedran regarding significant expenditure on the gun the buyback may not have had any impact on youth suicide. This is a compelling statement however there was no research done in the cited article by McPhedran on whether government expenditure priorities were impacted by the 'buyback'. I fail to see how this statement can be supported. I interpret this statement as WP:OR by the author and as such not meeting wiki policies.CamV8 (talk) 10:53, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Resolving an apparent inconsistency in the text.

Jeanine Baker and Samara McPhedran, researchers with the International Coalition for Women in Shooting and Hunting (WiSH) made several studies on the NFA. Their 2006 study found an effect on suicide but not on homicide though in later studies they questioned this. Hence my edit, which I hope clarifies the text. Michael Glass (talk) 23:35, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

National Shooting Council mention removed as non-notable

The paragraph discussing the National Shooting Council was advertising copy supported by a single primary source. It would have required rewriting in entirety to fit encyclopaedic tone, but as a non notable organisation (the online presence is limited to their facebook page, website, and adverts), I considered the most expedient solution deletion of the offending paragraph. PrimalBlueWolf (talk) 08:30, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Lede needs work

The lede of the article is a little short and doesnt introduce the article as well as it perhaps could. This could use some expanding, particularly the 4th sentence but in general perhaps it could use a small rewrite/expansion? PrimalBlueWolf (talk) 03:10, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

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