U.S. Crime Rate versus Canada and Australia

When the Left actually talks about crime, as opposed to Social Justice of the courts and/or the police, they usually talk about "gun crime," and not crime in general. There is a reason for that. From John R. Lott Jr., at RealClearInvestigations: Mythbuster: U.S. Much Safer Than Many Peer Nations

The conventional wisdom is that Canad and Australia, thanks to their Draconian gun laws, are much safer than the US.

The data, however, undercuts this narrative. While the United States still leads in some categories, on the whole it has significantly less violent crime per capita than those two nations.

Regarding homicide, the most heinous crime of all, it’s true that in 2025, the U.S. murder rate was about four per 100,000 people – roughly twice Australia’s and Canada’s 2024 homicide rate. Yet it’s also true that homicides account for only a tiny fraction of violent crime. In 2024, homicides represented just 0.21% of violent crimes in the U.S., based on National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) estimates of rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. Murder comprises an even smaller fraction of crimes in Australia and Canada.

Click thru for the data presented in nice graphs.

I will just leave you with this bit about Australia and the attitude toward rape.

In Australia, there are numerous complaints that “Rape is effectively decriminalized.” In New South Wales, of the 9,138 sexual assaults reported to police in 2022, there were only 1,016 convictions – just an 11% conviction rate. Indeed, during a recent lecture that I gave to college students in New South Wales in February, several women said there was no reason to report rapes and sexual assaults to the police because they believed nothing would happen to the criminal and it was personally embarrassing to come forward publicly.

As a result, an analysis based solely on police statistics can be misleading when comparing countries. Victimization surveys tell a different story.

Read the whole thing.

Another Submachine Gun in Australia

As always, Impro Guns has the story. 9mm Bullet Hose SMG (Australia). Click thru for photos.

The Professor Parabellum design from the ‘9mm Bullet Hose – Homebuilt Submachine Gun’ PDF shown to the press amongst a table of seized homemade and 3D printed firearms recently seized by police in Western Australia.

The post linked above includes a link to a news story by way of YouTube.

The Australians seem to be fighting a losing battle against 3D printed firearms, and the Professor Parabellum designs.

The plans for the 9mm Bullet Hose can be found at this link. The version shown in the photos and the video of the firearm seized in Australia includes a suppressor not included in the design.

The 9mm Bullet Hose is designed to be built with nothing more complicated than a drillpress, and some basic welding. It seems to share some design philosophy with the venerable M3 Grease Gun.

Improvised Guns That Actually Look Good

This guy is a true craftsman, and he isn't using a 3D printer. DIY Makarovs Down Under | Impro Guns

he clearly very talented craftsmen built a rather commendable version of the MK3 .380 sheet metal pistol and It appears he even ‘evolved’ the basic Professor Parabellum design into a Makarov look-alike worthy of presentation to any high ranking member of the Central Committee.

Click thru for the photo. One looks very professional. Pride in Craftsmanship is a rare thing today.

Queensland Parliament to Consider the Castle Doctrine

I doubt it will work, or not for many years. Robbie Katter pushes Castle Law to give Queenslanders greater legal protection when defending themselves against intruders | Sky News Australia

Queensland, is a state in the Commonwealth of Australia. It is in the northeast corner of the continent of Australia.

Traeger MP Robbie Katter has renewed calls for Queensland to adopt Castle Law, arguing the measure would strengthen legal protections for homeowners defending themselves against intruders.

The Katter's Australia Party MP's push comes after a 75-year-old Tenterfield man allegedly shot an intruder after he and his wife were critically stabbed during a home invasion.

On paper, Australians have the right to defend themselves. In reality they are subject to review by Monday Morning Quarterbacks who don't like self-defense. The term "proportional" is bandied about. As if a 25 year old man can't beat a 75-year-old man to death with his fists alone.

Click thru for the details on the crime, and the push to bring sanity back to Australia.

Mr Katter said his party had supported the concept for years but believed the need for reform had become more urgent as crime concerns intensified.

Self-defense is a human right.

The Truth about Australian Crime

How bad is crime in Australia? They have all of that lovely gun control, it should be very peaceful. Or is it? In the Australian Spectator: The shocking truth about Australian crime rates - Crime Prevention Research Center

People have feelings, and they let the feelings substitute for data.

When we compare these broader estimates, Australia’s rape and sexual assault rate is roughly three times higher than that of the United States. Australia’s assault rate is about twice as high, and its burglary rate is about 2.5 times higher. Robbery is the only category where the two countries report similar rates.

Now John Lott had a bit to do with this article, so they are comparing rates, which is really the only way to compare different populations that are diffent sizes. Crime rates are typically crimes per 100,000 individuals.)

There is also an acknowledgement that crime in the US is not randomly distributed.

In the United States, murders concentrate heavily in very small geographic areas. Just 2 per cent of counties account for about 56 per cent of all murders, and within those counties, roughly two-thirds of killings occur within areas spanning about ten city blocks.

Click thru for the rest.

Australians Are Trying to Take Back Self-Defense

Or self-defence, as they spell it. I wish them luck, but the state will not want to relinquish the power that it has taken. ‘Everybody’s fed up’: Two home invasions, two intruders dead and the moral dilemma facing Victorians

The story covers a recent decision not to prosecute, and a similar case from 2015. Click thru for those details.

The problem for Victorians caught up in a youth crime crisis that has seen home invasions skyrocket to record levels in the past few years is that they don’t know whether the law supports them protecting their homes.

Under Victorian law, homeowners are allowed to defend themselves during a home invasion. But the amount of force they use must be proportionate and reasonable to the threat they face.

Which might sound good in theory, but how is a woman homeowner (the case from 2015) supposed to defend herself from a large man trying to choke her? Spoiler, she didn't defend herself, because firearms would be "disproportional," so her neighbor had to come to her aid. He was charged with murder.

In reality it means that the Monday-morning quarterbacks get to second guess the decisions you made at 3AM Saturday, when someone kicked in the door to your home. The state doesn't like self-defense, because it doesn't respect state authority.

Victoria, Australia, is a state in the southeastern portion of the mainland. It is home to Melbourne.

There is more, on the state of crime in Victoria, Australia, and some on the push to reform the laws around self-defense. Click thru.

Australia Is a Defenseless Victim Zone

The government likes it that way. Coroner reveals new details after 20-year-old intruder shot dead in Melbourne home invasion

A man is at home with his heavily, pregnant partner. Three men, armed with axes break in. They assault the pregnant woman. At least one of the three has a firearm. The homeowner wrestles the firearm away from the bad guy, and in the course of the fight said bad guy is shot in the chest, and dies of his wounds.

The cops arrest the homeowner, because you are not allowed to defend yourself in Australia. The law actually says that you are allowed, but you must use proportional response, and somehow, shooting a bad guy, with his own gun, after he and his buddies have attacked your pregnant girlfriend, is not proportional enough for the powers that be, Down Under.

And the pregnant woman was struck in the leg with an ax.

The homeowner was initially charged with murder in relation to the incident “however the prosecution did not progress due to the opinion of prosecutors that there were no reasonable prospects of a conviction,” according to Spanos’ findings.

Justice? Why would they worry about Justice?

Since law and order seem to be deteriorating in Australia, some of the states are trying to return some measure of self-defense. I don't expect it to come to much. (They're too "civilized" for that kind of thing.)

There is a push, however, to introduce laws to increase the rights of homeowners. The push is, in part, due to an increase in the number of home invasions in Victoria, driven in large part by young, recidivist offenders.

The demand for an overhaul of self-defence laws in Victoria is being led by Libertarian MP David Limbrick.

The law abiding are more than disarmed. They are forbidden, in any practical sense, from defending themselves.

Australian Gun Control Failure

Can you kill an idea? From the Brisbane Times: Dozens of 3D-printed guns allegedly found in car, Brisbane men arrested

The alleged discovery of dozens of 3D-printed handguns on the Gold Coast has led to the arrest of two Brisbane men.

Dozens. Because once you are set up to produce them, produce them you can.

Officers allegedly found 34 Glock-style 3D-printed guns, 800 rounds of nine-millimetre ammunition, handgun magazines, rifle magazines, plastic rifle trigger guard assemblies and a hard drive containing blueprints for printing 3D firearms inside.

Brisbane is capital of Queensland, Australia. It is on the west coast of that island/nation.

I always think of the FGC-9 when the subject of 3D printed firearms comes up, but the Not-a-Glock is a thing.

“Detectives are committed to disrupting and taking action against the possession and supply of unlawful firearms to make our community safer,” detective acting inspector Adrian Sala said in a statement.

Really?!? You think you can stop an idea? (Hat tip to Bearing Arms)

John Lott on Australia As a Defenseless Victim Zone

Topher Field is a Australian documentary film maker and libertarian political commentator. He also has a YouTube Channel.

John Lott is a researcher and author of the book More Guns, Less Crime.

These two had a conversation. This is an interesting, if brief (9 minute) excerpt of that meeting, about America's experience with armed self-defense. It is 9 minutes out of a conversation that lasted just over an hour. I have not listened to entire conversation, but I will try to get to that this week.

This is the Topher Field video What if everything you've been told is upside down? Topher Project Special with John Lott

95% of the time that people use guns defensively, they don't fire the gun. It's simply brandishing a gun is enough to cause the criminal to go break off the attack.

Of course those stories don't end up in the news, unless something "odd" happens, like the defender holds the attacker at gunpoint until police arrive. But mostly, there is no news story.

The extended conversation is The TRUTH about crime and G.u.n.s EXTENDED interview with John Lott Jr - Topher Project SPECIAL.

Free Speech Must Be Destroyed in the Name of Multiculturalism

From the London Telegraph: Free speech will have to go to preserve multiculturalism: One Australian politician has said the quiet part out loud

Multiculturalism is the new religion of the Left. You will not be allowed to say anything heretical about it. Like the fact that it is failing miserably.

It’s not often the Premier of New South Wales says something that changes the political debate in the UK and elsewhere, but so it is this week. Following the awful carnage on Bondi Beach, NSW Premier Chris Minns gave a press conference about new legal restrictions on speech, and said this:

“I acknowledge that we don’t have the same free speech rules that they have in the United States and I make no apologies for that, we have got a responsibility to knit together our community, that comes from different races and religions.”

It is why the UK and Australia, and other places, are putting people in jail for expressing opinions, and in parts of Europe for citing crime statistics.

You will believe only what the state permits you to believe.

Western civilization was fun while it lasted.

Network Update Errors Can Cost Lives

When you are updating a firewall, mistakes can make it impossible for your systems to talk to the outside world. If you work at a telephone/telecom company, you can disrupt phone service for a lot of people. From The Register: Ten mistakes marred firewall upgrade at Australian telco, contributing to two deaths

As The Register reported at the time, Australia’s equivalent of the USA’s 911 and the UK’s 999 and 112 emergency contact number is 000 – Triple Zero – and local law requires all telcos to route emergency calls to that number. For 14 hours on September 18, Optus could not route some customers’ calls to 000 and was unaware of any problems on its network. The company eventually learned of the situation from customers who complained to its call center.

During the 14 hours of the outage, 455 calls to Triple Zero didn't go through. Two of the callers died.

Click thru for the details, and there are a lot of them. How the change was made without review. Why people noticed a problem but didn't escalate it. The fact that the call center never expected to be the front line on Triple Zero problems, and they didn't know what to do. And other issues.

Calling 911 in the US, 999 in the UK or 000 in Australia is a fine thing to do, but as we have seen all too often, it only takes a missed bit in a configuration update, or a guy with a backhoe, to make a huge hole in those services. You should figure out what your Plan B is. These are complex systems built, run, and maintained by flawed humans. They won't work perfectly all the time. Sometimes, they won't work at all.

I won't compare the internet, and the technology that we've built on top of it, to a house of cards, but it isn't far off. The recent, and what seem to be escalating, outages make that point for me.

After 20 Minutes of Doing Nothing ...

The Australian cops shoot the Wrong Guy. It is almost like the cops in Australia wanted the killings to go on longer than they did. It is almost like they want to discourage people from taking any action to stop terror. Second Bondi Beach hero helped disarm shooters before police mistakenly shot him: report | New York Post

A man who rushed in to help disarm one of the terrorists who fired at a crowd celebrating Hanukkah in Australia’s famous Bondi Beach was mistakenly shot by police and tackled by bystanders, according to a new report.

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but the first thing the Australian government did in the wake of this attack was to declare they are going to implement more gun control. Because actually addressing the real issue would be politically incorrect. It is like they want a crisis so they can exploit it.

The Bondi police station is less than 1000 meters from the site of the shooting. Yet it took them 20 minutes to respond. There were uniformed police at the event. But they did nothing.

The Bondi/Australian police are going to displace the Uvalde, Texas as the most useless police department on the planet.

So of course they are going to insist that you rely on them for your personal safety, even though they have demonstrated they cannot provide it.

It Is Almost Like the Australian Authorities WANTED Casualties

There were 4 armed police at Bondi. There is a police station a few blocks away. Why did the shootings continue for 10 or 20 minutes, before a bystander stepped in? When you outsource your security to the government - by Ian

There is video that captures 10 minutes of the attack, and it is not the entire attack.

So, I started looking. Here is the closest police station:

That looks like a couple of blocks to me. 500 metres — more or less — as the crow flies. A distance that my 58-year-old, moderately crippled arse can cover in about four minutes while carrying a 9mm pistol.

So is this cowardice, or something darker? Is this a crisis that they won't let go to waste?

Four armed officers on-scene while two bastards armed with weapons that don’t reload quickly played Whack-A-Mole … and a citizen had to be the one to rush them.

Australia doesn't like the idea of self-defense, but then they need to ensure that they have your defense covered. They don't.

If the government is going to take the right of self-protection away from the citizens, then it is incumbent on that government to actually, you know, provide protection. If the government can’t provide that protection, then get out of the citizen’s way.

They won't. Australia, like Europe, cannot let people protect themselves. It would undermine their entire world view.

This is the Paul Joseph Watson video. Disturbing Questions About The Bondi Beach Attack

Obvious signs of narrative control were in full swing less than an hour after the incident happened with UK Labour MP Lola Makavoy. absurdly insisting that the real takeaway should be that diversity is our greatest strength.

Suicidal empathy will destroy the West.

Antisemitic Terror in Australia

From Cullen Linebarger at The Gateway Pundit: TERROR DOWN UNDER: Two Terrorists Kill at Least 11, Including Children, at Australia's Bondi Beach During Hanukkah Celebrations in Evil Attack on Jewish Community - Shooters Identified, One Dead (VIDEOS)

One of the worst shootings in Australia’s history unfolded Sunday evening in Sydney as two terrorists slaughtered at least 11 Jewish beachgoers who were celebrating Hanukkah. One of the gunmen is also deceased.

As The Daily Mail reported, two men stepped out of a vehicle on Campbell Parade, near Bondi Pavilion, and opened fire at Bondi Beach at roughly 6.40 pm on Sunday. Witnesses report that more than 30 shots were fired.

But Australia has all of that lovely gun control. I have no idea if self-defense is legal, but it is clearly impossible given the disarmed state of the population.

One of the 2 terrorists was shot and injured, one was killed.

Unconfirmed reports say [the guy who got shot and injured] is a Pakistani immigrant. He was apparently radicalized at some point.

The other gunman was killed at the scene.

Asbestos Found in Chinese Wind Turbines

Are we shocked? Nationwide alert issued after asbestos is detected in Chinese-made wind turbines across the country

An urgent safety alert has been issued at wind farms across Australia after asbestos was discovered in Chinese-made wind turbines.

The deadly material was first found in brake pads used in wind turbine tower lifts at the Goldwind Cattle Hill wind farm in central Tasmania.

The asbestos is in brake pads used in wind turbine tower elevators. The supplier in question has provided these brake pads to wind farms all over the country of Australia, so people think the problem is not limited to one state.

This is the MGUY Australia video Health SHOCK: ASBESTOS found in Chinese wind turbines

Well, this is unfortunately what happens when governments drunk on net zero Kool-Aid rush headlong into a disastrous energy transition, not knowing the first thing about energy. Idiots like Chris Bowen have no scientific understanding and have spent their entire careers as Labor Party staffers and couldn't run a sweet shop in the real world. But suddenly, they're in charge of billions of dollars of government money pumped at the supposed climate crisis.

The video is about 5 minutes long.

One interesting thing is that Australia only outlawed asbestos in 2003, where the US did it something in the late 1970s

Australians Keep Making Firearms

And the Australian government won't have it! From Impro Guns: ‘Not-A-Glock’ pistols seized in Tasmania

3D printed .22lr ‘Not-A-Glock’ pistols seized during several police operations in recent weeks. Only basic easily obtainable hardware store parts including a small length of steel tubing (visible in the second photo) are required for assembly meaning these pistols can be pumped out in bedrooms anywhere around the world.

Click thru for the photos. The 3D printed guns are getting much better, at least judging by the photos. These include some suppressors.

Grid Scale Battery Storage Failure in Australia

Are we shocked to learn that this is a Blackrock boondoggle? Waratah’s $1 billion super battery failure throws coal-to-renewables transition into disarray, experts warn

Bankers pretending to be engineers. What could possibly go wrong?

It comes after the AFR revealed the super battery, owned by BlackRock through its subsidiary Akaysha Energy, suffered a “catastrophic failure” in one of three giant transformers.

There is of course no information on what went wrong, because why would there be? Transformers are typically very long-life components. They have no moving parts, though this being 2025, I'm sure this one was computerized in some way.

And in any event, there is no proper accounting of costs.

“The total scale of costs required to replace the security and stability of the coal system we have already is hard to keep track of,” he said.

Translation, "It's costing way more than we said it would, so were are cooking the books." Or that is how I read it anyway.

This is the MGUY Australia video BONKERS Billion dollar BIG 🪫 BATTERY 🪫 is BROKEN already...!

All of Australia Is a Defenseless-Victim Zone

The (wealthy) western suburbs of Melbourne have to rely on private security, which is upgrading in the face of crime. Melbourne western suburbs security guards to carry guns in Wyndham Vale, Manor Lakes, Mambourin as crime soars

The powers that be in Australia disarmed the law abiding, and then let crime run crazy.

Torched stolen cars, high-speed chases, machete slashings and bloodied streets have become all too frequent in the city’s booming western fringe, where police are often stretched thin, and youth gangs are going to war.

“The escalation to firearms is because of what’s coming our way and the threats against our safety, against my team,” said Grant Burton, the owner of security company YPG Risk, whose night patrols are funded by housing estate residents.

Click thru for the details of how they got there.

Hat tip to Bearing Arms: Aussie Gun Control Works so Well, Melbourne Neighborhood Security Guards Need Guns

This appears to be a pretty posh neighborhood. I mean, they have private security. You don't find that in Section Eight housing, now do you? You probably don't have private security in your neighborhood, either. Most of us don't, which is one more reason why we have guns. We can't outsource our security like the wealthy do.

More at both links.

The (Illegal) Weapons Manufacturers Are Getting Better

The police are still catching them, though I wonder how the numbers balance out. More than 1,000 guns and parts seized in illicit weapon crackdown in Australia and New Zealand | Gun control | The Guardian

"Guns and parts" is kind of a cheat. Makes the numbers sound scary big, but is it such an impact? If you count all of the springs, and pins, there are between 15 and 20 parts in every AR-15. I think that is before you consider the type of handguard, the gas block (is it adjustable?), and whether or not you count stuff that gets connected to M-Lock or a Picatinny rail like forward grips.

Click thru for the photos.

A Guardian investigation in September tracked the growing challenges posed to Australia’s gun control regime, including the trade of stolen firearms and the emergence of 3D-printed firearms across the country.

NSW police said they arrested 45 people and seized 518 firearms and firearm parts as part of the operation. Multiple individuals were charged with offences including the manufacture of prohibited firearms without a licence, importing prohibited goods and possessing a digital blueprint for manufacture of firearms – a crime in some states.

They are failing to enforce their Draconian gun laws. I would feel sorry, but the law-abiding are disarmed, so the only thing they are doing is turning the entire country into a defenseless-victim zone. Countries. Australia and New Zealand are both hating firearms.

Which probably goes some way to explaining why Australia went so far as to actually build COVID detention centers. Don't you dare call them concentration camps! (Hat tip to Keep and Bear Arms)

Australian Zip Guns

From Impro Guns we get a story from Down Under. Kneecappers (South Australia)

The Aliexpress automatic center punch strikes again.

Click thru for photos of improvised, single-shot fire arms. They appear to be .22 caliber, but it doesn't say.

Australians have devoted much energy to disarming their population, and then they built concentration camps for people who didn't want to get the COVID jab.

And the bad guys still have guns.