Don,

I don't know where to start, but an interview with by an NRA employee of a shooting enthusiast is not where I'd look for an objective point of view.

Start with the plot: the purple line is suicides, only the difference between the purple and black line indicates the number of homocides plus accidents. It is not clear whether ANY of the deaths are related to criminal activity, aside from the fact that suicide is a crime. The title says Port Arthur - so they selected just one region of Australia to show in the plot? The upswing noted in late 1997 is also visible in 1992, 1993, 1996, and especially 1995 as well. Maybe it is a seasonal trend. In any case, it only appears for suicides, so what is the point?

If one reads the cited and linked BBC article, one discovers they JUST CHANGED THE SYSTEM FOR REPORTING CRIMES:

"The rise [in reported crime] is mainly due to a new method of counting crimes reported by the 43 police forces in England and Wales.

The new system aims to count crimes on the basis of one crime per victim.

It means a string of crimes by one offender, such as breaking into a series of cars in a car park, would be counted by the number of victims rather than the number of offenders, bumping up the overall total.

Ministers have warned that the figures are also likely to be pushed up by a rise in the number of young men between the ages of 10 and 24, the group most likely to get involved in crime."

So this has little to do with gun laws either.

John