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Disarming the good guys will not prevent massacres

By David Leyonhjelm - posted Tuesday, 18 December 2012


The Republic of Ireland banned virtually all firearms in 1973, requiring their surrender within just three days, based on concerns about the IRA. The following year the number of murders doubled and stayed at that level for the next 20 years. Other violent crimes increased as well.

In October 2003 the US Centre for Disease Control released a major study on gun control laws in the US in which it reviewed 51 published studies on eight different types of gun laws dating back to the 1970s. It covered firearms bans, ammunition bans, waiting periods, background checks, gun registration, gun owner licensing, right to carry laws, child access-prevention laws, "zero tolerance" of weapons in schools and various combinations of laws.

The main outcome was the finding of "insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness" of those laws on violent crimes, suicides and accidental injuries. This despite the huge data set.

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Since 1999 there have been almost a dozen academic studies of the impact of the Howard gun laws. All used Australian Bureau of Statistics cause of death figures. Probably the most authoritative was a paper by two female researchers, Baker and McPhedran. Peer reviewed and published in a credible journal, it showed no effect of the gun laws.

Based on the paper, the head of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Dr Don Weatherburn, said:

I too strongly supported the introduction of tougher gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre.

The fact is, however, that the introduction of those laws did not result in any acceleration of the downward trend in gun homicide. They may have reduced the risk of mass shootings but we cannot be sure because no one has done the rigorous statistical work required to verify this possibility.

It is always unpleasant to acknowledge facts that are inconsistent with your own point of view. But I thought that was what distinguished science from popular prejudice.

A 2008 publication (Lee and Suardi) was probably the most statistically exhaustive. It applied a battery of statistical tests to homicide and suicide data for the entire period 1915 to 2004, looking for a break point in the long term trend that could be attributed to the new laws. What they concluded was:

... there is little evidence to suggest that [the National Firearms Agreement] had any significant effects on firearm homicides and suicides. In addition, there also does not appear to be any substitution effects – that reduced access to firearms may have led those bent on committing homicide or suicide to use alternative methods.

Some have pointed to more than a decade free of fatal mass shootings as evidence of the impact. But mass shootings are rare and also did not occur in the 1950s, 60s and 70s despite easy firearm availability and minimal licensing.

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On the other hand, mass murders have continued since the Howard gun laws. Examples include the Childers backpacker hostel fire and the nursing home fire at Quakers Hill. Furthermore, Australia's second worst mass murder, after Port Arthur, was a deliberately lit fire at the Whisky a Go Go disco in Brisbane in 1973.

It is also false to assume that strict gun laws have prevented massacres elsewhere. Despite tight regulation of firearms in Germany, in Berlin in 1999 a teenager went on a rampage killing 15 people before taking his own life. In 2002 in Erfurt a 19 year-old former student shot 16 people before killing himself.

The assumption that guns are freely available throughout America is equally false. Gun laws vary enormously within the country, from virtual prohibition to virtual laissez faire. There are also federal laws that severely restrict ownership of certain firearms.

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About the Author

David Leyonhjelm is a former Senator for the Liberal Democrats.

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