The Sandy Hook massacre and President Obama’s response to it has refocused attention on impact of regulation on American gun crime. Crime statistics before and after the implementation of gun laws provide a quantifiable measure of their impact. As a consequence, Australia’s gun laws and their impact have become part of the American gun debate.
In the wake of the
Port Arthur massacre and
Monash University shootings, the conservative government of
John Howard introduced a series of gun laws. These restricted who could own guns and the type of guns they could own.
While the impact of the Australian gun laws is still debated, there have been large decreases in the
number of firearm suicides and the
number of firearm homicides in Australia. Homicide rates in Australia are only
1.2 per 100,000 people, with
less than 15 percent of these resulting from firearms.
Prior to the implementation of the gun laws,
112 people were killed in 11 mass shootings. Since the implementation of the gun laws, no comparable gun massacres have occured in Australia.
Remarkably, American pro-gun advocates try to use the impact of the Australian gun law reform to make a case that reform “doesn’t work”. This seems amazing given the homicide rate in the United States is
5 per 100,000 people, with most homicides involving firearms.
When gun advocates use Australian crime stats, they sometimes employ a number of misleading tricks and sleights of hand. These tricks are common to several politically charged debates, and are a form of
pseudo-science. Lets look at these tricks in action.
