soxinthebox
Member
The Guardian
Australia had a gun buy back program and banned firearms after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre where a semi automatic was used to kill 35 people and wound 23.
From 1979 to 1996, the average annual rate of total non-firearm suicide and homicide deaths was rising at 2.1% per year. Since then, the average annual rate of total non-firearm suicide and homicide deaths has been declining by 1.4%, with the researchers concluding there was no evidence of murderers moving to other methods, and that the same was true for suicide.
We found that homicide and suicide firearms deaths had been falling before the reforms, but the rate of the fall accelerated for both of them after the reforms. Weve shown that a major policy intervention designed to stop mass shootings has had an effect on other gun-related deaths as well.
Chapman said more than half of those who had conducted mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand had been licensed gun holders.
When these laws came in the hope was they would curb mass shooting, but what we didnt realise was the laws would be followed by huge changes in other types of shootings, particularly in suicide, he said.
The breadth of the change was unexpected. But in America, things will get worse before they get better. In Australia we had a government that was prepared to act, and what [the then prime minister] John Howard did amounted to the confiscation of private property.
You just cant imagine the US ever seeing that as feasible.
Australia had a gun buy back program and banned firearms after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre where a semi automatic was used to kill 35 people and wound 23.