The often cited mantra of the pro-gun lobby. Maybe guns don’t kill people in themselves, but they do make it a damn sight easier.
An Australian study reviewing 10 years of suicide data following the former Howard government’s gun buyback has found the rate of firearms suicides has fallen by 74 percent. Mr Howard’s agreement with the states to ban and buy back more than 600,000 weapons after the massacre at Port Arthur in April 1996 cut the country’s stock of firearms by 20 per cent and roughly halved the number of households with access to guns.
A former Australian Treasury economist, Christine Neill said she found the research result so surprising she tried to redo her calculations on the off chance the total could have been smaller. Dr Neill says that while it seems surprising that a 20 per cent cut in the number of firearms would have cut the number of suicides from firearms by 74 per cent, none of her academic colleagues have found fault with her finding.
The study also found no evidence of substitution of other methods of suicide. That is, people weren’t going out in large numbers and hanging, overdosing etc themselves when they couldn’t get hold of a gun to do the job.
Another conclusion Dr Neill drew from the research:
“Before the buyback, Australia used to have a multiple shooting every year or two.
In the 13 years since, there have been none. I have calculated the probability of that happening by chance. It’s extraordinarily low.”
Explain that away, gun nuts.
