gun control – who is it saving
Thursdays article about trends in gun deaths published in the Sydney Morning Herald points out that the gun buyback appears to have resulted in a significant decline in gun related deaths. Whilst this might initially sound like a compelling case for the 1996 gun reforms it actually isn’t.
The first thing to note is that gun related deaths includes suicide by shooting and nearly all of the decline in deaths that shows up in the statistics is due to a reduction in this method of suicide. Clearly the reduction in suicides by shooting would appear to be a good thing but in reality it is misleading. All that has happened is that there has been a displacement effect. Where depressed people used to shoot themselves they now hang themselves. There has not been a decline in suicide that can be attributable to gun control.
There has also been a decline in the homocide rate since 1996. However this is easily explained by the decline in young male adults as a proportion of the population and is in keeping with earlier trends. One of the lowest levels of homocide rates in Australian history occured during WWII when a lot of young males were absent from the country. This is in spite of the fact that guns were much more prevalent in society during that era.
The gun control advocates can point to the absents of mass shootings as some form of support for their policy position. However whether you are a victim of homocide in a crowd or on your own is at the end of the day not overly relevant. It is the total homocide rate that should be of most interest. Of course the community impact of a mass shooting should not be entirely discounted.
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