Australian gun controls: Should more be done?

Abstract

Objectives: To examine the basic premises of gun control and the relationship linking legal firearm ownership to homicide and suicide in Australia. Data sources/ Available data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics regarding firearms ownership, study selection: suicide and homicide in Australia were reviewed. Medline database searches using key words of ‘firearms’, ‘homicide, statistics, trends’, ‘suicide, statistics, trends’ and ‘violence, prevention and control, statistics’ identified English language publications relating to violence prevention and/or firearms from 1966 to 1996. These papers were manually searched to identify additional references. Internet home pages of The Coalition for Gun Control, The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, Handgun Control Inc. and The National Rifle Association were reviewed and information that could be independently validated was considered. Results: Few papers approach the subject of violence with the same focus, limiting the ability to perform meta‐analysis or direct comparisons of data. Conclusions: Current knowledge is inconclusive, but does not provide strong support for some existing Australian firearm control measures. Evidence suggests that further reducing the levels of firearm ownership in Australia will not cause an overall reduction in rates of homicide or suicide.