Re: “Firearm related deaths: the impact of regulatory reform” (1)

Dr. James B. Lawson
November 14, 2004

I read with interest this paper by Ozanne-Smith and co-workers. I congratulate the authors on their meticulous confirmation of the intuitive expectation that fewer firearms in the community correlates with a reduction in firearms deaths and injuries. Unfortunately, the authors confine themselves to the limited objective of studying firearm deaths in isolation. They do not ask whether the reduction in firearm deaths has any influence on total deaths and injuries. They make only a single comment that “despite the declines related to homicide, overall suicide and homicide rates in Victoria did not show a similar decline.” However, review of the wider literature shows that changes in gun ownership are unrelated to total suicide and homicide rates.

I am concerned that political activist groups will take this study beyond its frame of reference and misquote it as proving that “gun bans work”. Some moral zealots of anti-gun persuasion have had an ongoing campaign of media advocacy to manipulate public opinion and policy on this issue, starting some years BEFORE the Port Arthur killings which were the catalyst for the Australian mass gun confiscations of 1996. This is mentioned repeatedly in the work by Chapman (2), one of the references listed by the authors. Indeed, Chapman suggests such groups form a prior contingency plan to maximise politically advantageous media coverage of any dramatic gun crimes which may occur in the future.

Because of this controversy, it is vital that hard facts be obtained on the specific question of whether mass confiscation of legally owned guns causes a sustained and significant reduction in TOTAL suicide and homicide. Besides the AUS$340 million mentioned by Ozanne-Smith and co-workers, Australian taxpayers have paid another AUS$100 million for the 2003 handgun confiscations from legally licensed owners.. This diverts valuable scarce resources from health, education and law enforcement. . There is no point in paying huge sums to get people to hang themselves instead of shoot themselves and to stab each other instead of shoot each other.

We must check whether there is a net benefit to public health and safety. Resources for compensation payments and for enforcement costs must come from somewhere. If taken from the health sector, such bans may indirectly end up costing more lives than they might save. For example, over the relevant time, is there a correlation between declining gun deaths and lengthening hospital waiting lists or frequency of ambulance bypass? No-one has attempted such a difficult assessment, apart from Lott and Mustard, who examined only crime costs (3). Australia cannot afford not to get this wrong.

Review of the wider literature shows:

  1. The Australian Bureau of Statistics found a steady decline in all types of gun deaths over 15 years from 1980-1995, before the law changes(4).
  2. Australian total murder rates were lower prior to 1970, when there were virtually no long gun controls at all (5). The long term homicide rate is fairly stable despite annual fluctuations (6).
  3. Guns now account for only 12% of Australian suicides (7) and only 16% of Australian murders (8).
  4. Ninety percent of Australian gun murders are committed by criminals who are unlicensed and with guns which are unregistered (9).  Ozanne-Smith’s hope of achieving “vision zero” through confiscation of registered guns from licensed owners is therefore naïve at best. (NOTE: Only legal guns were confiscated. The authors’ findings are irrelevant to 88% of total suicides, 90% of gun murders and over 98% of total murders.)
  5. The National Injury Surveillance Unit documented that the fall in gun suicides was accompanied by a rise in total suicide due to substitution of hanging and car exhaust gas (10)
  6. Britain has suffered massive rises in gun murder and total murder, about 70% over 1996-2003, despite the total confiscation of all legal handguns in 1996-7 (11)
  7.  The USA has had a 50% fall in murder over a similar period (12), despite increased gun ownership (13). This is most marked in those states which allow guns for self defence (14)

Readers should also be aware that some criminologists have made scathing criticisms of the quality of research done by medical doctors in this area, notably Kates et al. (15).

I look forward to further research from Professor Ozanne-Smith and the Monash group addressing the relationship between gun availability and total suicide and murder rates and also the cost-effectiveness of mass gun confiscation in reducing these deaths, both in Australia and other nations.

References;

  1. Ozanne-Smith J. et al. Firearms related deaths: the impact of regulatory reform. Injury prevention 2004;10:280-286.
  2. Chapman S. Over Our Dead Bodies: ort Arthur and Australia’s fight for gun control.  Pluto Press 1998.
  3. Lott JR, Mustard DB. Crime, Deterrence and Right-to Carry Concealed Handguns. Journal of Legal Studies. 26(1) 1-68 Jan 1997. teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Lott/guncont.html accessed14-Nov 2004.
  4. Firearms Deaths Australia. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Feb 1997. Cat. No. 4397.0
  5. Mouzos J. Homicidal Encounters: a Study of Homicide in Australia 1989-1999. Australian Institute of Criminology 2000.
  6. Mouzos J., Segrave M. Homicide in Australia 2002-2003 National Homicide Monitoring Program Annual Report. Australian Institute of Criminology 2004.
  7. Year Book Australia 2002. Health Special Article-Suicide. Australian Bureau of Statistics. http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/be00331a0c387533ca2569de0024ed5b?OpenDocument Accessed 29 Oct 2004
  8. Mouzos J., Segrave M. Homicide in Australia 2002-2003 National Homicide Monitoring Program Annual Report. p42. Australian Institute of Criminology 2004.
  9. Mouzos J. Licensing and Registration Status of Firearms used in Homicide. Trends and Issues Paper 151. May 2000. Australian Institute of Criminology. http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi151.html Accessed 14 Nov 2004
  10. Harrison JE., Steenkamp M. Suicide in Australia: Trends and data for 1998. Australian Injury Prevention Bulletin Issue 23 2000. http://www.nisu.flinders.edu.au/pubs/bulletin23/ accessed 14 Nov 2004
  11. Povey D. Ed. Crime in England and Wales 2002/2003: Homicide and Gun Crime. January 2004. Home  Office –United Kingdom. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb0104.pdf accessed 14 Nov 2004.
  12. Homicide Trends in the US. Long term trends and patterns. US Department of Justice 2003. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/hmrt.htm accessed 14 Nov 2004.
  13. Kleck G. Targeting Guns: Firearms and their Control. Table 3.1 pp96-7. Aldine de Gruyter 1997.
  14. Lott JR, Mustard DB. Op cit.
  15. Kates DB. Et al. Chapter 5, Bad medicine: Doctors and Guns. in “Guns: Who should have them?” Ed. Kopel DB. Prometheus 1995.

Dr. James B. Lawson MB.BS., B.Med.Sc(Hons), FRANZCR. 1