In 1996, a 28-year-old man walked into a cafe in
Port Arthur, Australia, ate lunch, pulled a semiautomatic rifle out of his bag, and opened fire on the crowd, killing 35 people and wounding 23 more. It was the worst mass shooting in Australia’s history.
Australian lawmakers responded with
legislation that, among other provisions, banned certain types of firearms, such as automatic and semiautomatic rifles and shotguns. The Australian government confiscated 650,000 of these guns through a gun buyback program, in which it purchased firearms from gun owners. It established a registry of all guns owned in the country and required a permit for all new firearm purchases. (This is much further than bills typically proposed in the US, which almost never make a serious attempt to
immediately reduce the number of guns in the country.)
Australia’s firearm homicide rate dropped by about 42 percent in the seven years after the law passed, and its firearm suicide rate fell by 57 percent, according to a
review of the evidence by Harvard researchers.
It’s difficult to know for sure how much of the drop in homicides and suicides was caused specifically by the gun buyback program. Australia’s gun deaths, for one, were already declining before the law passed. But researchers
David Hemenway and Mary Vriniotis argue that the gun buyback program very likely played a role: “First, the drop in firearm deaths was largest among the type of firearms most affected by the buyback. Second, firearm deaths in states with higher buyback rates per capita fell proportionately more than in states with lower buyback rates.”
One
study of the program, by Australian researchers, found that buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people correlated with up to a 50 percent drop in firearm homicides and a 74 percent drop in gun suicides. As Matthews
explained, the drop in homicides wasn’t statistically significant because Australia already had a pretty low number of murders. But the drop in suicides most definitely was — and the results are striking.[/QUONop. Nope CD wrong again go check this years facts on gun violence in Australian . Also you will not answer my ? On the 3500 babies killed daily in America is that a crisis? Do what a liberal always does do not answer the ? What about drugs 44000 a year die from overdose a year is that a crisis.? 38000 a year die from drunk drivers is that a Crisis. You know what the lowest rate of death is in the United States CD .from Guns. More people die in the US from poison then guns in the us is that a crisis? You will not answer the question. The crisis your talking about is not the gun it is the failure of government not being held Accountable. You Liberals ignore that this shooting could have been prevented if our government officials had done there job. The Sheriff is a liberal and he should be run out of town for dropping the ball on this idiot and then try to blame it on law abiding citizens. You should be ashamed also for not looking at the facts .