INTRODUCTION
Since the year 2000, over 100,000 Americans suffer a gunshot wound every year – over 30,000 of those gunshot injuries are fatal. Of all western industrialized nations, America has the highest per capita rate of shooting injuries. With only rare exceptions, little has been done by the US federal or state governments to reduce the incidence of shooting injuries. This inactivity in the face of an on-going obvious threat to public health and safety is largely because of the lobbying efforts of the gun industry on our state and federal law-makers. Gun enthusiasts and lobbyists point out there already exist many laws regarding the sale and use of firearms, and yet despite these laws, the toll of shooting injuries continues unabated. The gun industry staunchly maintains that additional laws and stronger regulations will not work to reduce shooting incidents. Any additional laws will only deprive law-abiding citizens of the right to own and use their guns, or worse, deprive law-abiding citizens of an important tool to defend against criminal attack.
The last national effort to reform American gun laws was the passage of the Brady Bill in 1993. This legislation mandated a criminal background check for all firearms purchases at federally-licensed firearms dealers, and resulted in the institution of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NCIS). Interestingly, the incidence of homicide and other violent crimes in the USA has declined greatly in the following years (FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program publication, 2012). However, there has been no subsequent national legislation in America to regulate gun sales and use since 1993.
In recent decades, both Canada and Australia have instituted wide-ranging and stringent gun control measures, similar to measures advocated by American gun control proponents. Like America, both Canada and Australia are large, industrialized, multi-cultural societies. And like America, both countries are blessed with well-maintained police and public health organizations that can accurately track crime and shooting injuries. These national efforts to reform gun laws provide a sort of natural experiment testing what effect gun laws have on gun violence and violent crime in general. The experience in Canada and Australia may have something to tell us about American gun laws.
This article is part of a Daily Kos Firearms Law and Policy group series on Gun Laws and Shooting Injuries in Canada and Australia. This series will examine the experience of Canada and Australia: the gun reforms that were implemented in each country and the research studies done subsequently to observe how the laws affected the incidence and frequency of shooting injuries. The series has three parts: Part I is presented here and includes the background and summary statements. Part II reviews the gun law reforms established in Canada, and the known results of those reforms on the incidence of gun violence in Canada (here). Part III reviews the gun law reforms instituted in Australia, and the subsequent incidence of gun violence in Australia (here). All three parts of this series are available to interested readers today – but because of the size and complexity of the topic, will be published as separate articles over three consecutive days. Readers can read all three parts today, but can only comment in the articles once they are published.
FINDINGS
A variety of empirical studies have documented decreases in shooting deaths (gun homicides and gun suicides) after the enactment of the different reforms. Following passage of Bill C-17 in 1991, the total number of suicides was approximately steady while the percentage of suicides involving a gun dropped from 31.2% to 24.5%; the rate of homicides using a gun declined from 69 per 1,000,000 population to 57 per 1,000,000 population. Rates of other violent crime (assault, rape, robbery) all showed declines in the 1990s. Overall decreases in violent crimes gives evidence that greater gun regulations in Canada do not leave the public vulnerable to criminal attack and do not result in greater crime victimization.
The reforms in Australia in 1996 included a gun buy-back program, and estimates of the number of guns in Australia showed large declines after the new law was implemented. The average number of gun suicides dropped from 492 per year to 247 per year after the reform. The average number of gun homicides dropped from 93 per year to 56 per year after the reform. Any suicide method substitution seems to be limited to the period immediately after implementation of the new regulations; there is no evidence of suicide method substitution in later years. Importantly, acceptance of the new laws completely eliminated the incidence of public mass shooting events in Australia. The data on other violent crimes is mixed: armed robberies have been decreasing in Australia, while assaults (including rape) have been increasing.
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SUMMARY
Countries can and do implement gun control regulations in an effort to reduce gun violence. The stated purpose of the legislative reforms in both Canada and Australia were to reduce gun violence and criminal use of guns.
The gun regulations in Canada and Australia seem to Americans as extraordinary, extreme, and even draconian. Yet similar regulations regarding gun sales and use exist in nearly ALL western industrialized nations. These laws are remarkable only in contrast to the profound permissiveness of US gun laws.
In the main, the gun reform laws in both Canada and Australia were effective; both Canada and Australia saw reductions in shooting deaths from homicide and suicide following the implementation of the new laws. The gun industry and its supporters frequently claim that gun control legislation will not work to reduce shooting injuries. The empirical evidence from Canada and Australia directly contradict this claim.
Following the gun legislation reforms, both Canada and Australia saw reductions in many types of violent crime; there was very little evidence of increases in crime victimization in either Canada or Australia after the gun reforms. The gun industry and its supporters frequently claim that gun control legislation will result in increases in criminal victimizations when citizens are deprived of an important defensive tool against crime. The empirical evidence from Canada and Australia directly contradict this claim.
The legal reforms in Australia included a gun buy-back program that was reported to substantial reduce the number of guns in Australia. Subsequent decreases in shooting injuries were documented. This finding gives evidence that reduced gun availability is strongly associated with a reduced incidence of shooting injuries (and vice versa: greater gun availability is associated with increases in shooting injuries). This finding is consistent with other studies that have reported a strong positive association with gun availability and shooting injuries when comparing different countries side-by-side, and when comparing different states within the United States.
Altogether, the experience in Canada and Australia provides strong evidence that America could reduce the yearly toll of shooting injuries by instituting reforms similar to those put in place in Canada and Australia: national registration of firearms, criminal background checks for all firearm transfers, safety requirements for licensure, and greater accounting requirements for firearms dealers. Gun sales have been increasing every year in America since the FBI-NCIS data has become available to provide a measure of gun sales. And because gun availability appears to be positively tied to shooting injuries, we can expect an ever greater incidence of gun violence unless we enact similar legislation to reduce the excess of gun availability in this country.
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