After 35 people in Australia were killed by firearms in 1996, the government passed a number of strict gun control measures, including the ban of rapid-fire rifles, a mandatory buyback of previously owned weapons, mandated gun ownership licenses and a firearms registry.
More than 1 million privately owned firearms were surrendered or seized, then melted down. In the 20 years since then, Australia, a federation of states, has had zero mass shootings and has witnessed a decline in deaths caused by firearms, according to a new study published Wednesday in JAMA.
Researchers used government statistics on firearm-related deadly incidents between 1979 and 2013. Prior to the law's implementation, there had been 13 mass shootings, on average two every three years, for some time. Mass shootings in the study were defined as five or more victims killed by gunshot, not counting the perpetrators.
“We are unaware of any other nation that has enacted such a substantial change in gun laws as has been implemented in Australia. Comparative studies of Australia's experience with broadly comparable nations would provide further evidence of the effects of such law reform,” the authors wrote.
The study also pointed to a more rapid decline in the rate of total firearm deaths in the country in the years following implementation of the gun laws, where the average went from 3.6 deaths for every 100,000 people between 1979 and 1996 to 1.2 per 100,000 between 1997 and 2013.
The researchers cautioned they could not determine whether the gun control measure had any impact on the decline. They pointed out a decline in the rate of suicides and homicide deaths that did not involve firearms was faster after 1996 than the rate of decline for suicides and homicides that did .
In a corresponding editorial, Daniel Webster, a professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, noted the challenges in trying to link the policies with trends that may have occurred if such laws were never put in place. He said that diminished access to rapid rifles could have eliminated mass shootings over the past two decades.
“It is difficult to pinpoint precisely which aspect of the policy contributed to this success, but the substantial reduction in the population's exposure to semiautomatic long guns capable of accepting large-capacity magazines for ammunition is likely to have been key,” Webster wrote.
"Australia's experience shows that banning rapid-fire firearms was associated with reductions in mass shootings and total firearm deaths. In today's context, these findings offer an example which, with public support and political courage, might reduce gun deaths in other countries," said study author Simon Chapman.
In fact, despite the recent mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., the deadliest in U.S. history, lawmakers remain gridlocked in the debate over public safety and Second Amendment rights. The impasse continued Wednesday, when 40 Democratic Congressmen staged a sit-in on the Capitol floor demanding a vote on gun control legislation.
Another attempt at passing gun control legislation failed this week after U.S. senators could not get enough bipartisan support behind toughening background checks and keeping firearms out of the hands of those suspected of terrorist activity.
Webster stated it was highly unlikely the kind of reforms implemented in Australia would pass in the U.S., given the "political, cultural and legal" barriers. The issue over what form gun control policy in this country should take is further complicated by the fact that for 20 years, there has been an effective ban on federally funded gun violence research.
