Summations Only

DA writes:Below is a graph of homicide vs gun ownership by country (in this case developed countries).

crashfrog writes:Then I would suggest that you look further, because this is a chart of gun homicides per 100,000 people - not all homicides per 100,000 people.

crashfrog writes:Then I would suggest that you look further, because this is a chart of gun homicides per 100,000 people - not all homicides per 100,000 people.

1. Where there are more guns there is more homicide (literature review).Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40.2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew. Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries. Journal of Trauma. 2000; 49:985-88.3. Across states, more guns = more homicideUsing a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten year period (1988-1997).After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health. 2002: 92:1988-1993.4. Across states, more guns = more homicide (2)Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003. We found that states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty). There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide.Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. State-level homicide victimization rates in the U.S. in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003. Social Science and Medicine. 2007; 64:656-64.

crashfrog writes:I can't really consider this evidence, I guess, since I can't review any of the referenced literature.

crashfrog writes:Are you sure you're not doing what creationists do and simply suspending your skepticism because you trust the source?

crashfrog writes:What's the mechanism by which the availability of guns would affect the overall murder rate? I'm not seeing it.

I don't think so...The Harvard School of Public Health seems to me to be a reputable source and they publish their sources, so I have no reason to doubt them.

I have ample reason to doubt their work

Data from a US mortality follow-back survey were analyzed to determine whether having a firearm in the home increases the risk of a violent death in the home and whether risk varies by storage practice, type of gun, or number of guns in the home. Those persons with guns in the home were at greater risk than those without guns in the home of dying from a homicide in the home (adjusted odds ratio = 1.9, 95% confidence interval: 1.1, 3.4). They were also at greater risk of dying from a firearm homicide, but risk varied by age and whether the person was living with others at the time of death. The risk of dying from a suicide in the home was greater for males in homes with guns than for males without guns in the home (adjusted odds ratio = 10.4, 95% confidence interval: 5.8, 18.9). Persons with guns in the home were also more likely to have died from suicide committed with a firearm than from one committed by using a different method (adjusted odds ratio = 31.1, 95% confidence interval: 19.5, 49.6). Results show that regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home.

CONCLUSIONS:
Injuries due to firearms, most involving handguns, are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in U.S. urban areas. The incidence varies greatly from city to city.

CONCLUSIONS:
Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

crashfrog writes:But that's not what you're being asked to defend. There's no dispute that people use guns to kill each other. None at all. The question is whether guns make people want to kill each other, or themselves. I don't see any reason why that could be the case, and you've not provided any evidence for that view.

In what sense was the mass killing Colorado "caused by guns"?

Why would I agree with that? In the Philippines in 1956, Domingo Salazar was able to murder 15 people - more than in Aurora - with nothing more than a spear and a bolo knife.

Despite substantial variation in gun control severity and gun ownership levels across U.S. cities, there is no evidence that these have any measurable impact on violence levels, although they do affect the frequency with which guns are used in some kinds of violence. On the other hand, the frequency with which guns are carried may have an impact on robbery which gun ownership levels do not, and gun ownership within special high-risk subsets of the population may have an impact on violence rates which general gun ownership levels do not.Therefore, the significance of the few gun control measures found to be effective should not be overlooked. There is empirical support for some moderate gun controls. I favor a national "instant records check," which would screen for high-risk gun buyers similar to owner license and purchase permit systems, but without the delays and arbitrary administration which sometimes characterizes those controls. The system should cover nondealer transactions as well as dealer sales, and apply to rifles and shotguns, as well as handguns. Also, tighter licensing of gun dealers and increased enforcement of carry laws may be useful.Gun control is a very minor, though not entirely irrelevant, part of the solution to the violence problem, just as guns are of only very minor significance as a cause of the problem. The U.S. has more violence than other nations for reasons unrelated to its extraordinarily high gun ownership. Fixating on guns seems to be, for many people, a fetish which allows them to ignore the more intransigent causes of American violence, including its dying cities, inequality, deteriorating family structure, and the all- pervasive economic and social consequences of a history of slavery and racism. And just as gun control serves this purpose for liberals, equally useless "get tough" proposals, like longer prison terms, mandatory sentencing, and more use of the death penalty serve the purpose for conservatives. All parties to the crime debate would do well to give more concentrated attention to more difficult, but far more relevant, issues like how to generate more good-paying jobs for the underclass which is at the heart of the violence problem.

Jon writes:And where is your evidence to this effect?

Source:
Page not found | Research | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health ... index.htmlHarvard Injury Control Research Center
Guns and Death
Homicide1. Guns and homicide (literature review).
We performed a review of the academic literature on the effects of gun availability on homicide rates.
Major findings: A broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.
Publication: Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. "Firearm Availability and Homicide: A Review of the Literature." Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40.2. Guns availability and homicide rates across nations.
We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s.
Major findings: Across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.
Publication: Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew. "Firearm Availability and Homicide Rates across 26 High Income Countries." Journal of Trauma. 2000; 49:985-88.3. Gun availability and state homicide rates, 1988-1997
Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten year period.
Major findings: After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.
Publication: Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. "Household Firearm Ownership Levels and Homicide Rates across U.S. Regions and States, 1988-1997." American Journal of Public Health. 2002: 92:1988-1993.4. Gun availability and state homicide rates, 2001-2003
Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003.
Major findings: States with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty). There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide.
Publication: Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. "State-level Homicide Victimization Rates in the U.S. in Relation to Survey Measures of Household Firearm Ownership, 2001-2003." Social Science and Medicine. 2007; 64:656-64.5. Homicide followed by suicide in Kentucky.
We analyzed data from the Kentucky Firearm Injury Statistics Program for 1998-2000.
Major findings: While less than 7% of all firearm homicides were followed by a firearm suicide, in two-thirds of the cases in which a women was shot in an intimate partner-related homicide, the male perpetrator then killed himself with the firearm. Few of these female victims had contact with the Department of Community-based Services. Publication: Walsh, Sabrina; Hemenway, David. "Intimate Partner Violence: Homicides followed by Suicides in Kentucky." Journal of Kentucky Medical Association. 2005; 103:667-70.6. Homicide in Jamaica.
We read the police narratives for every homicide in Jamaica, 1998-2002.
Major findings: The murder rate has been increasing steadily in Jamaica, and most of the murders are with firearms. The principal motives are disputes and revenge. Drugs, gangs, and political killings are no longer the main factors associated with murder.
Publication: Lemard, Glendene; Hemenway, David. "Violence in Jamaica: An Analysis of Homicides 1998-2002." Injury Prevention. 2006; 12:15-18.SUICIDE7-8. Guns and suicide (literature review).
We performed reviews of the academic literature on the effects of gun availability on suicide rates.
Major findings: The preponderance of current evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for youth suicide in the United States. The evidence that gun availability increases the suicide rates of adults is credible, but is currently less compelling. Most of the disaggregate findings of particular studies (e.g. handguns are more of a risk factor than long guns, guns stored unlocked pose a greater risk than guns stored locked) are suggestive but not yet well established.
Publication: Miller, Matt; Hemenway, David. "The Relationship between Firearms and Suicide: A Review of the Literature." Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 1999; 4:59-75.
Publication: Miller, Matt; Hemenway, David. "Gun Prevalence and the Risk of Suicide: A Review." Harvard Health Policy Review. 2001; 2:29-37.9. Gun availability and state suicide rates, 1988-1997 (cross sectional analysis)
Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership rates, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and suicide across 50 states over a ten year period.
Major findings: After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, across the United States, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of suicide, particularly firearm suicide.
Publication: Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. "Household Firearm Ownership Levels and Suicide across U.S. Regions and States, 1988-1997." Epidemiology. 2002; 13:517-524.10. Gun availability and state suicide rates, 1999-2001 (cross sectional analysis)Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and suicide across states, 1999-2001.
Major findings: States with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm suicide and overall suicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups. It remained true after accounting for poverty, urbanization and unemployment. There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm suicide. Publication: Miller, Matthew; Lippmann, Steven; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. "Household Firearm Ownership and Rates of Suicide across U.S. States." Journal of Trauma. 2007; 62:1029-35.11. Gun availability and state suicide rates, 1981-2001 (time series analysis)
Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and suicide over time, 1981-2001.
Major findings: Changes in the levels of household firearm gun ownership was significantly associated with changes in both firearm suicide and overall suicide, for men, women and children, even after controlling for region, unemployment, alcohol consumption and poverty. There was no relationship between changes in gun ownership and changes in non-firearm suicide.
Publication: Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David; Lippman, Steven. "The Association between Changes in Household Firearm Ownership and Rates of Suicide in the United States, 1981-2002." Injury Prevention. 2006; 12:178-82.12-13. Gun availability and suicide in the Northeast
We analyzed data on suicide and suicide attempts for states in the Northeast
Major findings: Even after controlling for rates of attempted suicide, states with more guns had higher rates of suicide. Case fatality rates ranged from over 90% for firearms to under 5% for drug overdoses, cutting and piercing (the most common methods of attempted suicide). Hospital workers rarely see the type of suicide (firearm suicide) that is most likely to end in death.
Publication: Miller, Matthew; Hemenway, David; Azrael, Deborah. "Firearms and Suicide in the Northeast" Journal of Trauma. 2004; 57:626-632.
Publication: Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. "The Epidemiology of Case Fatality Rates for Suicide in the Northeast." Annals of Emergency Medicine. 2004; 723-30.14-15. Gun availability and regional suicide rates (cross sectional analysis)
We analyzed the relationship of gun availability and suicide among differing age groups across the 9 US regions.
Major findings: Levels of gun ownership are highly correlated with suicide rates across all age groups, even after controlling for lifetime major depression and serious suicidal thoughts. After controlling for divorce, education, unemployment, poverty and urbanization, the statistically significant relationship holds for 15 to 24 year olds and 45 to 84 year olds, but not for 25 to 44 year olds.
Publication: Birckmayer, Johanna; Hemenway, David. "Suicide and Gun Prevalence: Are Youth Disproportionately Affected?" Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior. 2001; 31:303-310.
Publication: Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew. "The Association of Rates of Household Handgun Ownership, Lifetime Major Depression and Serious Suicidal Thoughts with Rates of Suicide across US Census Regions." Injury Prevention. 2002; 8:313-16.16. Suicide following homicide
We analyzed characteristics of homicides that were followed by suicide and by suicide attempts using data from multiple sites.
Major finding: Fifty-nine percent of the men who killed a female intimate partner with a firearm also took their own life.
Publication: Barber, Catherine W; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David; Olson, Lenora M.; Nie, C; Schaechter, Judy; Walsh, Sabrina. Suicides and suicide attempts following homicide: Victim-suspect relationship, weapon type, and presence of antidepressants. Homicide Studies. 2008; 12:285-97.17. Summary of the literature on guns and suicide.
This commentary summarized the literature that shows that firearms in the home increase the likelihood of completed suicide, and argued for increased involvement of physicians in recognizing and helping to reduce the problem.
Publication: Miller, Matthew; Hemenway, David. Guns and suicide in the United States. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2008; 359:989-991.ACCIDENTS18. Gun availability and state unintentional firearm death rates
We analyzed data for 50 states over 19 years to investigate the relationship between gun prevalence and accidental gun deaths across different age groups.
Major findings: For every age group, where there are more guns there are more accidental deaths. The mortality rate was 7 times higher in the four states with the most guns compared to the four states with the fewest guns.
Publication: Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. "Firearm Availability and Unintentional Firearm Deaths." Accident Analysis and Prevention. 2001; 33:477-84.19. Firearm storage and unintentional firearm death across U.S. states
We analyzed data from the 2002 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System that asked questions about guns and gun storage in the home, combined with information on deaths from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Major findings: Both firearm prevalence AND questionable storage practices (i.e. storing firearms loaded and unlocked) were associated with higher rates of unintentional firearm deaths. Publication: Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David; Vriniotis, Mary. "Firearm Storage Practices and Rates of Unintentional Firearm Deaths in the United States." Accident Analysis and Prevention. 2005; 37:661-67.CHILDREN and WOMEN20. Gun availability and deaths to children.
We analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and unintentional gun death, homicide and suicide for 5-14 year olds across the 50 states over a ten year period.
Major findings: Children in states with many guns have elevated rates of unintentional gun deaths, suicide and homicide. The state rates of non-firearm suicide and non-firearm homicide among children are not related to firearm availability.
Publication: Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. "Firearm Availability and Unintentional Firearm Deaths, Suicide, and Homicide among 5-14 Year Olds." Journal of Trauma. 2002; 52:267-75.21. Gun versus non-gun suicide by children
We analyzed data from the Arizona Childhood Fatality Review Team comparing youth gun suicide with suicide by other means.
Major findings: Children who use a firearm to commit suicide have fewer identifiable risk factors for suicide, such as expressing suicidal thoughts. Gun suicides appear more impulsive and spontaneous than suicide by other means.
Publication: Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew; Barber, Catherine; Schackner, Robert. "Youth Suicide: Insights from 5 Years of Arizona Child Review Team Data." Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior. 2004; 34:36-43.22. Infant homicides
This article uses data from various locations to describe the circumstances of infant homicides.
Major findings: Guns are almost never used to kill infants. The perpetrator is virtually always caught, and often is the one calling the police.
Publication: Fujiwara, Takeo; Barber, Catherine; Schaechter, Judy; Hemenway, David. Characteristics of infant homicides in the U.S.: findings from a multi-site reporting system. Pediatrics. in press23. Gun availability and deaths to women.
We analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and unintentional gun death, homicide and suicide for women across the 50 states over a ten year period.
Major findings: Women in states with many guns have elevated rates of unintentional gun deaths, suicides and homicide, particularly firearm suicides and firearm homicides.
Publication: Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. "Firearm Availability and Unintentional Firearm Deaths, Suicide, and Homicide among Women." Journal of Urban Health. 2002; 79:26-38.24. Gun availability and homicides of women across nations.
We analyzed the relationship between gun availability and homicides of women with data from 25 high income countries.
Major findings: Across developed nations, where gun are more available, there are more homicides of women. The United States has the most firearms and U.S. women have far more likely to be homicide victims than women in other developed countries.
Publication: Hemenway, David; Shinoda-Tagawa, Tomoko; Miller, Matthew. "Firearm Availability and Female Homicide Victimization Rates Across 25 Populous High-Income Countries." Journal of the American Medical Women's Association. 2002; 57:100-04.

Bulletins — Spring 2011 (Issue 4) Harvard Injury Control Research Center | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health 1
Spring 2011 (Issue 4) The Australian Gun Buyback
I. Introduction
The 1996 National Firearms Agreement (NFA), passed in response to the April 28, 1996 Port Arthur, Tasmania massacre of 35 people, banned semi-automatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns, bought back more than 650,000 of these weapons from existing owners, and tightened requirements for licensing, registration, and safe storage of firearms. The buyback is estimated to have reduced the number of guns in private hands by 20%, and, by some estimates, almost halved the number of gun-owning households.This issue of Bulletins reviews the evidence on the effect of the NFA on firearm deaths. There have not been any studies examining the effect of the buyback on crime other than homicide. Some scientists believed that the buyback might reduce firearm crime, but most saw no reason to expect that it would significantly affect non-firearm crime. Most crimes in Australia before the NFA did not involve firearms, and few Australians owned handguns or carried them on their person, either before or after the buyback. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate that after the buyback, the percentage of robberies where the assailant used a firearm did drop significantly. There was little change in unlawful entry with intent, one of the few types of crime where one might make a case for a possible deterrent effect of having a gun in the home.1II. Evidence the Buyback Saved Lives
For Australia, the NFA seems to have been incredibly successful in terms of lives saved. While 13 gun massacres (the killing of 4 or more people at one time) occurred in Australia in the 18 years before the NFA, resulting in more than one hundred deaths, in the 14 following years (and up to the present), there were no gun massacres.2
The NFA also seems to have reduced firearm homicide outside of mass shootings, as well as firearm suicide. In the seven years before the NFA (1989-1995), the average annual firearm suicide death rate per 100,000 was 2.6 (with a yearly range of 2.2 to 2.9); in the seven years after the buyback was fully implemented (1998-2004), the average annual firearm suicide rate was 1.1 (yearly range 0.8 to 1.4). In the seven years before the NFA, the average annual firearm homicide rate per 100,000 was .43 (range .27 to .60) while for the seven years post NFA, the average annual firearm homicide rate was .25 (range .16 to .33).3Additional evidence strongly suggests that the buyback causally reduced firearm deaths. 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.4One evaluation of the law concluded that: The rates of total firearm deaths, firearm homicides and firearm suicides all at least doubled their existing rates of decline after the gun laws; there is no evidence of substitution for suicides or homicides.2 A more recent evaluation, which examined the differences across states, concluded that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80 per cent, with no significant effect on non-firearm death rates. The effect on firearm homicides is of similar magnitude, but is less precise.4 This incredible size of the effect (80% reduction) strains credulity.III. Opposing Evidence
Two evaluations found little effect of the law, but their design made it almost impossible to find an effect.1. The authors (Australian gun lobby members) of one study5 claimed that the policy has made no difference. There was a trend of declining deaths which has continued.6 They made an assumption that the historical downward trend in firearm deaths would have continued unabated, and chose 1979 as the beginning year for the trend analysis, although data were available for each year back to 1915. The Australian firearm suicide rate in 1979 was higher than any other year from 1932-1996; the firearm homicide rate in 1979 was the third highest it had been during this same time frame. Identical analyses using data from 1915-2004 found that both firearm suicide and firearm homicide declined significantly after the NFA.The researchers also assumed that without the NFA, a linear trend of the actual death rate 1979-1996 would have continued forever. In other words, they assumed that if the historical rate fell from 3/100,000 to 2/100,000 in the initial period, it would fall to 1/100,000 in next period, then to 0/100,000, and then to -1/100,000. According to their assumption, without the NFA there would have been an ever-increasing percentage fall in firearm death. Indeed their model predicted that without the NFA, the number of firearm homicides in Australia would be negative by 2015. Critics labeled this a Resurrection Problem.7Given their assumptions, if by 2004 the Australia firearm homicide rate had been zero (and remained there), that rate would not have been low enough for the researchers to find any beneficial effect of the law on firearm homicides.Incredibly, even given their assumptions, they still found that firearm suicides fell significantly after the NFA. They legitimately wanted to determine not only whether the NFA was associated with a fall in firearm suicide, but whether (a) the NFA led to method substitution (e.g., hanging suicide replacing gun suicide), and (b) whether something other than the NFA may have affected suicide post-1996. In their discussion, they used non-firearm suicides as evidence for both these concerns. They set up the discussion so that if non-firearm suicides increased after the gun buyback, they could claim this was due to method substitution (i.e., the NFA may have reduced firearm suicide, but there was substitution, causing non-firearm suicides to rise, so the NFA really didn’t have much effect on overall suicides). And if non-firearm suicides decreased, they could claim this showed that some factor other than the buyback was the real cause of the decrease in firearm suicides. When non-firearm suicides briefly increased after the NFA they attributed this to method substitution, and then when non-firearm suicide began to fall, the authors concluded that society changes (e.g., suicide prevention programs) could have been the cause of the observed reduction in firearm suicides.32. Another pair of researchers used sophisticated analyses to search for a single year structural time series break date as a means of identifying the impact of the NFA. They could not find any such break, and concluded the results of these tests suggest that the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates.8 However, when policies have even modest lags, the structural break test can easily miss the effect. It can also miss the effect of a policy that occurs over several years. The massive Australian gun buyback occurred over two calendar years, 1996-97. Firearm homicide and firearm suicide dropped substantially in both years, for a cumulative two-year drop in firearm homicide of 46% and in firearm suicide of 43%. Never in any two year period, from 1915-2004 had firearm suicide dropped so precipitously.3IV. Conclusion
It does not appear that the Australian experience with gun buybacks is fully replicable in the United States. Levitt provides three reasons why gun buybacks in the United States have apparently been ineffective: (a) the buybacks are relatively small in scale (b) guns are surrendered voluntarily, and so are not like the ones used in crime; and (c) replacement guns are easy to obtain.9 These factors did not apply to the Australian buyback, which was large, compulsory, and the guns on this island nation could not easily be replaced. For example, compared to the buyback of 650,000 firearms, annual imports after the law averaged only 30,000 per year, with many of these bought by law enforcement agencies.4For Australia, a difficulty with determining the effect of the law was that gun deaths were falling in the early 1990s. No study has explained why gun deaths were falling, or why they might be expected to continue to fall. Yet most studies generally assumed that they would have continued to drop without the NFA. Many studies still found strong evidence for a beneficial effect of the law.From the perspective of 1996, it would have been difficult to imagine more compelling future evidence of a beneficial effect of the law. Whether or not one wants to attribute the effects as being due to the law, everyone should be pleased with what happened in Australia after the NFAthe elimination of firearm massacres (at least up to the present) and an immediate, and continuing, reduction in firearm suicide and firearm homicide.

Jon writes:Please refer to the last several pages of this thread to discover why limiting your research criteria to 'firearm deaths' produces meaningless results.