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QueerNews版 - After a 1996 Mass Shooting, Australia Enacted Strict Gun Laws
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/16/gun_control_after_c
On April 28, 1996, a gunman opened fire on tourists in a seaside resort in
Port Arthur, Tasmania. By the time he was finished, he had killed 35 people
and wounded 23 more. It was the worst mass murder in Australia’s history.
Twelve days later, Australia’s government did something remarkable. Led by
newly elected conservative Prime Minister John Howard, it announced a
bipartisan deal with state and local governments to enact sweeping gun-
control measures. A decade and a half hence, the results of these policy
changes are clear: They worked really, really well.
At the heart of the push was a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-
automatic shotguns and rifles, or about one-fifth of all firearms in
circulation in Australia. The country’s new gun laws prohibited private
sales, required that all weapons be individually registered to their owners,
and required that gun buyers present a “genuine reason” for needing each
weapon at the time of the purchase. (Self-defense did not count.) In the
wake of the tragedy, polls showed public support for these measures at
upwards of 90 percent.
What happened next has been the subject of several academic studies. Violent
crime and gun-related deaths did not come to an end in Australia, of course
. But as the Washington Post’s Wonkblog pointed out in August, homicides by
firearm plunged 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding
increase in non-firearm-related homicides. The drop in suicides by gun was
even steeper: 65 percent. Studies found a close correlation between the
sharp declines and the gun buybacks. Robberies involving a firearm also
dropped significantly. Meanwhile, home invasions did not increase, contrary
to fears that firearm ownership is needed to deter such crimes. But here’s
the most stunning statistic. In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre,
there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn’t been a single
one in Australia since.
There have been some contrarian studies about the decrease in gun violence
in Australia, including a 2006 paper that argued the decline in gun-related
homicides after Port Arthur was simply a continuation of trends already
under way. But that paper’s methodology has been discredited, which is not
surprising when you consider that its authors were affiliated with pro-gun
groups. Other reports from gun advocates have similarly cherry-picked
anecdotal evidence or presented outright fabrications in attempting to make
the case that Australia’s more-restrictive laws didn’t work. Those are
effectively refuted by findings from peer-reviewed papers, which note that
the rate of decrease in gun-related deaths more than doubled following the
gun buyback, and that states with the highest buyback rates showed the
steepest declines. A 2011 Harvard summary of the research concluded that, at
the time the laws were passed in 1996, “it would have been difficult to
imagine more compelling future evidence of a beneficial effect.”
Whether the same policies would work as well in the United States—or
whether similar legislation would have any chance of being passed here in
the first place—is an open question. Howard, the conservative leader behind
the Australian reforms, wrote an op-ed in an Australian paper after
visiting the United States in the wake of the Aurora shootings. He came away
convinced that America needed to change its gun laws, but lamented its lack
of will to do so.
There is more to this than merely the lobbying strength of the National
Rifle Association and the proximity of the November presidential election.
It is hard to believe that their reaction would have been any different if
the murders in Aurora had taken place immediately after the election of
either Obama or Romney. So deeply embedded is the gun culture of the US,
that millions of law-abiding, Americans truly believe that it is safer to
own a gun, based on the chilling logic that because there are so many guns
in circulation, one's own weapon is needed for self-protection. To put it
another way, the situation is so far gone there can be no turning back.
That’s certainly how things looked after the Aurora shooting. But after
Sandy Hook, with the nation shocked and groping for answers once again, I
wonder if Americans are still so sure that we have nothing to learn from
Australia’s example.
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