No mass shootings in Australia 20 years after gun reform: study

There was also a significant acceleration in the downward trend for firearm suicides and a non-significant acceleration in the downward trend in firearm homicides

Australia has witnessed a significant decline in intentional firearm deaths and an absence of fatal mass shootings since gun law reform and firearms buyback programmes were introduced 20 years back, a new landmark study has found.

"The absence of mass shootings in Australia in the past two decades compares to 13 fatal mass shootings in the 18 years prior to these sweeping reforms," said Simon Chapman from University of Sydney.

The introduction of Australia's unprecedented gun laws followed the mass firearm shooting in April 1996, when a man used two semiautomatic rifles to kill 35 people and wound 19 others in Tasmania, researchers said.

In June 1996 the federal government enacted new gun laws banning rapid-fire long guns, including those already in private ownership, explicitly to reduce their availability for mass shootings, they said.

By January 1 1997, federal and all state governments commenced a mandatory buyback at market price of prohibited firearms, researchers said.

From October 1 1997, large criminal penalties, including imprisonment and heavy fines, applied to possession of any prohibited weapon.

A handgun buyback followed in 2003, and thousands of gun owners also voluntarily surrendered additional, non-prohibited firearms without compensation. Since 1996, more than a million privately owned firearms are known to have been surrendered or seized, then melted down, researchers said.

Despite a surge of post-law gun buying to replace destroyed semiautomatic and other rapid-fire weapons with single-shot rifles and shotguns, in a trend that preceded the Firearms Buyback programme, the proportion of Australian households reporting private gun ownership declined by 75% between 1988 and 2005, they said.

Researchers found that in the 18 years prior to federal and state government gun reforms (1979-1996), Australia saw 13 fatal mass shootings in which 104 victims were killed and at least another 52 were wounded.

There have been no fatal mass shootings since that time. 'Mass shootings' were defined as five or more victims killed by gunshot, not counting the perpetrator(s), researchers said.

From 1979 to 1996, total firearm deaths in Australia were declining at an average 3% per year. Since then, the average decline in total firearm deaths has accelerated significantly to 5% annually, they said.

Over the same comparison period, there was a significant acceleration in the downward trend for firearm suicides and a non-significant acceleration in the downward trend in firearm homicides.

"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 Chapman.

The findings were published in JAMA.