Myth-Busting Monday
MYTH: Australia’s gun buyback program had no benefits
This article was originally published on GVPedia.
Summary:
In 1996, 35 people were fatally shot and 25 were injured during the Port Arthur massacre in Australia. In the aftermath of that mass shooting, the Australian government created a firearm buyback program which resulted in the destruction of more than 650,000 firearms between 1996 and 1997.
Researcher John Lott claims the resulting reduction of firearms from the buyback did not reduce firearm-related homicides or suicides in Australia.
Lott’s analysis is misleading, as his trend-analysis would require Australia to have a negative number of firearm homicides by 2008 and firearm suicides by 2014 to meet Lott’s criteria for success.
Reputable academic studies find that Australia’s buyback program was successful in reducing gun deaths.
Lott’s Claim:
In his 2020 book, Gun Control Myths, Lott states, “looking at simple before-and-after averages of gun deaths in Australia is misleading” because firearm homicides and suicides had been falling since the mid-1980s. Since Australia’s gun violence rates were falling before the gun buyback program and continued falling afterwards but at a slower rate, Lott claims the buyback law had no benefits.
Lott adds that if the gun buyback program was successful, Australia would have experienced a “sudden drop in firearm homicides and suicides after the buyback.”
During an October 10, 2018 presentation at the Heartland Institute, John Lott included Australia’s buyback program in his presentation on “false claims by gun control advocates.” On May 19, 2018, Lott tweeted his claim that Australia’s decline in gun violence became less steep after the buyback, and added that Australia didn’t have a gun ban since Australians could buy guns after the buyback. He claims that Australia’s gun ownership rate is now higher than before the buyback.
In his 2016 book, The War on Guns, Lott claims the total number of privately owned guns in Australia returned to 1996 levels by 2010. He writes, “It is very hard to look at the raw data on firearm suicides and homicides and see any benefits from Australia’s gun buyback.” He further says, “Australia’s buyback program was only one experiment, and we can’t account for all of the other factors that may have come into play. The solution is then to look across many different states or countries and try to discern overall patterns.”
Lott wrote in a 2012 blog post that homicides did not fall until eight years after Australia’s reforms. He argues that “a more natural explanation for the drop at the eight year point would be the substantial increases in police forces that occurred at that time.”
The Facts:
In contrast to Lott’s claims, Australia’s 1996 reforms successfully reduced both firearm homicide and suicide rates.
A 2010 study by Andrew Leigh and Christine Neill found that Australia’s firearm suicide rate fell by 74% and the firearm homicide rate fell by 35% to 50% in the decade after the buyback. The authors found no corresponding increase in homicides and suicides committed without guns. The study also found larger reductions in the firearm suicide rate in states with quick buybacks compared to states with slower buybacks.
Lott’s analysis is misleading. His own charts appearing in his 2016 and 2020 books betray his false claim. Lott’s chart labeled “Figure 42” shows that Australia would have had to have a negative number of firearm suicides by 2014 to meet Lott’s criteria for success. His other chart says that Australia’s reforms would be considered a success only if there were negative firearm homicides by 2008.
In a 2009 article, David Hemenway explains how a different study by two Australians with the pro-gun lobby made the same mistake as Lott when evaluating the effects of the gun buyback program.
That study found that if the Australian firearm homicide rate had been zero in 2004, it would still indicate the buyback program and banning assault weapons had no effect. According to Hemenway, “the researchers made the assumption that the historical trend would have continued unabated. They made no effort to explain why the historical trend had been what it was, nor why they expected it to continue. The trend was downward.”
Australian researcher Rebecca Peters wrote in 2013 that “Overall, Australia’s reforms have proved a resounding success. We have not had another mass shooting since 1996, and the firearms mortality rate today is 1/100,000 —less than half what it was then.”
She notes that the National Rifle Association continues to misrepresent Australia’s successful program in an attempt to prevent new firearm regulations in the U.S. After the NRA released a video in 2000 claiming Australia was dangerous and overrun by criminals because of the reforms, Australia’s Attorney General wrote a letter of complaint to then-NRA President Charlton Heston.
Sources:
John Lott, Gun Control Myths, 2020
Katrina Trinko, “The Facts About Gun Control and Homicide Rates,” The Daily Signal, Mar. 19, 2019
John Lott, “A talk on some of the false claims made by gun control advocates,” Crime Prevention Research Center, Oct. 18, 2018
John Lott, “US gun control advocates exaggerate benefits of Australia’s gun restrictions,” Fox News, Mar. 8, 2018
John Lott, The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies, 2016
Frederic Lemieux, Samantha Bricknell, and Tim Prenzler, “Mass shootings in Australia and the United States, 1981-2013,” Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, Sep. 2015
John Lott and Kesten Green, “Every time and place guns have been banned, murder rates have gone up,” The Advertiser, Oct. 23, 2014
John Lott, “Report to the Parliament of Australia on ‘The ability of Australian law enforcement authorities to eliminate gun-related violence in the community,’” Crime Prevention Research Center, Aug. 15, 2014
Rebecca Peters, “Rational Firearm Regulation: Evidence-based Gun Laws in Australia,” Reducing Gun Violence in America, 2013
John Lott, “Some notes on claims about Australia’s crime rates,” John Lott’s Blog, Aug. 13, 2012
Dylan Matthews, “Did Gun Control Work in Australia,” Washington Post, Aug. 2, 2012
Andrew Leigh and Christine Neill, “Do Gun Buybacks Save Lives? Evidence from Panel Data,” American Law and Economics Review, 2010
David Hemenway, “How to Find Nothing,” Journal of Public Health, 2009
Koala image by Annick Vanblaere from Pixabay; Australian flag image by Rebecca Lintz from Pixabay