SSAA speaks with ABC Riverland SA radio about recent Melbourne University paper
ABC Riverland SA Morning Show, 16/09/2008 10.16am
Tim Bannister from the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia discusses a recent report by the University of Melbourne, which shows that the Government gun buy-back was unsuccessful in lowering firearm deaths.
Bronwen Wade: Now I’d like to hear from you if you are - were a gun owner back a decade or so ago when the Federal Government spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying back guns. It was in response to the Port Arthur massacre and it was designed to make our community safer. But the latest research which has been done by a couple of colleagues at the University of Melbourne’s Institute of Applied Economic & Social Research suggests that the gun buy-back hasn’t had the results the Government hoped.
Tim Bannister is a spokesman for Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia. Hello Tim.
Tim Bannister: Good morning Bronwen and good morning listeners.
Bronwen Wade: There have been studies of this over the last sort of few years. What has this study found?
Tim Bannister: Well, we have the benefit of hindsight now. It’s more than a dozen years since the buy-back. This particular paper by one of the senior lecturers at Melbourne Uni and a professional researcher, both doctors, has looked at all the data going way back to World War 1 of death by firearm and suicide and it’s just come to the conclusion that $700 million unfortunately was spent with no visible outcome.
Bronwen Wade: So what does that mean - that there was no change in the number of deaths that we had seen?
Tim Bannister: That’s right. They’ve - well to quote them - they’ve said the buy-back was introduced to the placate public’s fears and the evidence just has shown no change - no tangible reduction in terms of firearm deaths, which is what the Association was saying 12 years ago. Everyone righteously was outraged at the murders in Port Arthur. I suppose politically everyone was searching for a quick easy solution but really that $700 million which includes the handgun buy-back in 2003 could have been spent on mental health. Imagine how many hospital and schools that could have bought in the Riverland for goodness sake. There was better things that money could have been spent on…
Bronwen Wade: [Interrupts] So Tim you can…
Tim Bannister: Where we would have seen results.
Bronwen Wade: You conclude that that buy-back should never have happened?
Tim Bannister: No, it shouldn’t have, but we’ve always been a big believer of licensing the person. It is a cliché, but a gun has never killed anyone. It’s always the person that pulls the trigger or it’s a person using a knife or it’s a person using a car. It’s criminals, it’s drug runners, it’s mafia that generally take life with a gun. It’s not your licensed sporting shooter and it’s certainly not the people that we have going to the Olympics or Commonwealth Games.
The money was spent trying to buy back certain guns, but really it should have been spent in a much more intelligent way.
Bronwen Wade: Tim, to play devil’s advocate, could you not argue that well perhaps if we hadn’t spent that money on that buy-back that gun deaths could have increased over the last decade or so?
Tim Bannister: Again that’s just not what the data says. Death by firearms has actually been dropping for 30 years and that’s what the two researchers have found. That the line of deaths by firearms didn’t go up or down it just followed a slow decline as was happening previously and that’s more to do with better education than anything else.
Bronwen Wade: We’ve got Tim Bannister with us and he’s a spokesperson for the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia and I’d like to hear from you if you’re a gun owner and you remember that buy-back a decade or so ago. What impact has it had on you and how do you feel now hearing that this research has come out this month saying that all of that money and all of that effort spent bringing these firearms back hasn’t had any impact on gun deaths in Australia. 85 86 1300 is the way you can share your views.
Perhaps you are in full support of what the Government did. Maybe you applaud their move and I want to hear your views; 85 86 1300.
So Tim what impact do you think that buy-back has had on people who shoot for a sport - a hobby?
Tim Bannister: Well the first impact it had is it created a lot of resentment. You had law abiding citizens - you know for other purposes could have been participating in archery - made to feel like criminals. The finger was firmly pointed at them by the then Prime Minister John Howard. He not only introduced buy-backs but he publicly tried to make sports shooting distasteful. You know he made the comment I hate guns - well I hate criminals actually - but I’d rather see the police doing work to stop criminals.
The other aspect it had is it created a temporary vacuum of junior shooters taking up the sport. It really has taken us a lot of time and effort to get the juniors back. We have an association with more than 120,000 members across Australia and we have a great branch in the Riverland but we will be making more efforts to make sure that we become the seeding ground for great sports men and women so that the next Olympics you’ll see a lot more medals than you did this time.
Bronwen Wade: Tim thanks for joining us on this discussion topic. Tim Bannister, he’s a spokesman for Sporting Shooters Association of Australia and they’re responding to this latest research that has come from the University of Melbourne saying the results of the testing and analysis they’ve done about the firearms buy-back has not had any large effect on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates.
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