John Maxwell
The Australia Institute has been up to its old antics, producing another report commissioned by Gun Control Australia and the Australian Gun Safety Alliance. It claims yet again there are far too many guns in the country and states and territories still haven’t fully complied with the 1996 National Firearms Agreement (NFA). Entitled Gun Control in Australia – An update on firearms data and policies, the 44-page document was released in late January with the apparent intention of placing guns on the national agenda in an election year.
This shock-horror approach doesn’t seem to have produced much of an impact. “As of 2024, there were over four million guns owned by civilians – one for every seven Australians. This is a 25 per cent increase from the 3.2 million firearms in Australia before the Port Arthur massacre,” it says. That’s an increase of around 400,000 in five years. “Australia has not ‘solved’ the problem of gun control,” the report says. Their solution? More gun control of course.
This completely ignores a couple of factors, one being Australia has grown since 1996. Back then the population was 18.3 million and according to the Australian Bureau of Statics, it was 27,204,809 as of June 30, 2024, a more than 48 per cent increase. On the basis of population growth alone, there could be a whole lot more guns in the community, so a 25 per cent increase actually seems quite modest.
Everyone who’s acquired or renewed a firearms licence since 1996 has met the more onerous licensing conditions the anti-gun lobby found entirely appropriate under the NFA. It would appear a most uncomfortable truth for the Australia Institute, Gun Control Australia and friends that while firearm numbers have risen, the use of guns for murder and suicide has fallen.
According to the latest in the Australian Institute of Criminology’s (AIC) annual Homicide in Australia statistical series, 11 per cent of murder victims (33 from a total 247 for the year) involved a firearm, below the long-term average. In 2021-22 it was 34 dead by gunshot from a total of 234 and in 2020-21 it was 25 from 221.
In 2022-23 substantially more people were murdered with knives and other sharp instruments (85 victims), blunt instruments (19) and hands and feet (42). The Australia Institute says 206 people died in 2023 from firearm-related injuries including suicide, murder and accidents. Subtracting the 33 gun murder victims in 2023 shows the great majority of firearms deaths continues to be suicide. Since the 1980s suicide from firearms has fallen dramatically, with a current rate of less than one per 100,000 population (hanging remains the most common means of suicide for men and women).
So more guns in the community, owned by licensed sporting shooters, certainly doesn’t mean more gun violence as the Australia Institute report seems to imply. Back in 2000 the AIC released a study which found between July 1997 and June 1999, only nine per cent of homicide offenders held firearms licences. No handgun used in homicide during that period was registered.
That study established emphatically the vast majority of firearm crime was committed by those not holding licences and using unregistered guns, not by licensed shooters. Has that situation changed? We just don’t know as there’s been no comparable recent research. Indisputably, some licensed shooters have used guns to commit appalling crimes, yet most reported gun crime seems to involve criminal gang members engaged in drug, turf and, more recently, tobacco wars.
The report was accompanied by polling explicitly commissioned by Gun Control Australia which, unsurprisingly, finds a majority of respondents (70 per cent) want tougher gun laws, though 31 per cent want them to stay the same or be wound back. The hook for this poll was recent changes to gun laws in Western Australia, with limits on how many can be owned.
Commissioned polling, especially conducted by phone, can produce pretty much whatever outcome a client desires. The scorecard rated states and territories by green tick or red cross in six criteria ‘for effective gun control’ – data transparency, consultation, limits on firearms ownership, a ban on under-18s accessing guns, ban on digital blueprints for 3D guns and police regulation of clubs and ranges allowing unlicensed shooters to try out shooting. NSW did best with three green ticks, WA two, Victoria and Tasmania one and the rest none at all.
Let’s start with U-18 shooters, permitted in every state and territory yet which The Australia Institute, Gun Control Australia and others insist is banned under the NFA. No it’s not and to say otherwise is either ignorance or outright mendacity. The NFA agreement emerged from a special meeting of the Australasian Police Ministers’ Council on May 10, 1996.
Contrary to views of the anti-gun groups – that the NFA agreement was perfect and immutable from the outset – there were amendments approved by Federal Cabinet over ensuing weeks and months dealing with a range of issues. In the minutes from a meeting on June 11, Cabinet agreed to propose to states that: “The position of under-age shooters under the Police Ministers’ resolutions be clarified to indicate all jurisdictions would allow and continue to allow persons under the age of 18, but above a specified minimum age, to use lawful firearms in supervised situations.” Not sure how much clearer that could be.
There’s long been a shortage of reliable and current data on registered guns and licence holders, so making more information available isn’t fundamentally a bad thing for shooters. However, the Australia Institute wants that data readily available online down to particular postcodes, presumably so anti-gun groups can campaign against all those guns in suburbia.
In promoting its proposed new gun laws, the WA government tried that and managed to release data which allowed the homes of some individual gun owners to be identified. Now shooters can adopt every conceivable security measure (locks, alarms, safes) to guard against criminals who are ever on the lookout for guns to steal, yet anonymity remains perhaps the best protection, not just for gun owners but the entire community.
Through organisation such as the SSAA, gun owners are generally consulted when governments are planning new initiatives or considering law changes. Anti-gun groups would also like to be included on these consultation panels, with one of their objectives being ‘to balance the commercial interests of the firearm industry’.
WA’s tightening of its gun laws and imposition of limits on how many may be owned (five for a hunter and 10 for a competition shooter), has certainly excited the anti-gun community which believes every other jurisdiction should follow. The Australia Institute laments that even these are well above the limit of two guns per person proposed by Gun Control Australia for NSW in 2019. Considering the substantial cost of compensating gun owners for confiscated property, no other jurisdictions are rushing to follow the WA example.
Marking states and territories up or down according to whether they’ve banned possession and sharing of digital files for 3D-printed gun plans seems a curious priority, given 3D printing of firearms is utterly illegal in every state and territory under existing laws. Home production of illicit guns is a significant and growing issue, which police services are actively investigating and making routines arrests and seizures. So far only NSW and Tasmania have outlawed possession of 3D gun plans, though others may follow. The Australia Institute says other measures could include additional safety requirements on 3D printers sold in Australia, or through moderation and blocking of harmful online content.
Finally there’s regulation of unlicensed shooting by clubs and ranges, which the Australia Institute reckons should be managed by police rather than private organisations (i.e. the clubs). Every state and territory allows non-licensed people to try out shooting, a practice which has been tightened up in recent years. Typically it’s now under close supervision of a club instructor or Range Officer and after completing a declaration form. Considering the demands on state and territory police services, would they really want to take on the responsibility for supervising newbies at clubs and ranges across the nation. You’d have to think not.
The Australia Institute has touched on gun control previously, releasing a series of reports in conjunction with Gun Control Australia in 2019. Though it describes itself as an independent thinktank, it remains as it was back then, an exponent of left and Greens policies, including on guns. The Australia Institute is an agreeable home for former Greens staffers and candidates, which appears to be well reflected in its agenda. Current executive director Richard Dennis and deputy director Ebony Bennett are former staff members to Greens politicians. Former executive director Ben Oquist was a longtime staffer, working for Greens leaders Bob Brown and Christine Milne and remains a board member.
The Greens political party remains committed to its longstanding anti-gun agenda with its policy platform on justice declaring they want to ‘progress gun law reform, including prohibition of the possession and use of semi-automatic handguns in the community’.