Gun Policy News
Firearm licensing laws and proof of legitimate need
Pro-gun Groups Used Ministerial Advisory Panel to Lobby Against Tighter Laws
20 October 2018
Guardian
Groups wanted former justice minister to recognise that 'lawful use of firearms can also have benefit to society'
Pro-gun groups used a ministerial advisory panel to lobby against mandatory 28-day cooling-off periods for firearms owners and to call for changes to the "genuine need" provisions which make up the backbone of Australia's gun laws.
Documents obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws reveal the former justice minister Michael Keenan... (GunPolicy.org)
Australia's Tough Gun Laws Weakened by the States - Report
5 October 2017
Sydney Morning Herald
Australia's tough gun laws have been significantly watered down by state governments since they were introduced under the National Firearms Agreement in the days after the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996, a new study has found.
According to the research by Philip Alpers, an associate professor of public health at the University of Sydney, all Australian states have succumbed to pressure from gun owners or the parties that represent them to water down some aspects of the... (GunPolicy.org)
United States,United Kingdom,Japan,Australia
So, America, This Is How Other Countries Do Gun Control
14 March 2016
Guardian
Thirty people will be shot dead in America today. On average. It could be more. If it's less, then more will die tomorrow. Or the next day.
The United States's gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than other high-income countries, according to a recent study.
Americans are divided on whether the country's gun deaths could be reduced through tougher laws on gun ownership. Liberals argue that legal restrictions on gun ownership could save lives. Conservatives say that... (GunPolicy.org)
How Australia Made Gun Control Happen After Port Arthur
14 March 2016
Guardian
On Sunday 28 April 1996 a security guard, Ian Kingston, stood in the doorway of the Broad Arrow cafe at the historic site of Port Arthur in southern Tasmania. He stared at the body of a man lying on the floor, then looked up into the barrel of a semi-automatic rifle. He dived back out the door as Martin Bryant pulled the trigger. Bryant killed 12 people in 15 seconds.
On the gravel path outside the cafe Kingston tried to herd people who thought the gunshots were part... (GunPolicy.org)
Australia Dealt with Mass Shootings, Gun Death Fell 60%
13 March 2016
CBS News (USA)
In the wake of a deadly shooting rampage back in 1996, the Australian government reacted quickly and decisively to ban certain guns. So did it make a difference? Seth Doane takes a look:
"It's said that when you lose your parents, you lose your past. When you lose your child, you lose your future," said Carolyn Loughton.
She'd flung herself on top of her daughter when a gunman started shooting, but it was not enough to save Sarah's life. "She had just turned 15,"... (GunPolicy.org)
United States,Botswana,Algeria,Libya,South Africa,Kenya,Rwanda,Djibouti
7 African Nations More Effective at Gun Control than the US
11 January 2016
Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg)
In a BBC interview last July, US President Barack Obama admitted that failure to pass "common sense gun safety laws" in the US has been the greatest frustration of his presidency.
Since he took office in 2008, there have been repeated mass shootings including the 2011 Tucson Arizona shooting in which Gabrielle Giffords, then a member of Congress and 18 others were shot in a supermarket parking lot. Six people died that day.
Another shooting was at Emanuel African... (GunPolicy.org)
French Municipal Police Officers and the Carrying of Firearms [FR]
5 May 2015
L'Humanité (France)
[Translated summary: The French government just authorised, by Decree, mayors to endow municipal police with 357 Magnums, but not all police officers are allowed to carry firearms within the scope of their duties. It depends on the place and nature of the mission. Here are listed the requirements for the carrying of firearms by municipal police officers (for example: need of a genuine reason, training, etc).]
Le gouvernement vient d'autoriser, par décret (*), les... (GunPolicy.org)
Does Rural Australia Have a Gun Problem?
27 October 2014
The Conversation, Opinion
The recent multiple homicide in a small Victorian township, coming barely a month after a mass shooting in rural New South Wales, may give the impression that firearm-related murders in rural Australia are rampant.
It would be easy to attribute this to higher density of gun ownership in country areas relative to cities, particularly where farming is a dominant industry and firearms are "tools of the trade". But understanding gun violence is not that simple.
Firearm... (GunPolicy.org)
Australia,United States,United Kingdom,Finland
Australia, Scotland and Finland Changed Gun Laws after Mass Shootings
3 April 2014
Global Post (Boston)
The immeasurably tragic school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., which left 20 children and six adults dead in December 2012, horrified the world and briefly ignited a debate about gun control. Nine months later, the debate was held all over again after the mass shooting at a US Navy Yard in Washington, DC that killed 13 people.
America's most recent mass shooting took place Wednesday evening at Fort Hood Army base in Texas. The base was also the... (GunPolicy.org)
New Gun for Indian Women Criticised as Increasing Risk, Unaffordable
17 January 2014
BBC News
India has launched a new handgun for women, named after a student who was gang-raped in Delhi in December 2012 and later died of her injuries. Officials say it will help women defend themselves, but critics say it's an insult to the victim's memory.
In his large office on Kanpur's Kalpi Road, Abdul Hameed, the general manager of the state-run Indian Ordnance Factory, shows me Nirbheek, the factory's tiniest gun.
"It's small, it's lightweight, it weighs only 500g... (GunPolicy.org)
Opinion: When Australians Gave Back Their Guns
24 August 2013
Washington Post
SYDNEY - Christopher Lane's parents wore dark sunglasses throughout the news conference they held to address the "senseless" death of their son: their noses were red, their sobs uncontrolled, their grief raw.
Lane, 22, a star athlete from Melbourne on a baseball scholarship to a U.S. college, was shot in the back this month as he jogged alongside a road in Oklahoma. One of the three teenagers who, according to police, left him to die in a drainage ditch said: "We were... (GunPolicy.org)
In Singapore: Stiff Penalties For Unlawful Gun Possession
8 August 2013
Straits Times (Singapore)
Gun control laws in Singapore are among the strictest in the world.
The two main statutes governing firearms are the Arms Offences Act and the Arms and Explosives Act.
They spell out tough penalties for both illegal possession and unlawful use of guns.
For instance, anyone caught unlawfully possessing a gun or ammunition can be jailed for between five and 10 years, and given at least six strokes of the cane, according to the Arms Offences Act.
Anyone caught using an... (GunPolicy.org)
Opinion: Easing Gun Rules Ignores the Pain of Those Grieving
26 April 2013
Sydney Morning Herald, Opinion
This Sunday marks the 17th anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, where 35 people were killed and 18 wounded by a lone gunman brandishing high-powered longarms.
In response to the killings, Australia's gun laws were significantly tightened. The prime minister at the time, John Howard, was able to gain bipartisan support from all state governments for a 10-point plan to regulate firearms - known as the 1996 Nationwide Agreement on Firearms.
This agreement... (GunPolicy.org)
Gun-Related Deaths: How Australia Stepped Off "The American Path"
12 March 2013
American College of Physicians - Annals of Internal Medicine
Australia and the United States share many characteristics. Both are English-speaking democracies of multicultural immigrants. The 2 nations have been allies for nearly a century. Australians and Americans consume similar diets of movies, video games, popular music, recreational drugs, and alcohol. Both have vast interiors, early histories of armed European settlers mistreating native populations, plenty of feral pests to shoot, and many firearm enthusiasts. Yet the 2... (GunPolicy.org)
Read More: American College of Physicians - Annals of Internal Medicine
Australian Gun Laws Prevent Purchase of US Mass Shooting Guns
24 July 2012
ABC News (Australia)
The awful shooting tragedy in Colorado last week happened in Aurora, 30kms from Bega's sister city of Littleton, in turn adjacent to the scene of the 1999 Columbine school massacre. The Bega-Littleton Exchange was the first Australia-US sister city relationship, developed from the two communities recognising shared characteristics and values. Over the fifty years of the relationship many things have changed, particularly in Denver's satellite communities like Littleton... (GunPolicy.org)
Curb Number of Guns Owned, Slow Gun Theft - West Australia Police Boss
12 March 2012
West Australian (Perth)
In the wake of the Port Arthur massacre in April 1996 the Federal government and all Australasian police ministers signed up to the National Firearms Agreement.
The intent of the agreement was to tighten gun control through the restriction of certain categories of firearms, through better screening of applicants and through a more rigorous assessment of genuine need.
The agreement included an amnesty and buyback scheme for firearms with the focus on reducing the... (GunPolicy.org)
Perth 13-gun Seizure Spurs Call for Australian Firearm Licence Limit
6 March 2012
Sydney Morning Herald
A Rockingham man charged with multiple weapon, ammunition and drug offences at the weekend had been granted up to 13 separate and concurrent firearms licences, leading the state opposition to call for a limit to be set.
Thirteen firearms, plus several thousand rounds of ammunition for which the 36-year-old man did not have a licence, methamphetamines, nearly $18,000 in cash and other weapons including a machete, a sling shot and expandable batons were seized from a... (GunPolicy.org)
Arguments for More, Less Gun Control as Tasmania Mulls Firearm Law
29 January 2012
Hobart Mercury (Tasmania)
Spouses' permission and tougher documentation requirements are among measures that should be added to the state's gun licensing system, says the leader of Tasmania's anti-gun lobby.
"I would like to see [applicants] get the consent of their spouse before they can get a gun licence," Tasmanian lawyer Roland Browne said.
Mr Browne is the Coalition for National Gun Control spokesman.
Gun licence applicants now answer a series of yes-no questions about their criminal... (GunPolicy.org)
Europe,Norway,Netherlands,United Kingdom,Germany,Finland,Switzerland
Gun Attacks in Europe and Their Effect on Gun Control Laws
14 December 2011
BBC News
As more details emerge of the shooting spree and grenade attack in Belgium in which five people died, the BBC News website takes a look at other recent incidents in Europe - and the effect they have had on each country's laws.
Norway
Seventy-seven people were killed in twin attacks on 22 July 2011 in Norway. Anders Behring Breivik has admitted that he planted a car bomb that exploded close to government offices in the capital Oslo, killing eight people. He then drove... (GunPolicy.org)
Australia,United Kingdom,United States
UK Rioting Proves That Gun Control Is Not Crime Control
16 August 2011
Menzies House (Australia)
Peter Whelan demonstrates how gun control leads to greater crime as law-abiding citizens are no longer allowed to defend themselves:
"Armed shopkeepers fight back" (headline in Sydney Morning Herald Aug 11, 2011)
The comment from the manager of the Turkish Food Market, Greens Lane, Haringey, during last week's London riots, as reported by the Guardian News and Media Service, said it all. "I'm scared that the police and the government will attack us if we defend our... (GunPolicy.org)
Training, Genuine Reason Needed for Firearm Licence in St Kitts & Nevis
22 October 2010
St Kitts & Nevis Observer
A senior official in the St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force informed that there has been an increase in the number of applications made for persons to legally possess firearms.
Speaking exclusively to The Observer, Assistant Commissioner of Police responsible for Operations Ian Queeley said that over the past few years there had been a marked hike in requests for gun user licenses.
"There has definitely been an increase in the number of applications from both... (GunPolicy.org)
Firearms in Australia: a Parliamentary Library Guide to Electronic Resources
9 August 2007
Parliamentary Library, Federal Parliament of Australia
Introduction
On 28 April 1996, 35 people were killed and 18 others were wounded at Port Arthur in Tasmania by an assailant using a semi-automatic rifle. In response, The Australasian Police Ministers' Council convened a special meeting on 10 May 1996 and agreed to a national plan for the regulation of firearms — the Nationwide Agreement on Firearms. This agreement banned self-loading rifles and self-loading and pump-action shotguns, introduced a nationwide... (GunPolicy.org)
Read More: Parliamentary Library, Federal Parliament of Australia
The Impact of Gun Control Measures in Australia
1 July 2004
Small Arms Survey 2004: Rights at Risk. Oxford University Press
Despite reports of a crime wave in Australia following recent restrictions on the private ownership of firearms, evidence actually shows sweeping reductions in gun-related death, injury, and crime.
On 10 May 1996, 12 days after 35 people were shot dead by a single gunman at Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia's state and federal governments agreed to enact wide-ranging gun control measures. Between June 1996 and August 1998, new restrictions were progressively brought... (GunPolicy.org)
Read More: Small Arms Survey 2004: Rights at Risk. Oxford University Press