According to Philip Alpers, a gun control expert, Australians own more guns now than they did at the time of the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996.
His piece in The Conversation today – which falls on the 20th anniversary of the devastating massacre – states that “the proud claim that Australia may have ‘solved the gun problem’ might only be a temporary illusion”.
The 1 million guns that were destroyed after the massacre in 1996 has now been replaced with another 100,026,000 of ’em.
The spike in 1997 was in response to the current laws coming in, so owners had to replace their banned rapid-fire shotguns with single-shot firearms.
But still, gun sales in 2014-15 were higher than in 1997: with over 100,000 guns added last year, our national arsenal is officially bigger than before the 1996 national buyback. Yet less Australians actually own guns – which means gun owners are likely just adding to their collection.
However, as terrifying as this all sounds, psychologist Samara McPhedran says that despite the numbers of gun ownership are going up, gun violence and misuse is actually falling:
“This isn’t a sudden increase. It’s a consistent pattern that we’ve seen over a number of years. And despite those increases we’ve seen steady declines in firearm misuse.”
Source: The Conversation / The Age.
Photo: Tobias Titz / Getty.
