A Million Guns Destroyed, a Million More Imported

Australian Shooters Re-stock Private Arsenal to pre-Port Arthur Numbers

Media Release, The University of Sydney EMBARGOED Not for publication before midnight, Sunday 13 January 2013 New research from the University of Sydney shows that Australians destroyed more than a million guns in response to shooting massacres -- Thats many more than we usually talk about says Philip Alpers, from the Sydney School of Public Health. Since all the mass shootings began in 1988, 38 state and federal gun amnesties ran for well over 3,000 weeks. If we include all the gun owners who sent their weapons to the smelter without asking for money, the real total is a million firearms destroyed, or a third of the national private arsenal, he said. By mid-2012, following a steady ten-year upward trend in gun buying, Australians had restocked the national stockpile of private guns to pre-Port Arthur levels. They did this by importing 1,055,082 firearms,* an average of 43,961 each year since destruction programmes began, reports Mr Alpers. Adjunct Associate Professor at the Sydney School of Public Health, Philip Alpers is in Baltimore, MD to relate the Australian experience at the Summit on Reducing Gun Violence in America. Organised by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and its patron, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the two-day summit will hear invited experts from the United States, Great Britain, Australia and Brazil. At its conclusion on Tuesday, the Summits recommendations will feed into US Vice President Joe Bidens Gun Control Task Force, which reports to the White House at the end of this month. In its scope and size, Australias public health effort to reduce the risk of gun violence led the world, says Philip Alpers. After melting down a million guns, the risk of an Australian dying by gunshot fell by more than half plus, weve seen no mass shootings in 16 years. Only time will tell what effect this resurgence of firearm availability might have on the public health and safety of Australians. Rise in Firearm Imports: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/firearm_imports_number Fall in Total Gun Deaths: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/total_number_of_gun_deaths Fall in Gun Homicides: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/number_of_gun_homicides Gun Homicide Comparison: Australia v United States and Others http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compare/10/rate_of_gun_homicide/31,66,69,87,91,128,178,192,1 94 Brief Background: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/cp/australia Philip Alpers can be reached at: +1 (646) 309-6267

*This total excludes 52,608 handguns imported for law enforcement and other official use, plus firearms for the military, airguns, muzzle-loaders and the customs import category Other.