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More Guns ... More or Less Crime?: An Australian Perspective on an International Question

NCJ Number
243048
Journal
Crime Prevention and Community Safety Volume: 15 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2013 Pages: 127-133
Author(s)
Samara McPhedran
Date Published
May 2013
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This article examines the effect of gun control legislation on crime levels from the perspective of officials in New South Wales, Australia.
Abstract
This article reports on preliminary investigation of relationships between levels of legal firearms ownership and violent firearm-related crime in New South Wales, Australia. No evidence was found to suggest that increasing numbers of legally owned firearms are associated with increasing levels of crime; rather, modest negative associations were found between levels of legal gun ownership and violent firearm crime. The results suggest that reducing levels of legal gun ownership is not necessarily a prerequisite for reducing levels of violent crime, and that reductions in firearm crime can occur in the context of increasing levels of legal ownership. (Published Abstract)