Word: mcphedran
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...suicide by firearm? Here again, rates were falling pre-1996. And while the decline gained speed after 1996, suicide by other methods began declining then, too. McPhedran and coauthor Jeanine Baker say suicide needs to be examined in a broader context that includes growing public awareness of mental health issues and increased use of antidepressants...
...these changes have done nothing to reduce gun-related deaths, according to Samara McPhedran, a University of Sydney academic and coauthor of a soon-to-be-published paper that reviews a selection of previous studies on the effects of the 1996 legislation. The conclusions of these studies were "all over the place," says McPhedran. But by pulling back and looking purely at the statistics, the answer "is there in black and white," she says. "The hypothesis that the removal of a large number of firearms owned by civilians [would lead to fewer gun-related deaths] is not borne...
Firearm homicides in Australia were declining before 1996 and the decline has simply continued at the same rate since, McPhedran says. (In 2002-3, Australia's rate of 0.27 gun-related homicides per 100,000 people was one-fifteenth that of the U.S. rate.) Of course, it's possible there might have been a spike in firearm homicides - and one or more Port Arthur-style events - if not for the gun law reforms. "It's very easy to raise what-ifs," McPhedran counters. "The what-ifs are interesting as discussion points. But, ultimately, for policy making, we have to deal...
Other researchers have focused on mass shootings: there were 11 in Australia in the decade before 1996, and there have been none since. This appears to be a strong argument for gun laws designed to help prevent massacres like Port Arthur. But McPhedran argues that because "mass shootings have been such a rare event historically ... it's incredibly difficult to perform a reliable statistical test on such rare events." Massacres, she argues, are a separate research question...
...seem irrelevant to some that McPhedran and Baker are affiliated with the Sydney-based International Coalition for Women in Shooting and Hunting. But it should be, McPhedran argues: their analysis has been peer-reviewed, approved for publication and should be judged on its merits, she says...