Australian Firearm Related Deaths: New Findings and Implications for Crime Prevention and Health Policies following revisions to Official Death Count Data

Legislative interventions to address firearms misuse have received international attention in both crime prevention and public health and safety discourse. In 1996, Australian firearms legislation was tightened significantly, providing a 'natural experimental design'. Since that time, a series of studies have evaluated impacts of the legislative changes, with varying results. However, additional years of data have become available and official death count data have been substantially revised since those studies were published. The current study considered whether these new data may lead to novel findings and insights, relative to earlier studies. Time series analyses were used to evaluate firearm and non-firearm deaths. Observed and predicted firearm homicide trends did not differ significantly post-legislative reforms, while firearm suicide, non-firearm suicide and non-firearm homicide were all significantly lower than predicted. Broader social, cultural, and economic factors may have influenced both firearm and non-firearm injury in Australia. This has implications for crime prevention and public health and safety policies internationally.