The Australian SLR remains the experienced criminal's assault weapon of choice writes Philip Alpers. Of the 7,664 M-16 and SLR assault rifles delivered to the PNG Defence Force since 1971, only 2,013 (26 per cent) remain in stock. Now, Australia faces the near-inevitability of its own peacemakers facing its own guns.

In 2003-2004, the Small Arms Survey completed a series of research projects across 20 nations of the southwest Pacific.1 One of these, a survey of the proliferation of small arms and firearm-related violence in the strife-torn Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea (Alpers, 2005), relies on a range of background information, field interviews from 19...

This paper considers changes to legislation, policy and law enforcement operations that occurred or were proposed in 2002-03. The starting point for the legislation reviewed is the Commonwealth's amendment of customs regulations, from 20 December 2002, to prohibit the importation of handguns and handgun parts for the purpose of sports shooting unless they conform to...

Using ABS data on underlying cause of death, Jenny Mouzos and Catherine Rushforth found a 47 per cent decrease in firearm related deaths in the period, with a fall in the number of suicides accounting for the largest part of that decrease. Nine out of 10 of the deaths involved males. Persons under the age...

This study by Jenny Mouzos and Maria Borzycki had two aims. The first was to provide an analysis of the characteristics of armed robberies, the offenders and the victims, while the second was to examine the value of a regular armed robbery monitoring program. Data were supplied by state and territory police services for a...