The proud claim that Australia may have “solved the gun problem” might only be a temporary illusion. In recent years, arms dealers have imported more guns than ever before. And last year we crossed a symbolic threshold: for the first time in 20 years, Australia’s national arsenal of private guns is larger than it was...

In the 27 years from 1988 to 2015, Australians imported more than a million guns. Many of these replaced firearm types prohibited and destroyed during federal firearm buybacks, or surrendered in dozens of state gun amnesties. This table lists national firearm import totals provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the years 1988/89 to...

Nearly twenty years after the Port Arthur massacre, John Howard, the prime minister who overhauled gun laws, claims they led to significant falls in gun-related homicides and a 74 per cent fall in gun-related suicide rates.

In the frustrating struggle to identify gun killers in advance, we could have been looking in the wrong place. By accepting the common mantra that law-abiding, licensed firearm owners are not the problem, many have chased popular fears such as mental illness and violent video games. Research now shows that far more frequently, perpetrators share...

Of 130 victims shot dead, 56% were killed by a licensed gun owner. Most were shot by a killer with no previous history of violent crime or mental illness. All the perpetrators were men.