CLASS Research and Opinion

Coroner's Flawed Findings - NSW coroners unsupported recommendations

Is Australia's Media Biased? — you bet!

Ideas kill: Science and the massacre — The root cause of the rash of massacres has been identified by forensic psychiatrists.

Guns and Politics in Australian Society — collecting articles to establish a broad picture of the politics of guns.

The National Coalition for Gun Control: Who are they? Are they a committee of one and a fax machine? ?

False claims about new study.

A new study published in the prestigious British Journal of Criminology finds that the Buyback had no benefit in reducing Australia's murder rate.  Sadly, the AAP article on this appears to be recycled NCGC misdirection. The flaws in the article are: 

(1) The article labels the researchers 'pro-gun lobbyists', and fails to consistently use Dr Baker's correct title.

(2) The article claims that other research shows differently, but no reference is provided to this 'research'. 

(3) The article gives the last word to 'Sydney university professor Simon Chapman', but does not say that Chapman is a former activist   who helped lead the campaign to ban recreational guns.

Reply to Chapman/Alpers Paper by Drs Jeanine Baker and Samara McPhedran.

Gun Laws and Sudden Death: An important study on the effects of the buybacks. They did nothing to make Australia safer say the authors. Email the authors for a copy.

Drawing a bead: $50,000 per ticket fundraiser helps European anti-gunners fund US gun ban campaigns.

National Security-Swiss Style: Since 1291, Switzerland has defended itself through the use of a heavily-armed populace and a robust militia. Throughout the past 800 years, the Swiss citizenry has defended their liberty against threats both foreign and domestic. 

Questions that remain after Virginia-Tech 

Australian Institute of Criminology - Crime facts info, cfi158

Please note that the AIC has corrected cfi 158. The original version claimed that, "In terms of type of weapons used, around one-third involved firearms,". This has been altered to show that firearms are used in about 25% of attempted murders and 17% of completed murders. This equates to an average of about 20% for attempted and actual homicides.

Australian Institute of Criminology - Crime facts info, cfi165

Storage arrangements for firearms at time of theft, 2006-07.

United Nations Report on Small Arms 2008 Download

Unintended Consequences -

In 1972 the Irish Republic instigated an order, since deemed illegal, to arbitrarily confiscate all privately owned centre-fire rifles and handguns other than .22/250 rifles. This paper shows there were unintended, tragic consequences of this action.   Download PDF