If availability of firearms caused homicide, then why do the SWISS, who have five times as many guns per head of population when compared to ENGLAND, have fewer murders per head of population?

As for availability of guns causing  suicide.  Back in 2000 AD I copied this file from the Australian Bureau of Statistics site.  If you look at total suicide deaths by year, (Table 9.3) you will see that there is < 10% variance year on year until the year that gun controls were introduced.  (see if you can guess when that was).  Then, if you look at Table 9.5 and look at deaths by "firearms and explosives" you will find that total person deaths by firearms went from 23.7% in 1988 to 12.2% in 1997.

So the ad hoc conclusion must be that taking guns away from people seemingly made people more likely to commit suicide.  (But at least the control people can console themselves that suicides were much less likely to use a gun to kill themselves.)

Oh, and in case you didn't guess it, John Howard introduced the gun control legislation in 1996.

"Well why", you might ask, "do the Australian authorities not admit that they were wrong, and liberalize gun laws?"

Perhaps the answer is that there is self interest by those who wield political and media power.  While it is a proven beyond reasonable doubt fact that guns in the hands of "we the people"  reduce violent crime, murder, robbery and aggravated assault against the population at large (see John Lott below), it would appear that those with a high media profile are in fact at greater risk when guns are held by ordinary citizens.

For instance, out of 43 US presidents, 4 were "removed" from office by guns, and another four took sick leave as a result of guns.  Those odds are much worse than for a soldier in an active war theater.  (~10% fatality rate, ~10% wounded rate).  And a disproportionate number of governors, senators, representatives and media personalities (e.g. John Lennon) have been attacked.

WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE

John R. Lott, Jr., School of Law, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois  60637 and David B. Mustard; Department of Economics; University of Chicago; Chicago, Illinois  60637 wrote an academic paper dated July 26, 1996 on their research into "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns".  Following is the abstract:

Using cross-sectional time-series data for U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992, we find that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes, without increasing accidental deaths. If those states without right-to-carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, county- and state-level data indicate that approximately 1,500 murders would have been avoided yearly. Similarly, we predict that rapes would have declined by over 4,000, robbery by over 11,000, and aggravated assaults by over 60,000. We also find criminals substituting into property crimes involving stealth, where the probability of contact between the criminal and the victim is minimal. Further, higher arrest and conviction rates consistently reduce crime. The estimated annual gain from all remaining states adopting these laws was at least $5.74 billion in 1992. The annual social benefit from an additional concealed handgun permit is as high as $5,000.

When the Lott-Mustard article originally appeared it provoked an uproar among control advocates.   In 1998 local gun control advocate Associate Professor Chapman admitted defeat when he wrote "With the national armed robbery rate up 47%, . . no downturn in gun suicides or domestic slayings . . was it (i.e. the taxation funded buyback of guns) all for nothing?

In the intervening nineteen years nobody has been able to refute Lott & Mustard's findings.  Many have tried, but read them yourself.  (e.g. google "refutations of Lott Mustard paper").  They mostly aren't worth reading, and one cannot help but  wonder how the authors were ever employed as research assistants.

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