Citation

McPhedran S. Crime Prev. Community Safety 2013; 15(2): 127-133.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group -- Palgrave-Macmillan)

DOI

10.1057/cpcs.2012.17

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article reports on preliminary investigation of relationships between levels of legal firearms ownership and violent firearm-related crime in New South Wales, Australia. No evidence was found to suggest that increasing numbers of legally owned firearms are associated with increasing levels of crime; rather, modest negative associations were found between levels of legal gun ownership and violent firearm crime. The results suggest that reducing levels of legal gun ownership is not necessarily a prerequisite for reducing levels of violent crime, and that reductions in firearm crime can occur in the context of increasing levels of legal ownership.

Keywords: firearms; violence; crime