Guns don't kill people… oh wait, yes they do!

To mark the 20th anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre, a team of researchers from the universities of Sydney, Wollongong and New South Wales have published a ‘For debate’ article in the Medical Journal of Australia examining the effectiveness of national firearms regulation and recent calls by the gun lobby to focus on mental health issues over gun control.

The conclusion is that individuals with mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of gun violence than the perpetrators.

According to Dr Michael Dudley, lead author of the article, “Although mass murderers who seize media attention often seem to suffer from psychosis, no research clearly verifies that most are psychotic or even suffering from severe mental illness.”

Dr Dudley and his colleagues examined statistics from 27 developed countries that all showed a strong correlation between gun ownership and gun violence, but only borderline significance of the predictive capacity of mental illness in relation to firearm homicide.

Statistics from the US show that 95% of gun homicides are committed by individuals with no history of mental illness, while nearly half of those who die at the hands of US police do have some kind of disability.

Local statistics paint a similar picture. Among victims of gun violence in Australia and New Zealand, 88% were shot by someone with no history of violent crime, 78% were killed by a person with no known history of mental illness and 56% were slain by the legal owner of a registered firearm.

Since the implementation of the National Firearms Agreement (NFA) in 1996, the national firearms stockpile in Australia has been reduced by a third, there have been no public mass shootings and it is estimated that at least 200 deaths per year have been averted.

Various studies have shown that perpetrators of gun violence do not suffer from mental illness but do display maladaptive personality configurations such as paranoia, limited capacity for empathy, antisocial behaviour, and sadistic and narcissistic tendencies. While these traits may contribute to violent acts as retribution for perceived wrongs, or to vindicate feelings of hopelessness and invisibility, they are of negligible value in screening for the potential for violence.

More pertinent precipitating factors related to the potential for gun violence are alcohol and drug abuse, toxic social networks, isolation and grudges associated with school or workplace environments.

The authors believe that clinicians do have a role in monitoring high-risk populations but that screening those with mental illness issues for violence risk is misguided and that the focus should be on gun control measures.