Once again, the response from politicians to the Australian shooting and the Brown University shooting in the United States is to call for more gun control. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reinforced this narrative on Monday after the massacre, stating that a prior administration's gun laws "have made an enormous difference in Australia and are a proud moment of reform, quite rightly, achieved across the parliament with bipartisan support."

Supporters typically point to declines in firearm homicides and firearm suicides as evidence of success.

Now remember what we say in my world: statistics lie and liars use statistics. Mainly because they are often used out of context. In this case, Albanese is using them out of context. So, let's take a look at the actual numbers for Australia. Now remember Barack Obama Hillary Clinton Joe Biden USA TODAY New York Times ABC CBS CNN have all pointed to Australia as a model for what the US should do.

Australia's first gun confiscation was in 1996-1997. The statistics show you that for the 15 years prior to the confiscation, murder and suicide rates that involved a gun were steadily decreasing. So, wouldn't you expect that after the confiscation you would see a sharper decrease? If the guns being confiscated influenced those rates you would see that, right? It's basically a straight line there was no appreciable effect on the rate of decrease of gun-related deaths and suicides.

Let's throw another fact into the equation, shall we? The gun confiscation removed about 1 million guns or 29% of the estimated guns owned by Australians. Since then, gun ownership has grown actually outpacing the growth of the population in Australia. It is estimated that Australians now own more than 5.8 million guns, compared to just over 2.6 million guns in 1997. Using their logic, gun-related murders and suicides should have skyrocketed. They have not.

Another measure of the success or failure of the firearm confiscation would be to look at total deaths. Immediately after the confiscation, the number of suicides increased by 20% and have remained at or above that level since. Total homicides have also increased slightly since the confiscation. This is shown by not only the total number of suicides and homicides, but also by the percentage of population that committed suicide or were murdered.

Let's look at some information from the United States. The Gifford gun control group gave 13 states a grade of 'F' for not enacting some type of ban or gun control in their state. Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Those are the only states to not experience a mass public shooting since 2010. Belgium, France, and the Netherlands impose even stricter gun control laws than Australia, yet their mass public shooting rates are at least as high as those in the United States.

Bill Landes of the University of Chicago and John Lott Jr of the Crime Prevention Center Conducted a study on the efficacy of 13 different types of gun laws. The original study covered 1977 to 1999, and it has been updated every year since. There is only one type of law that has effectively and consistently reduced the number of gun-related mass shootings—Laws that allowed citizens to carry firearms either openly or with a concealed carry permit.

FBI statistics that were confirmed by the researchers showed that 159 of 562 active shooter events taking place between 2012 and 2024 were stopped by armed citizens. By contrast, police officers only stopped 123 of these events. When citizens intervened, only one bystander was shot. The number of bystanders or officers shot by their fellow officers was significantly higher.

If the politicians wanted to have a real debate about the efficacy of any law designed to prevent mass shootings or active shooter events, they would tell you this information. But they won't because they aren't as concerned with stopping the deaths as they are with disarming the public.