The recently released ABS statistics show a dramatic drop in Australian gun deaths for 1998. These figures are shown below. They exhibit the same tendency to decline which was shown in the 1997 figures.

The continued reduction in the number of Australians being killed by guns strongly suggests that the stricter gun laws which have been put into place throughout Australia during the 1990's have saved many hundred's of lives.

A decade ago, in 1988, just before the stricter gun laws started to operate, 696 people died from gun wounds. Last year, 1998, there were 327 gun deaths. Gun suicides and gun homicides have been halved in the last ten years.

In 1998 there were 21 deaths from accidental or careless gun use. Although there has been a moderate decline in the number of accidental gun deaths in the 1990's compared with the 1980's there are still far too many dying from gun accidents. http://www.guncontrol.org.au