Published 13 July 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2860
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b2860

News

Schemes to collect and destroy handguns help to cut homicide rate

John Zarocostas

1 Geneva

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Initiatives to collect and destroy handguns and other small arms, especially in countries with high homicide rates, such as Brazil and South Africa, help to bring down the number of homicides, a worldwide survey indicates.

About 490 000 homicides are committed worldwide each year, and in about 60% of homicides the weapons used are small arms. By comparison, the annual number of deaths from war and conflict is estimated at between 52 000 and 184 000.

The Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, which carried out the survey, says that children and teenagers are affected by armed violence in ways different from and at times "more severe" than adults. But it says that initiatives in which civilian weapons are collected and destroyed, in combination with other social reform policies, were making some headway in efforts to stem gun related violence, especially in urban areas.

For example, in Brazil, . . . [Full text of this article]


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