Elimination of firearms
BMJ 1997; 315 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.315.7114.1019a (Published 18 October 1997) Cite this as: BMJ 1997;315:1019All guns should be banned from homes
- Simon Chapman, Associate professora
- a Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia
- b Demography and Health Division, Office for National Statistics, London SW1V 2QQ
Editor—Paula Baillie-Hamilton questions whether reducing guns in the community will reduce premature deaths.1 She urges that advocates for a reduction in guns first “look at the size of the problem” but then goes on to consider only the rate of homicide by guns. For every person murdered with a gun in England and Wales there are 4.75 who commit suicide with a gun.2 The gun lobby argues that reducing access to guns will simply result in method substitution, but the largest multination study concluded that the rate of household ownership of a gun correlated with the rates of homicide and suicide in which guns were used, as well as the overall rates of homicide and suicide.2 The study found no evidence of a substitution effect in nations with low rates of gun ownership.
Baillie-Hamilton also fails …
Log in
Log in using your username and password
Log in through your institution
Subscribe from £173 *
Subscribe and get access to all BMJ articles, and much more.
* For online subscription
Access this article for 1 day for:
£38 / $45 / €42 (excludes VAT)
You can download a PDF version for your personal record.