By Jared Diamond

London. Penguin 1997. 675p.

In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.

By Rajeev Ramchand, Jessica Saunders

Australia’s 1996 National Firearms Agreement (NFA) banned several types of firearms and resulted in the government buying hundreds of thousands of the banned weapons from their owners. Studies examining the effect of removing so many weapons from the community have found that homicides, suicides, and mass shootings were less common after the NFA was implemented, although such incidents were declining prior to 1996. The strongest evidence is consistent with the claim that the NFA caused reductions in firearm suicides, mass shootings, and female homicide victimization. However, there is also evidence that raises questions about whether, for at least firearm suicides, those changes can be attributed to the NFA or to other factors that influenced rates of these outcomes around the time the NFA was implemented.

Rand Corp. 2021. 27p.

By Samantha Bricknell

In 2018 there were 847 reported incidents of firearm theft in which 2,425 firearms were stolen. This represents a 15 percent increase in incidents and a 35 percent increase in stolen firearms since 2008–09. Most thefts targeted residential premises with an average of three firearms stolen in each incident. The largest proportion of thefts occurred in regional parts of Australia, indicating a shift from major cities as the primary site of theft incidents. The majority of stolen firearms were in firearm safes at the time of the theft.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2020. 29p.

By Philip Alpers and Amélie Rossetti

Four consecutive formal reports have now found that no Australian State or Territory has at any stage fully complied with the 1996 or 2002 firearm resolutions which collectively formed the National Firearms Agreement. In important areas, State and Territory legislation has been blocked or revised to dilute the effect of the NFA. This report, commissioned and funded by Gun Control Australia, finds that on balance, both non-compliance from day one and two decades of political pressure have steadily reduced restrictions and undermined the NFA’s original intent.

Sydney: Gun Control Australia, 1997. 102p.