Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Ross Wilmoth writes:
Thanks for the stats Tim. Do you think that the reduction between the 1975 and 1989 surveys could be due to them being either side of the registration legislation?
In 1975 it wasn't illegal to own a gun so long as you were licenced (in states which had licencing) but in 1989 Victoria at least had registration and so people with unregistered guns may have kept quiet about it.
Of course those "few quiet ones" would be illegal but do you think it's the reason for the difference?
Unlikely. Victoria has only about 1/4 of the population, so a change there won't affect national figures that much. Nonetheless I will pull out the state by state breakdowns and see what that tells us.
% gun ownership by state
1975 1989
NSW 25.4 16
Vic 27.4 19
Qld 28.9 23
SA 26.5 23
WA 19.5 27
Tas 31.7 44
The 1989 survey was only of 2000 people, so the numbers, especially for the smaller states are rather uncertain (e.g. for Tas the 95% confidence interval is +-16)
The results seem rather ambiguous. NSW had the largest fall, and while NSW did not have registration in 1989, Unsworth's attempt to introduce it the previous year may have had some effect on the reporting rate.
