The galling truth about gun deaths

Recently, on 9 News, Bob Katter made a series of claims about gun laws and deaths that were patently false. He asserted that:

[In 1992] Queensland that year had 8 deaths. Victoria, with draconian gun laws, had 54 gun deaths. So much for your gun laws.

I’m sure that those of us who laugh at Katter’s constant hyperbole will not be diverted by his misinformation. In fact, according to data from the Australian Institute of Criminology, the rate of firearm deaths in 1992 in Queensland was 5.05 per 100000 and an alarming 8.89 deaths in males, while Victoria was 2.79 and 4.94 respectively. In other words, about double in Queensland than Victoria. I guess we could laugh except for the seriousness of this kind of misinformation.

Further, between 1983 and 1994, Queensland, with lax laws, was consistently the national leader in gun death rates.

David Littleproud, in January 2026, echoed Katter’s sentiments with this statement:

the real problem in this country, ... is radical Islamists. They are taking hold and causing harm on the streets, as we saw in Bondi. It is not the gun owners of Australia that have done this; it is radical Islam that has done this.

He also argued that radicalisation and national security failings should be the focus of government policy action and attention and that farmers need guns for “pest management”.

Littleproud’s ‘bundling’ together radicalisation, national security failings, pest control and gun deaths is the usual obfuscation of gun deaths issue that the pro-gun lobby likes to use.

So, let’s separate the issues for David and Australians who care.

Radicalisation is an issue, but it neither correlates with nor causes gun deaths. The leading causal factor in gun deaths is suicide, especially among young men.

National security failings are an issue, but unrelated to gun deaths. No number of red herrings can make us believe that the two are related. No doubt, the identification of one of the terrorists as a problem but failing to act is an ASIO problem. But, rather ironically, one of the shooters legally owned firearms. Littleproud’s ‘innocent gun owners’ who are unfairly “criminalised” still have a propensity to kill.

Pest control is a furphy - a folklore justification rather than a serious policy argument. Not only is pest control by firearm inefficient, unscientific and ineffective, but it is also dangerous. Who wants a gun in the hand of someone not trained in pest control? The fact is that those pests that the ‘good farmer’ controls on his property may reappear from their refuge in the next farm. Pest control is best managed at a state or national level. Remember that a virus, not a bullet, managed rabbit infestation. And tell me about the farmers hunting cane toads with rifles.

But, putting aside the ready misinformation from Katter and the misdirection from Littleproud, what is most galling about the stance taken by both parties is that the gun deaths that might be prevented, that represent the highest rates of any gun deaths, are suicides, especially in rural areas which both purport to serve and represent. Suicide death rates among young men in rural areas are, in places, ten times the national average – a national shame. More young men die by gun deaths through suicide than in all the wars in which Australia has participated since Vietnam.

It is galling to all of those who have a conscience that these men have become mouthpieces for a dangerous lobby group who, to date, can offer no solutions to terrorism, domestic violence shooting, suicides or accidental shootings. Katter and Littleproud should just shut up.