Follow Japan?
The Figures Point the Other Way.
An 11 August opinion piece in The Point argues Australia should adopt Japan’s gun laws. But its headline comparison, examined on total lethal harm, undercuts its own conclusion — and its “shadowy gun lobby” is named, as lawful and disclosed, by the very report it cites.
Why This Matters
The Point is an initiative of The Australia Institute (TAI). This latest piece, by Frank Noakes, uses an emotive Japan comparison and the language of a “shadowy gun lobby” to argue for far stricter laws — the same direction as the caps-and-buyback measures before the ACT Assembly. Because that material feeds the ACT debate, how it is argued, and what it leaves out, is directly relevant to members here. As always, we state first what the piece gets right: Japan’s laws are strict, Japan records very few gun deaths, and its description of the Japanese licensing process is broadly accurate.
The “200 Deaths” Are Mostly Suicides
The piece presents Australia’s “around 200” firearm deaths a year as “gun violence” and sets them beside Japan’s handful of gun fatalities. But that total is not, in the main, violence.
Of 206 Australian firearm deaths in 2023–24, only 31 were homicides. Around 70 per cent — roughly 144 — were suicides. Calling a mostly-suicide total “gun violence” overstates interpersonal violence by about six times.
Japan Actually Undercuts the Argument
The comparison is offered to show that removing guns saves lives. Examined honestly, it shows the opposite. If fewer guns meant less lethal harm overall, Japan — with almost no civilian firearms — should have a lower rate of self-inflicted death than Australia. It does not.
Japan’s overall suicide rate is about 15.3 per 100,000 (2024); Australia’s is about 11.8. Japan has far fewer gun suicides and a materially higher total suicide rate — the method shifted rather than the harm disappearing. The most rigorous recent Australian study of the 1996 buyback (Duenow et al, 2024) finds the same: firearm deaths fell, but overall homicide was not reduced.
A “Shadowy” Lobby Its Own Source Names
The piece blames a “well-financed, powerful and shadowy gun lobby” and links, for that claim, to TAI’s report Point Blank. But that report does the opposite of showing secrecy.
Point Blank names the “gun lobby” — the SSAA, NIOA, the Shooting Industry Foundation, hunting-club federations, firearm dealers and others — identifies them as lawful associations and licensed businesses, and lists donations drawn from public electoral returns (which is why the piece itself calls them “legal”). A lobby a linked report names, from public disclosures, is the opposite of “shadowy.” The further claims — buying access, “infiltrating” universities and unions, academics taking “the shooting lobby dollar” for “thin research” — name no person, payment or study.
The piece faults unnamed academics for taking “the shooting lobby dollar.” Applied evenly, that test lands first on the research the pro-reform case relies on. Professor Simon Chapman — lead author of the “16 mass shootings” study — is a self-described public-health advocate who teaches a course titled “Public Health Advocacy” and co-convened the Coalition for Gun Control; his co-author Philip Alpers founded GunPolicy.org and calls stricter control “inevitable.” Their advocacy does not disqualify their work — but a motive test cannot fairly be run against one side only.
The Same Network — and What Wasn’t Disclosed
The piece reads as independent commentary. Two disclosures a reader would want are absent. The Point is an initiative of The Australia Institute, and the piece’s figures on licence numbers, public opinion and “gun lobby” strategy each link back to The Australia Institute’s own publications. And the author, Frank Noakes, is a board member of Gun Control Australia (per the national charities register, the ACNC) — not disclosed in the byline, in a piece arguing that organisation’s case. None of this makes a figure wrong; it means the appearance of independent authority is not what it seems.
What SSAA ACT Takes From This
We do not dispute that Japan has strict laws and few gun deaths. We say the comparison is misused: a mostly-suicide toll is relabelled “violence”; the total-mortality figures point the other way; a whole foreign regime is invoked against measures (caps and a buyback of already-legal firearms) that Japan’s example does not reach; and the strongest rhetorical claim is refuted by the report cited for it. Members are entitled to the accurate figures, a like-for-like comparison, and the disclosures — and to reach their own view.
What We Are Doing
A complaint to The Point
The Secretary has written under The Point’s Complaints & Corrections policy, seeking correction of the “shadowy” and “gun violence” claims and disclosure of the author’s Gun Control Australia role and the publisher’s Australia Institute ownership.
Holding the like-for-like line
We compare total lethal harm, not selected sub-totals; we label suicide as suicide; and we cite the figures (AIC, ABS, and the Duenow study) in full.
A proportionate alternative
A voluntary buyback at fair market value, a five-year evidence review, and strengthened storage and compliance — in place of numerical caps and compulsory acquisition.
Sporting Shooters Association of Australia ACT Inc
General enquiries — info@ssaaact.org.au
SSAA ACT Inc represents approximately 5,700 members. There are approximately 7,000 licensed firearm owners in the ACT. These are distinct figures.
Sources: Frank Noakes, “Australia should follow Japan’s gun laws,” The Point (an initiative of The Australia Institute), 11 August 2026. Australian firearm deaths 2023–24 (206 total; 31 homicides; ~70% suicide): United States Studies Centre, drawing on the Australian Institute of Criminology (Homicide in Australia 2023–24) and the ABS. Suicide rates: Australia 11.8 per 100,000 (ABS, Causes of Death 2024); Japan 15.3 per 100,000 (2024). Method substitution: Duenow et al (2024), Health Economics. “Gun lobby” definition and donations: The Australia Institute, Point Blank: Political Strategies of Australia’s Gun Lobby (2019). Frank Noakes’s Gun Control Australia board membership: ACNC register. Figures should be reconfirmed against the primary series before external use.
Member information from SSAA ACT Inc. This material addresses the accuracy and sourcing of specific claims, not the broader public-safety work of the organisations named. Not legal or financial advice.