"Did Australia and Great Britain’s reforms prevent mass shootings? It’s hard to say, simply because mass shootings are relatively rare. In the post-buyback period, Great Britain has had one massacre with guns while Australia has had none. It’s hard to calculate how many would have been expected without a ban. Australia looks more successful in this regard, because it had more frequent mass shootings before the ban (averaging about two mass shootings every three years from 1979 to 1996) Mass shootings in Great Britain, prior to the ban, were rarer. Prior to 1996, there hadn’t been a widely covered mass shooting in Britain since 1987."
So... between 1979-1996, a 17 year period, they averaged 2 mass shootings every three years, or one every 18 months, with about a dozen data points. Since the ban, 21 years -- 250 months -- have gone by without a mass shooting. I cannot even begin to imagine how someone could conclude from that data that it's "hard to say" whether the ban worked. At the very least this extraordinary conclusion requires an explanation, not merely a glib assertion.
I think the claim that the UK only had one massacre with guns is questionable - we had Hungerford and Dunblane, both of which led to bans, and neither type of mass killing has been repeated since
For example: if you drill down into the data you will find this (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths-mass-shootin...):
"Did Australia and Great Britain’s reforms prevent mass shootings? It’s hard to say, simply because mass shootings are relatively rare. In the post-buyback period, Great Britain has had one massacre with guns while Australia has had none. It’s hard to calculate how many would have been expected without a ban. Australia looks more successful in this regard, because it had more frequent mass shootings before the ban (averaging about two mass shootings every three years from 1979 to 1996) Mass shootings in Great Britain, prior to the ban, were rarer. Prior to 1996, there hadn’t been a widely covered mass shooting in Britain since 1987."
So... between 1979-1996, a 17 year period, they averaged 2 mass shootings every three years, or one every 18 months, with about a dozen data points. Since the ban, 21 years -- 250 months -- have gone by without a mass shooting. I cannot even begin to imagine how someone could conclude from that data that it's "hard to say" whether the ban worked. At the very least this extraordinary conclusion requires an explanation, not merely a glib assertion.