Refuting the Assumptions of Elevated Risk Posed by Licensed Firearm Presence in Family Violence Allegations

An evidence-based approach

This report addresses and refutes the assertion that the mere presence of licensed firearms in the custody of a respondent to a family violence (FV) allegation provides a statistical basis for inferring elevated risk.

Furthermore, it comprehensively argues that punitive measures such as automatic firearm removal and a 10-year prohibition imposed solely on the basis of an unproven allegation represent an unwarranted breach of proportionality and human rights principles, particularly those mandated by the least restrictive principle of the Family Violence Act 2016 (ACT).

1. The Allegation that Mere Presence of Licensed Firearms Infers Elevated Risk

The allegation that the mere presence of licensed firearms by a respondent constitutes a primary driver of family violence or infers elevated offending risk is refuted by Australia's own data on lethality, illicit firearm dominance, and critical data gaps.

A. Statistical Rarity of Licensed Firearms in Lethal Violence

Firearms are overwhelmingly a minority modality in lethal violence across Australia, and licensed owners account for a statistically insignificant share of serious gun crime.

• Knives and Blunt Force Dominate: Firearms are not the principal weapon class in domestic killings. Knives and sharp instruments remain the most common weapon class in homicide nationally, followed by hands/feet and blunt instruments, all of which exceed firearms.

• Low Homicide Frequency: Firearms were involved in only 12% of homicide incidents nationally in 2023–24 (31 of 263 incidents). Specifically in the ACT, only one firearm-involved homicide incidents was recorded from 2014 to 2024.

• Vanishingly Rare in DV Assaults: DV assaults involving a firearm are exceedingly rare in police-recorded data. In NSW, the number of domestic violence assault incidents where a firearm was used or threatened fell dramatically by over 80% (from 66 incidents in 2004 to just 13 incidents in 2023).

• Unlicenced Firearms Use: Unlicenced firearms constitute the overwhelming majority of firearms assaults and homicides in all jursidictions (~90%).

B. Licensed Owners are Not the Source of the Primary Threat

Australian evidence confirms that the overwhelming majority of lethal firearm violence originates from the illicit market, not from licensed owners.

• Illicit Dominance: Historical Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) analysis, the most recent work with explicit licensing linkage, found that over 90% of firearms used in homicide were unregistered and the offenders unlicensed (late-1990s baseline). This pattern aligns with contemporary illicit-market intelligence.

• WA Data Fragility: The widely cited figure from a WA Police Union paper suggesting licensed owners killed 30.7% of firearm homicide victims (2010–2022) is not an official statistic and is highly sensitive to small-N choices. Removing the single Osmington familicide event (which accounted for six victims) drops the estimated share to approximately 21.7%, demonstrating the figure's fragility and unsuitability as probative evidence. WA Police have formally stated they cannot reliably report offender licence status or weapon registration status in their incident systems.

• Licence Holder vs Homicide: Familicides, such as Osmington or multiple fatality events, skew the metrics for firearms risk in family violence statistics. The correct test is ‘incidents per licensed firearm owner’, not deaths per firearm.

C. Absence of Evidentiary Linkage

Crucially, the allegation of elevated risk from licensed ownership lacks any statistical foundation in Australian administrative data.

• No Risk Ratio: There is no national, public person-level dataset that links firearms licence registries to domestic violence incident data. Consequently, no reliable national estimate exists that licensed ownership increases (or decreases) violence risk.

• Conclusion on Risk: The absence of evidence, combined with the fact that firearms are rare in DV events, means that licensed ownership alone should not be treated as a statistical predictor of DV.

2. The Assertion that Firearms Should Be Removed and Licences Barred for 10 Years

The mandatory immediate removal of firearms and the subsequent 10-year refusal period are procedural mechanisms, not evidentiary requirements, and the reliance on "mere presence" stems from a fundamental methodological error in risk management.

A. Conflation of Threat Assessment with Risk Assessment

Current Australian tools (like MARAM, which influences legal practice) operate under a prejudicial assumption that firearms equal risk.

• Threat vs. Risk: Tools like MARAM are fundamentally threat assessments (TA), not formal risk assessments (RA) as defined by the ISO 31000:2018 International Risk Management standard. Threat assessments rely on binary presence/absence logic (e.g., "Does the person own a gun?") to prioritise intervention, leading to the assumption that "risk equals threat equals assumed certainty".

• Methodological Failure: These tools fail to incorporate denominators (risk per licence holder) or perform necessary likelihood × consequence modelling. They treat "access to weapons" as static, ignoring Australia's strict regulatory controls and the requirement that licenced firearms owners undergo police record checks prior to being issued a licence.

• Statistically Lower Risk: Licensed firearms owners in Australia are, by definition, more law-abiding than the average Australian, due to the requirement for a Police Records check. This is not factored into the threat or risk assessments.

B. The Legal Controls That Remove Access

The existing legal architecture across Australia already neutralises the right of lawful access immediately upon an allegation being made. The assertion that the removal and barring of firearms are necessary due to the ongoing risk of mere presence is unsubstantiated by evidence.

• Automatic Suspension/Cancellation: In the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), an interim Family Violence Order (FVO) automatically suspends a firearms licence, and a final order automatically cancels it, authorising the seizure of firearms and ammunition. NSW has similar provisions, requiring police to immediately suspend a licence if the holder is charged with a DV offence or becomes subject to an interim Apprehended Domestic Violence Order (ADVO). Other states are similar.

• Ten-Year Prohibition: NSW explicitly bars licence applicants who have been subject to an ADVO in the 10 years prior.

• Risk Neutralisation: The operation of these laws means that, for a licensed owner, legal access to firearms is automatically neutralised at the interim stage. The Court is therefore applying a statutory control that operates independent of any proven misuse.

3. Unwarranted Breach of Human Rights and Proportionality

The assertion that the immediate removal and 10-year ban, applied merely upon an unproven allegation, constitutes an unwarranted breach of the Human Rights Act (Cth) and Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) is supported by principles of proportionality and least restrictive means, particularly given the lack of evidentiary support for licensed ownership as a unique risk factor.

A. Failure of the Least Restrictive Principle (ACT)

The ACT's own legislative framework provides the standard by which these restrictive measures must be judged.

• Statutory Requirement: The Family Violence Act 2016 (ACT) requires courts to give paramount consideration to safety (s 36), but simultaneously requires that conditions be the least restrictive of respondents’ rights consistent with achieving safety (s 37).

• Breach Argument: The ability for a domestic partner to make an allegation that immediately results in the seizure of property and potentially imposes a lasting ten-year bar on legal ownership is cited as failing the fundamental principles of justice, fair trial, and proportionality under the Human Rights Act.

• Lack of Justification: The automatic suspension (s 44) already removes lawful access, based purely on an unproven family violence order is likely to violate the s 37 least restrictive principle because it exceeds the measures necessary to maintain safety (s 36). The Court should impose conditions proportionate to the concrete allegations and risk indicators, avoiding treatment of lawful ownership as a proxy for violent propensity.

B. Impact of Legal Stressors and False Allegations

The imposition of severe, long-term restrictions based on contested allegations also introduces legal stressors that carry measurable risks, further underscoring the need for proportionality.

• Legal Stressors and Suicide: Legal stressors, often related to family violence allegations and relationship breakdown, are reported as proximal risks for male suicide. A high proportion of alleged male perpetrators (60.5%) and male victims (54.7%) of family violence who die by suicide were exposed to legal stressors.

• The Problem of Unproven Allegations: While proven intentionally false allegations of family violence are uncommon (around 2–10% of cases), many allegations remain unsubstantiated or unproven (20–35% of cases) due to insufficient evidence. Since interim, and even final, FVOs can be issued based on an allegation, the restriction on legal firearms ownership is deemed unlikely to be justified when it results from an unproven claim that creates lasting 10-year impacts, failing the least restrictive principle.

4. Conclusion

The assertion that licensed firearms must be removed and the owner barred for 10 years based on mere presence in a family violence allegation is unsupported by evidence.

The Australian data confirms that licensed owners using registered guns account for a small minority of firearm violence, which is otherwise dominated by illicit weapons. Furthermore, there is no public statistical evidence that licensed ownership increases the base rate of DV offending.

The legal framework, particularly in the ACT, already provides for automatic suspension and seizure upon an interim order (s 44 FVA 2016), which neutralises legal access immediately. Therefore, any condition exceeding this immediate control, such as a blanket, non-evidential 10-year ban, must satisfy the least restrictive principle (s 37).

Such measures, when applied without evidence of specific threats or prior misuse, are argued to constitute an unwarranted breach of proportionality and human rights principles.

5. Recommendation

The legislation regarding mandatory suspension of firearms licences should be recalibrated to conditions to specific, concrete firearm-related risks, consistent with the least restrictive principle, rather than relying solely on lawful licensing status.