How does gun violence compare with other forms of violence in PGN?
A survey Oxfam is conducting in collaboration with a hospital in the Southern Highlands shows that in 80% of assaults, a weapon is used, and over 45% of the time, that weapon is a bush knife (more commonly known as a machete). This does not take account of the unrecorded cases of other weapon use, including gun violence, for which we believe for a variety of reasons (distance, cost, minor injury, fear of attack, limited freedom of movement) people don’t present to the hospital. In any case, it has been suggested that the risk of death by any method in Southern Highlands 100 times higher than Australia. This is obviously not a good statistic and as such, the strategy is work to reduce armed violent and other types of violence by targeting the key triggers and underlying structural determinants of violence.
