US commentators call for Australian-style gun law reform

Mick Roelandts oversees the guns buyback in NSW.

SOMETHING unprecedented is happening in the States after last week’s tragic shooting.

Americans are clamouring for changes to the country’s gun laws, and they’re pointing to Australia as the shining example of how it can work.

Anti-gun commentators in the US have been getting louder and louder in recent years, and the execution-style shooting of reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward on live TV in Virginia may have been the tipping point.

The US now averages almost one mass shooting per day (where four or more people are shot), with 1125 killed in such attacks since the start of 2013. In that time there have been 32,000 firearm deaths in total in the US. In June, Dylann Roof murdered nine people at a Charleston church, a race-motivated attack that Vester Lee Flanagan (aka Bryce Williams) cited as the catalyst for his sickening crime at WDBJ-TV.

Last month came the Louisiana cinema shooting, which left two women dead. As for high school massacres, like the one that saw four dead in Washington State last October, they’ve become commonplace.

Australia, meanwhile, has one of the lowest gun-related death rates in the developed world.

It wasn’t always this way. In 1988, there were 674 gun deaths here. In 1996, there were 516. But that same year, when a troubled 28-year-old opened fire at a cafe in Port Arthur, Tasmania, killing 35 and wounding 28, Australia took action.

Prime Minister John Howard, who had been in office six weeks, said enough was finally enough, and enforced sweeping nationwide reform of gun laws. The firearm suicide rate dropped by half over the next seven years, and the firearm homicide rate was almost halved.

US commentators call for Australian-style gun law reform

A candlelight vigil in front of the studios of WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, Virginia. These scenes are all too frequent in the US

Apparently, the devastating gun violence in the US is just water off a ducks back to some Americans. But it would seem a lot of Americans are taking notice of how successful other countries gun law reforms have been, in the amidst of an epidemic of mass shootings and senseless killings within the United States.

Of course, the hardcore gun advocates will just claim, "criminals will easily obtain firearms, whether you make it easy for them or not" and that, "if they don't have easy access to a gun they'll just use a kitchen knife or shoe lace (or whatever) to strangle there victim".

But obviously, anyone who's prepared to actually research the stats and facts of developed regions outside of the US, will undoubtably realize these claims are completely false. The facts speak for themselves, which is, the harder firearms are to obtain, the less likely people are to commit cold blooded murder or carry out a mass shooting.

The article goes on to say....

Could the Virginia killings be America’s Port Arthur?

Personally, I highly doubt it.

But personally, I think that within the next few years there will be a brutal mass shooting within the United States, that will be on an unimaginably horrible scale and will cause the majority of the American public to not only oppose the lax gun culture in there country, but to also demand some of the strictest gun laws in the entire world.

The American public are like a pressure cooker that has no way to release the built up pressure.... Until eventually it just goes, BANG! Then all that repressed energy will just be released in one powerful blow.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

Like I said before to you the US and Australia are different countries the laws there wouldn't work the same here.

Australia doesn't share a border with any other countries the US does. One of the countries we share a border with has very strict gun laws, but that doesn't seem to help the murder rate there at all and I am not talking about Canada.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

The problem with this plan is that america has such a staggering amount of guns in circulation both legal and illegal, that it would take a very long time achieve the desired result, it worked in Australia because we had a low population and not many guns in circulation, so i just don't see it working in the u.s. Plus Australia at the time didn't have any where near the gun culture america has today

a reply to: Ozsheeple

It is a perfectly valid point you make, common sense gun laws probably wouldn't be as effective in the US as they were in Australia. But it would be completely illogical to claim the streets of the United States would somehow become less safer if they (in theory) did decide to enact common sense gun reform, similar to ours.

Besides, when it comes to mass shootings, the answer is simple. Since the kind of people who commit mass shootings aren't exactly chillin with the local connected gang members, so they can only obtain a gun legally. The kind of people who commit mass murders also nearly never have the balls to carry out the act unless its as easy as just squeezing a trigger.

Either way, my pressure cooker scenario stands. People are just hurting themselves by not accepting common sense gun law reform. Because once that pressure cooker builds up enough pressure to explode, it'll be to late to even compromise.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

More people are murdered by other means than guns by far, guns aren't the problem, people are, and the sick assed PC culture we live in that causes division and hate.

originally posted by: Ozsheeple
a reply to: Subaeruginosa

The problem with this plan is that america has such a staggering amount of guns in circulation both legal and illegal, that it would take a very long time achieve the desired result, it worked in Australia because we had a low population and not many guns in circulation, so i just don't see it working in the u.s. Plus Australia at the time didn't have any where near the gun culture america has today

At least you understand the truth of it in a realistic way.

Guns will always be a part of American life, they aren't going anywhere period.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

good point a lot of mass shootings are carried out by lone wolf types who incidentally pass americas gun laws. Anyway i wonder what it would take for america to say enough is enough, thanks to the high frequencies of mass shootings and general gun violence the american public seems pretty desensitised to it.

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
a reply to: Ozsheeple

It is a perfectly valid point you make, common sense gun laws probably wouldn't be as effective in the US as they were in Australia. But it would be completely illogical to claim the streets of the United States would somehow become less safer if they (in theory) did decide to enact common sense gun reform, similar to ours.

Besides, when it comes to mass shootings, the answer is simple. Since the kind of people who commit mass shootings aren't exactly chillin with the local connected gang members, so they can only obtain a gun legally. The kind of people who commit mass murders also nearly never have the balls to carry out the act unless its as easy as just squeezing a trigger.

Either way, my pressure cooker scenario stands. People are just hurting themselves by not accepting common sense gun law reform. Because once that pressure cooker builds up enough pressure to explode, it'll be to late to even compromise.

Stop with the BS " common sense" line

That is nothing but propoganda and we all know it

Talk straight, or get you ass handed to you.

Having equal force to meet force with is common sense

Seeing how most of these shootings take place in a gun free zone, and most outside of gun free zones end in the shooter being shot

Common sense would say gun free zones are idiotic

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
a reply to: Ozsheeple

It is a perfectly valid point you make, common sense gun laws probably wouldn't be as effective in the US as they were in Australia. But it would be completely illogical to claim the streets of the United States would somehow become less safer if they (in theory) did decide to enact common sense gun reform, similar to ours.

Besides, when it comes to mass shootings, the answer is simple. Since the kind of people who commit mass shootings aren't exactly chillin with the local connected gang members, so they can only obtain a gun legally. The kind of people who commit mass murders also nearly never have the balls to carry out the act unless its as easy as just squeezing a trigger.

Either way, my pressure cooker scenario stands. People are just hurting themselves by not accepting common sense gun law reform. Because once that pressure cooker builds up enough pressure to explode, it'll be to late to even compromise.

Stop with the BS " common sense" line

That is nothing but propoganda and we all know it

Talk straight, or get you ass handed to you.

Having equal force to meet force with is common sense

Seeing how most of these shootings take place in a gun free zone, and most outside of gun free zones end in the shooter being shot

Common sense would say gun free zones are idiotic

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
a reply to: Ozsheeple

It is a perfectly valid point you make, common sense gun laws probably wouldn't be as effective in the US as they were in Australia. But it would be completely illogical to claim the streets of the United States would somehow become less safer if they (in theory) did decide to enact common sense gun reform, similar to ours.

Besides, when it comes to mass shootings, the answer is simple. Since the kind of people who commit mass shootings aren't exactly chillin with the local connected gang members, so they can only obtain a gun legally. The kind of people who commit mass murders also nearly never have the balls to carry out the act unless its as easy as just squeezing a trigger.

Either way, my pressure cooker scenario stands. People are just hurting themselves by not accepting common sense gun law reform. Because once that pressure cooker builds up enough pressure to explode, it'll be to late to even compromise.

Stop with the BS " common sense" line

That is nothing but propoganda and we all know it

Talk straight, or get you ass handed to you.

Having equal force to meet force with is common sense

Seeing how most of these shootings take place in a gun free zone, and most outside of gun free zones end in the shooter being shot

Common sense would say gun free zones are idiotic

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

Since the kind of people who commit mass shootings aren't exactly chillin with the local connected gang members, so they can only obtain a gun legally.

Really. Since we ain't hangin in the hood, we can't just go buy a gun illegally? I'm in a tiny town of 3,000, in the middle of Central Illinois, one of the strongest anti gun states in the U.S. and I could have a "under the table " gun purchase completed before lunch.
It's funny how "common sense" gun reform closely resembles a restriction of rights. "Well, you only need 10 bullets and as long as we're at it, you don't really 10 because you don't really need semi auto, a single shot rifle will do and as long as we're doing that you don't really need more than one gun per household and while that may seem enough, let's make sure you can only buy one box of ammo per month.........you know what.....we've gone this far, soooooo....... why don't we just take those nasty little things off your hands completely, because when you went to the Dr 5 years ago, you said you felt a little blue because your Mom just died and your dog got ran over and if little things like make you feel sad then you're just not fit to own a weapon"
Where does common sense stop and just plain persecution start?

originally posted by: DAVID64

Where does common sense stop and just plain persecution start?

It already has.

Shall not be infringed means just that.

originally posted by: Ozsheeple
a reply to: Subaeruginosa

good point a lot of mass shootings are carried out by lone wolf types who incidentally pass americas gun laws. Anyway i wonder what it would take for america to say enough is enough, thanks to the high frequencies of mass shootings and general gun violence the american public seems pretty desensitised to it.

Look you just can't understand because you are the Nancy type that is just afraid of guns

Guns are not ever leaving the American publications hands period, end of discussion, nothing more to be said

It is not happening, not ever!!

originally posted by: johnwick
a reply to: Subaeruginosa

More people are murdered by other means than guns by far

Incorrect. In 2013 there were 16,121 homicides recorded within the US. 11,208 of those homicides were committed with a gun. So clearly the majority of homicides committed within the US, a gun is the murder weapon.

Just as a comparison, in the UK there were 653 recorded murders in 2012, only 38 of those homicides were committed with a firearm.

gunpolicy.org/United States

gunpolicy.org/United Kingdom

a reply to: johnwick

Nancy type who is afraid of guns don't be ridiculous i have no problems with guns, just unnecessary gun violence

originally posted by: Ozsheeple
a reply to: johnwick

Nancy type who is afraid of guns don't be ridiculous i have know problems with guns, just unnecessary gun violence

Which ends in "common sense " gun laws that take them out of law abiding hands only

Good luck lol, because it is never going to happen

Get used to disappointment

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

The US now averages almost one mass shooting per day (where four or more people are shot), with 1125 killed in such attacks since the start of 2013.

There have been close to 1000 days since the beginning of 2013. One mass shooting per day for 1000 days = 4000 killed ..... But only 1125 have been killed.

Math is not there strong point.

Of course and as usual, there is nothing at all to support the figures they give out.

Mindless crap and it should be headed PROPAGANDA.

Where are all these people calling for reform, .... um .... nope, can't see them

If you want reform, then start a Constitution Convention.

Nope, they don't want to do that ... because they can't.

Their influence and power base is not strong enough.

Just a mouthy minority.

Australia and America are completely different countries with very different Constitutions.

Just more loud mouths shooting off their mouths.

P

a reply to: pheonix358

There have been close to 1000 days since the beginning of 2013. One mass shooting per day for 1000 days = 4000 killed ..... But only 1125 have been killed.

Actually there have been at least 80,000 people killed by a gun in the United States, since 2013.

But if you actually meant to say number of people murdered, then there has been at least 28,000 people murdered since 2013, within the US.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

Here's a few numbers missing in most anti gun propaganda:

1) Defensive gun use in the US, even at conservative estimates made by the National Crime and Victimization Survey is at least 100k per year.

2) As the number of firearm increases (now somewhere around 350+ million firearms in the US) the number of violent crime committed have been decreasing. Violent crime have decrease by more than 50% since the 90's. Not saying more guns = less crime, but it definitely shows that the anti's mantra of more guns = more crime is also not true.

3) Most gun murders in the US are gang or drug related. According to National Gang Threat Assessment most jurisdictions see anywhere from 48% to 90% gang related violent crimes. We have a gang problem more so than a gun problem in the US.

a reply to: pheonix358

There have been close to 1000 days since the beginning of 2013. One mass shooting per day for 1000 days = 4000 killed ..... But only 1125 have been killed.

I read mass shootings - not mass murders.

Math is not there strong point.

... how about comprehension??