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-Land of the Free
What Australia can teach America about guns?
2016-12-05
[TheHill] As an Australian, I have often considered the United States as the leader of the international stage, however I believe there is something that Australia has done that puts it ahead of the United States - the control of firearms.
A matter of faith, is it? Outside facts won't sway you then, dear Writer.
Orlando, Newtown, Charleston, San Bernardino, the list of cities in which mass shootings take place goes on. America has been painted in red because of the mass shootings that take place here too often.

The access that individuals have to firearms allowing these mass shootings is part of the problem. When twenty bodies of school children lay lifeless across an elementary school, and fifty people in a nightclub who were dancing one second and shot dead the next, we have to ask ourselves when is enough, enough?

It was a single mass shooting that took the lives of thirty-five Australians to prompt the government to take action to ensure history would not repeat itself, and indeed it has not to this day, twenty years after the incident.
To the everlasting problem of destroying civil liberties in Australia.
A subject our own Anon1 has discussed in these pages from time to time. Incidentally, the Australian press reported in October that in addition to four jihadi attacks perpetrated since September 2014, eleven were foiled before being executed. Wikipedia has an interesting list of terror attacks since 1854; the first jihadi attack was in 1915, by an Afghan/Indian supporter of the Ottoman sultan.
Am I saying that Australia is the safest and happiest place on earth after these reforms?
I am saying Australia is the most deluded when it comes to firearms.
No.

I do, however, feel safe walking down the street at night alone. I can enter a crowded area without thinking of people shooting me down. I feel like I can enjoy my life and relax knowing that the access to a gun is very hard and restrictive in Australia.
Nice. Now only the people who would do you harm with a firearm have access to firearms.
Feelz go back to faith again, but are not necessarily reflective of reality.
Coming to America, I drive down a road and see signs advertising, “Guns for Sale,” and it makes me uneasy.
More feelz, poor dear.
There is something about America that makes the ownership of guns ordinary, and mass shootings normalized. What more can America do? Does the American public even want to do anything?
Mass shootings are rare per capita, believe it or not. Disarming everyone else who has a firearm does not make those who refuse to take responsibility for their own safety safer.
Experience shows that mass murderers keep killing until stopped. The easiest way to stop a mass killer is with a gun, and the quickest way to do so is to have an armed citizenry intervening while the professionals are still underway.
It was not the background checks of Australian citizens, nor the age required to purchase a gun, nor a gun license that reduced gun violence in Australia. No, it was the seizure of over 640,000 weapons by the Australian government.
Less than 20 percent of firearms total, and that is if you assume that every firearm turned in was a semiautomatic gun. I'm willing to bet the number of semiautomatics turned in is less than 10 percent, if that.
Taking weapons from citizens - could such a thing ever take place in America?
No.
I know, as an Australian, we say all too much just how much Americans love their guns, and I know we are not the only country who has this impression. Whilst certainly not all Americans feel this way, the idea that the American government could take away the weapons of American citizens would seem an outrage to many.
America is an arsenal of democracy. It is the bastion and the last hope of liberty in the world. Forcing gun registration and seizure would destroy that permanently. After that, there could be no return. The idea that people would be safer after gun control is enacted would in fact make the whole world less safe, not just America. After gun control, there is nowhere to go, nowhere to take a stand. And honey, this isn't about how Americans "feel." This is about the existential threat to liberty that your preference, taking firearms away from people, would mean.
The reality is, a background check is not going to substitute for all of the guns that are already in America. In America today, the number of registered guns is roughly equivalent to the number of people living here, if not more.
Background checks are an abomination to liberty.
In America today, how many more guns are owned illegally by gang members and other criminals? How many are owned illegally for protection by ordinary citizens living in cities where permits are impossible for ordinary citizens to get?
Walking down the streets of Richmond, I saw a man with a gun in its holster on the side of his shorts, and I know this scene is one that can be seen in many other states. To know there is a man walking around with the power to end my life, and those around me with a pull of a trigger is not safe.
You are clearly uneasy about seeing a man walking down the street strapped. I have an idea: get a gun, and learn to use it properly and safely.
Did the gentleman in question suddenly pull out that gun and shoot our writer without provocation, or shoot anyone else -- with or without provocation? No? Then the writer's unease was unreasonable, merely bigotry; demonstrably she was perfectly safe.
But here is the irony in the situation, Americans feel the need to carry guns for self defense, but if there were no guns in the first place (or at least not in the vast amount that there are in the country today) people may not feel this way. I know in Australia we do not feel the need to bear arms for our protection. The people of America will not part from their guns so easily as the people in Australia were able to.
First she says gun confiscation, but now, as the end of her missive, Australians parted from guns because they were "able to." Was no law passed, or was it somehow voluntary? Which is it? Was it voluntary or was it forced? You can't say at the top of this article that gun confiscation was not a choice and then hint later that it was. Which is it?
Until there is a change in society, and it has been decided that enough is enough, mass shootings will remain a bloody part of American life.
Again, mass shootings in America are not common per capita.
It's not about shootings, O silly exchange student, but attempted mass killing. Only last week a Somali brought to America with his family only two years ago as a refugee attacked his classmates at Ohio State with a car and a kitchen knife. Had a policeman not arrived within a few minutes, it wouldn't have been only a few wounded, but a good many more both wounded and dead. Had any of the students been armed, stopping him might not have taken even that long.
Kaia Delaney is exchange student from the University of Queensland studying at the University of Richmond. She has produced multi-media news stories for 4ZZZ, a community radio station in Brisbane, Australia.
Posted by:badanov

#13  Apparently lefties are the same worldwide, their way is better and facts are fungible or forgotten.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2016-12-05 17:15  

#12  Oz started out as a prison - well on the way to returning to its roots with this kind of thinking
Posted by: Jack de Medici2548   2016-12-05 14:59  

#11  Another lefty peddling discredited ideas and failure.

What a surprise.
Posted by: DarthVader   2016-12-05 14:53  

#10  There is something about America that makes the ownership of guns ordinary, and mass shootings normalized.

At first read, this piece could be dismissed as simply written by someone with ignorance of acknowledged US liberties. Many individuals have been conditioned to believe that "rights" are asked for and then granted by a benevolent monarch or goverment. However, the informal association fallacy above reveals this as just another attempt to peddle the usual anti-second ammendment trash from an outsider perspective. Do your business and move back to your safety zone sister.
Posted by: DepotGuy    2016-12-05 12:25  

#9  As an Australian

Welcome, Sundown! We do enjoy our Ozzie cousins, and it's always nice to add knowledgeable voices to the conversation. :-)
Posted by: trailing wife   2016-12-05 12:18  

#8  Oops. Looks like it's a sheila. Sorry.

When hogs are disarmed... jambalaya!
The Jews? Well, there's still the messiah.
Inquire of the Maya,
A Hindoo pariah,
And tell 'em all "Hiya!" 'Bye, Kaia.
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220   2016-12-05 11:56  

#7  faith and feelz

Who loves Silly Putty and Plato
Like critical tinkers with credo?
Resist the marshmallow?
If hungry, this fellow
Could wish a turd into potato.
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220   2016-12-05 11:47  

#6  The writer forgot to add that the areas with most stringent gun control have the highest gun murder and violence against helpless (unarmed) victims.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839   2016-12-05 09:57  

#5  Who has a bigger migration problem than the US?
Posted by: Skidmark   2016-12-05 09:42  

#4  As an Australian yes 640,000 firearms were destroyed but shooters purchased 400,000 new ones to replace them. it is known from import and manufacture there are 5 million firearms however only HALF of these are registered. Illegal handguns used by criminals are on the rise as criminal dont like the idea of complying with firearm laws
Posted by: Sundown   2016-12-05 04:35  

#3  But here is the irony in the situation, Americans feel the need to carry guns for self defense, but if there were no guns in the first place...

See Chicago--the laws that are already in place aren't enforced. Until the criminals are denied the guns they possess, leave the rest of us (law abiding citizens) the hell alone.
Posted by: Crusader   2016-12-05 01:03  

#2  The delusion starts with the idea it takes a gun to end a life.
Posted by: Rob Crawford   2016-12-05 00:20  

#1   As an Australian, I have often considered the United States as the leader of the international stage, however I believe there is something that Australia has done that puts it ahead of the United States - the control of firearms.

We left English control only because of guns. You didn't. You may speak something of a kindred language but you still lack a kindred birth of independence. Ours wasn't granted. It was taken by force. And its been understood since that beginning, that the gun in the hands of its citizens made it possible.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2016-12-05 00:06  

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