Stopping Gun Violence: Just Do What Australia Did - It Works
While Americans cry gun control doesn't work Australia has managed to eliminate mass shootings.
From 1979-1996 (before gun law reforms), 13 fatal mass shootings occurred in Australia, whereas from 1997 through May 2016 (after gun law reforms), no fatal mass shootings occurred.
Gun death rates in the U.S. were 11.2 per 100,000 people in 2015. That compares to a rate of 1.2 per 100,000 people in Australia.
A 2014 study found that guns hurt or kill about 10,000 American children each year.
To see how Australia did it, watch this short video (2 minutes).
Oh but that might reduce freedom!
Perhaps, but why are we sacrificing our children at the altar of freedom? Why not be pragmatic and consider the cost of Libertarian ideology? Why not value life as much or more than we value an ideology?
We already agree that keeping firearms from convicted felons is not only a good idea but also isn't contrary to our Constitution. We just need to move farther in that direction as the will of the people gets translated into laws put through Congress. Hopefully before another 100 kids get slaughtered on our school grounds.
Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard lays a wreath at the memorial site of the Port Arthur massacre on its 10th anniversary. The mass killing spurred Howard's government to pass sweeping gun control laws. - source
But wouldn't we have to repeal the 2nd Amendment first?
We didn't have to repeal the 2nd Amendment to keep convicted felons from legally owning a gun.
I thought you were referring to Australia's successful gun confiscation program.
But the other problem is that convicted felons, by definition, don't obey laws. If they're going to use a gun to threaten or kill, it's extremely unlikely that they would obey the law against having a firearm in their possession. They'd probably just use one of the 400 million guns already in existence - no need to buy a new one.
The present laws don't seem to be helping, even in the rare cases where the law is actually enforced. I don't understand how another unenforceable law would help.
It wasn't gun confiscation, it was a buyback program, of newly illegal semi auto and auto firearms. We've done buybacks in the US but only on a city-wide scaled and without making those weapons illegal which doesn't work as well. The Australian buyback reduced the number of gun owners in the whole country by about 50% (you could still own manually cocked firearms), reduced gun related suicides by half with no increase in other forms of suicide, and virtually eliminated mass shootings. All because Australians had had enough and said enough is enough. We haven't seen enough kids get killed yet it appears.
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Australia also has about as many people as the greater Los Angeles area, and probably had hundreds of millions of less guns. I don't see how any legislation could be passed in the U.S. that would actually significantly decrease the amount of guns we have.
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STOP"Gun death rates in the U.S. were 11.2 per 100,000 people in 2015. That compares to a rate of 1.2 per 100,000 people in Australia."
Gun death rates is a pretty broad category. How many of those were suicides? How many were justified self defense? How many were gang violence in large metropolitan cities like Chicago, which already have strict gun control? We don't have that rate of gun death in Texas.
Why do you isolate gun death from other types of violent death? How does it compare to blunt instruments, stabbings, bare hands, vehicles, arson, etc? Murder is already against the law.
"Why not value life as much or more than we value an ideology?"
Our ideology values life a great deal, because we are willing to meet evil on equal terms with equal force instead of crying to legislators to beg criminals to obey laws they already ignore. I was in law enforcement for 7 years. There is a reason the vast majority of police officers support the second amendment and want law abiding citizens armed. We know first hand what is out there, and they don't give a shit about any laws you will pass. Not even a little bit. They prey on soft targets and would love to have more.