Is It Time For Gun Control How Can Australia Manage It And Not America?

[gordiescotland1]

Is it time for gun control in America? Yet we have another horrendous mass shooting of innocent people. Australia managed it incredibly quickly how come America can't. Something has to be done

[Tilly2]

Yet another mass shooting in Ohio. What a country that is!

[Ken4155]

Won't happen. Not in our lifetime, anyway.

[ummmm]

25 'ish million people in Oz.
327 in USA.

[Ellipsis]

They can't put the genie back into the bottle, especially when the right to bear arms is written into their constitution and the millions of US citizens that don't want change are the ones that have guns!

[Sqad]

Tilly...remember Hungerford, Dunblaine and now in London, knife crimes?
It's the people,American and British, a small minority seem to be so angry, so violent,intolerant of discipline and disrespectful to the rest of the community.
Yes, take away their knives, their guns, but one is still left with undisciplined, rude and an angry part of community.

[CrapAtCryptics]

One of the main pushes is the NRA but they are having problems justifying their position now. Recently 3 of their leaders resigned.

[Tilly2]

Of course I remember Hungerford and Dunblane, Sqad. However, we don't have mass shootings on a yearly basis, as they seem to in the States.

[Prudie]

I'd guess America haven't managed it because they don't actually want to. If I lived in US I'd probably want a gun (as I would if I lived in the Caribbean, South America, South Africa for example).

[ummmm]

Sqad - the difference here is most of the stabbings/shootings are gang related or drug related.

What is the reason for opening fire at a garlic festival FGS.

[dannyk13]

This is one reason why they won't do anything about it:-
https://home.nra.org/
They have over 5 million members.

[pastafreak]

Australia can...because they want to. The US can't...and won't...because they don't want to. It's also politics and very strong and vocal groups with vested interests.
If I ever went back to the States to live,would I have a gun? No...I'd be contributing to the problem then.

[jim360]

It has been time for gun control decades ago. But Americans -- or at least *enough* of them -- don't see it that way. The rest of the world looks on and wonders what is wrong with the mentality of a nation that seems determined to accept this as a risk of holding on to a 200-year-old "right" that barely made sense even then.

[jackthehat]

Gun control is stymied by and unwillingness of vested interests to help in any way, coupled with an ingrained belief that it is an American *right/duty* to own guns and completely UN-American to try to stop, or limit, people owning them.

Switzerland, however, as a nation is also keen on gun-ownership....but they don't suffer the regular atrocities we see coming out of USA, so perhaps it's something to do with the National psyche?

[Sqad]

ummmm...it matters not a jot how you were murdered, the end result is the same.
The point is that the perpetrator was, for whatever reason, a very angry antisocial person.

[ToraToraTora]

The US is wedded to the 2nd amendment, collectively they don't want gun control. Even if the political will was there it would be political suicide. The NRA's answer to everything is more "good guys" with guns. They won't be happy until every child is issued with a selection box of guns at birth. As each atrocity unfolds and news spreads to the likes of Europe, we have the same bewildered questions time after time. You may as well as ask a penguin to stop eating fish.

[ummmm]

Sqad...I disagree. Gangsters (or wanna be gangsters) taking each other out is completely different. That's been going on for a long long time.

It's the random killing of innocent people going about their daily lives just because they can!

[choux]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49222263?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk&link_location=live-reporting-story

Thank goodness the UK is trying.

[Khandro]

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
It was actually aimed at the security, not destruction of society
& was never intended that every Tom, Dick & Harry has the right to own a pistol, let alone an automatic rapid-firing weapon.

[jim360]

A rare occasion when I agree with you, Khandro, but the problem is that that argument has been tested dozens, if not hundreds, of times in various courts and constantly (and wrongly) rejected.

[KARL]

Jackthehat hit it on the head, I think - Switzerland is but one of several European countries with very high gun ownership but in those countries the rate of gun crime is very low and gun related crime injuries are as low as nil. The US psyche is dangerously disposed to settling anger/differences in a violent/lethal way and the mindset even shows in the use of words: "Hit the switch", "Kill the engine", etc. They are inclined to admire brute force by individuals the way some nations are drawn to getting involved in warfare.

Yes, there are vested interests, clubs, pressure groups, etc. who are on a sort of crusade regarding "freedoms" and will not have restrictions on gun ownership, including a conspicuous father-son pair. The son killed his younger brother with a heavy rifle, went to jail for years but an appeal is in the offing after some evidence of a flaw in the gun's model. The father actively advocates gun ownership, just regrets not having had a gun safe. People like that insist guns don't kill, that only bad people do. They refuse to see a connection with the unrestricted access to and possession of lethal weapons.

Nuclear bombs don't kill, bad people do. We have the USA (who used a nuclear bomb, twice, to in a single moment kill huge numbers of people) the only nation to offensively use such a weapon, crushing millions of Iranians (Iran does not have nuclear weapons so has never used one, neither lethally nor non-lethally and they insist they don't seek any) in the pursuit of supposed prevention. Something odd here, the proven bad people acting as an international policeman having unilaterally abandoned the deal over Iran plus the deal over nuclear missiles. The USA is the lead character in both the gun crisis and this nuclear anomaly. It's the psyche, or what ?