In 1996, 35 people lost their lives in a mass shooting spree in the Port Arthur tourist destination in Tasmania. Stunned, Australia's government issued sweeping gun reform laws within 2 weeks. There hasn't been a mass shooting there since.
So, maybe just a fluke? I don't know...there were 11 mass shootings in the country in the decade prior to the Port Arthur incident. And gun suicides, robberies, assaults have all decreased since the government took action.
Seems like a no-brainer. But not to us in the US.
Japan, the UK, and Canada all have similar gun control laws that prohibit the access to automatic weapons, high capacity magazines, and enforce background checks that include potential buyer's criminal, mental, and addiction histories. And what a surprise, the deaths in those countries are a fraction of what we consistently see here in the States caused by guns.
Seems like a no-brainer. But not to us in the US.
On April 13, 2013, Francine Wheeler, whose son, Ben, died at the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in December, once again issued a public plea to the Senate to create and enforce gun reforms. 20 children and 6 educators died at the hand of a single man with a history of mental illness who had access in his home to automatic weapons. Do we want them to have died in vain? Apparently, the NRA doesn't give a flying #$%@ about the kids, or educators, or Francine Wheeler. What about the people in the movie theatre in Colorado, the victims of the Sikh Temple shooting in Wisconsin, the victims at the political rally in Arizona, the students at Columbine and Virginia Tech?
Seems like a no-brainer. But not to us in the US.
On April 15th we witnessed 2 bombs go off at the Boston Marathon. My question is if the bomber had instead been one of these mass shooters with a different weapon of choice, an automatic weapon, would fewer or more people have died? Think about it. My point is not that the bomb was not lethal, on the contrary. My point is we need to juxtapose the two...Hello...They are BOTH weapons of mass destruction. If someone had killed 3000 people in the World Trade Centers on 9/11 with automatic weapons, would we have reformed gun laws? I wonder. But we don't seem to understand that ten times that number of people die every year from gun injuries in this country. Are we stupid? Other countries must certainly think so! We, as a country, continue to kid ourselves that guns are so seemingly singular in intent when in reality, automatic weapons are, indeed, weapons of mass destruction and should be classified as such. Nothing less.
Seems like a no-brainer. But not to us in the US.
So, maybe just a fluke? I don't know...there were 11 mass shootings in the country in the decade prior to the Port Arthur incident. And gun suicides, robberies, assaults have all decreased since the government took action.
Seems like a no-brainer. But not to us in the US.
Japan, the UK, and Canada all have similar gun control laws that prohibit the access to automatic weapons, high capacity magazines, and enforce background checks that include potential buyer's criminal, mental, and addiction histories. And what a surprise, the deaths in those countries are a fraction of what we consistently see here in the States caused by guns.
Seems like a no-brainer. But not to us in the US.
On April 13, 2013, Francine Wheeler, whose son, Ben, died at the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in December, once again issued a public plea to the Senate to create and enforce gun reforms. 20 children and 6 educators died at the hand of a single man with a history of mental illness who had access in his home to automatic weapons. Do we want them to have died in vain? Apparently, the NRA doesn't give a flying #$%@ about the kids, or educators, or Francine Wheeler. What about the people in the movie theatre in Colorado, the victims of the Sikh Temple shooting in Wisconsin, the victims at the political rally in Arizona, the students at Columbine and Virginia Tech?
Seems like a no-brainer. But not to us in the US.
On April 15th we witnessed 2 bombs go off at the Boston Marathon. My question is if the bomber had instead been one of these mass shooters with a different weapon of choice, an automatic weapon, would fewer or more people have died? Think about it. My point is not that the bomb was not lethal, on the contrary. My point is we need to juxtapose the two...Hello...They are BOTH weapons of mass destruction. If someone had killed 3000 people in the World Trade Centers on 9/11 with automatic weapons, would we have reformed gun laws? I wonder. But we don't seem to understand that ten times that number of people die every year from gun injuries in this country. Are we stupid? Other countries must certainly think so! We, as a country, continue to kid ourselves that guns are so seemingly singular in intent when in reality, automatic weapons are, indeed, weapons of mass destruction and should be classified as such. Nothing less.
Seems like a no-brainer. But not to us in the US.
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