President Obama recently addressed the horrific massacre that happened in Oregon, which left 10 innocent people dead. He referenced Australia’s impressive record: not one single mass shooting since their gun reforms in 1996. President Obama believes that America should follow suit, and stem the unnecessary violence that has been recently plaguing our nation.
Samantha Lee, the director Of Gun Reform Australia, stated that she believes Australians should boycott all non-essential travel to the United States – which is roughly 2.1 million tourists per year. Lee has not only called to boycott travel, but also stated that U.S. gun lobbying (like that from the dreaded NRA) should never influence American legislation in the face of such violence.
Australia is proof that gun control can help save lives. After the single instance of mass violence in their country they unanimously passed gun reform laws that effectively disarmed the nation. And Australia seems to be doing JUST FINE without their guns.
However, the right wing is vehemently opposed to gun control. Clayton Morris, the co-host of Fox News stated that Australians do not have any freedom because they are not allowed to have guns… Although from personal experience they seem to have plenty of freedom, economic, social and otherwise.
While Australia offered to abandon their arms completely, I don’t see America disarming themselves anytime soon. Nor should they have to. But some kind of gun reform is clearly necessary as the frequency of gun related mass murders is on the rise. Maybe we don’t all like it, but it would be better for everyone if it was difficult (or ideally impossible) for lunatics to get their hands on military grade firearms. That seems pretty reasonable given our circumstances.