News
Gun Violence: Our Turn to say ‘No More’
This is an important conversa-
tion for our children, for our com-
munities, for Democrats and
Republicans. Speaking is difficult
but I need to say something impor-
tant. Violence is a big problem.
Too many children are dying. Too
many children. We must do some-
thing. It will be hard. But the time
is now. You must act. Be bold. Be
courageous. Americans are count-
ing on you.
At the Jan. 30 Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing on gun vio-
lence, former Rep. Gabrielle Gif-
fords, the survivor of a gunshot to
the head, gave us our marching
orders. The United States stands
alone in the world in our tolerance
of gun violence but in the wake of
the devastating Newtown, Conn.
murders, a powerful outcry of
ordinary Americans across the
country is saying no more.
This time we want our col-
lective heartbreak and out-
rage to be followed by real
change.
How have people in other
countries responded after a
gun massacre or mass
shooting?
Australia and Great
Britain provide two exam-
ples. In 1996, 35 people
were killed and 23 others
were wounded by a gunman
at the Port Arthur tourist
site in Tasmania, Australia,
in one of the largest mas-
sacres ever committed by a
single shooter. Within 12
days of the shooting,
spurred by strong public
support, the Australian fed-
eral and state governments
agreed to the historic
National Firearms Agree-
ment (NFA), which banned
semi-automatic and pump
action rifles and shotguns
and required registration of
all firearms, strict standards
for gun licenses, and a per-
mit for each gun purchase
subject to a 28-day waiting
period. The NFA also pro-
hibited private sales, regu-
lated ammunition sales, and
required
licensees
to
receive firearm safety train-
ing and to store firearms
safely. To get banned rifles
and shotguns off the streets,
the federal government
bought back or accepted
turn-ins of more than 1 mil-
lion guns which were then
destroyed.
The National Firearms
Agreement was supported
by a coalition of groups
from across the political
spectrum,
including
women’s
organizations,
seniors, religious leaders,
police, parents, human
rights organizations and
schools, all demanding
stronger gun violence laws
in Australia. In the 18 years
before the NFA there were
13 mass shootings in Aus-
tralia. In the 16 years since,
Australia has not had a sin-
gle mass shooting. Rates of
overall gun deaths, gun
homicides, and gun sui-
cides, which were declining
prior to the NFA, started
declining twice as fast after
the reforms.
Just weeks before the Port
C HILD
W ATCH
Marian
Wright
Edelman
Arthur massacre in Australia, 16
5- and 6-year-olds and their
teacher were killed in a devastat-
ing school shooting in Dunblane,
Scotland. After those murders the
public outcry in Great Britain was
very similar to the one we are see-
ing in the U.S. right now. The
shooter owned his guns legally
and the outrage over his crime
started a public campaign for
tighter gun control culminating in
a petition being handed to the
government with more than
700,000 signatures. A 1987 mass
shooting by a man who killed 16
people and wounded 15 others
had already led Great Britain to
ban semi-automatic and pump
action rifles and shotguns. This
time, 11 months after the Dun-
blane murders, Great Britain
passed the Firearm (Amendment)
Act of 1997 instituting tighter
controls over handguns. Soon
after, the country went a step fur-
ther and prohibited all handguns in
civilian hands. The government
also instituted firearm amnesties
across the country resulting in the
surrender of thousands of firearms
and rounds of ammunition.
After Great Britain acted, gun-
related crimes continued to rise for
a while, following a trend that
began earlier in the decade.
Experts said it was inevitable that
criminals were not going to sur-
render their illegal handguns and it
took time to reduce the pool of
illegal handguns after the ban and
see declines in gun-related crimes.
But after peaking in 2003 and
2004, the total number of firearm
offenses has fallen every year
since. In 2009, nearly 67 percent
of U.S. homicides were committed
with guns while in Great Britain
the number was only 6.6 percent.
In 2010, 27 people were killed by
gun homicide in the United King-
dom, which includes both Great
Britain and Northern Ireland and
has a population of more than 62
million people. In California and
Texas, with a similar combined
population of 62 million people,
there were 2,255 gun homicides.
What a difference guns make.
Some will argue that other fac-
tors contribute to the lower gun
violence rates in Australia, Great
Britain, and similar countries
beyond their strong gun control
legislation. Others note that the
United States is a very different
place, with entrenched attitudes
equating guns with personal free-
dom, tens of millions more people,
and tens of millions more guns,
and we may never be able to
expect the same success reducing
the number of gun murders to near
zero. These points may have some
merit but are not reasons to dis-
miss anything other countries may
be getting right in favor of contin-
uing to do nothing new here.
February 6. 2013 The Portland Skanner Page 5