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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAustralians visiting America should be warned of gun violence
so says an Australian politician.
After the hostage crisis in Sydney in 2014, the US issued a worldwide travel alert.
"Tim Fischer told ABC News the American attitude is unfair, considering how dangerous America itself is due to the level of gun violence and a lack of effort to change the situation."
Fischer said a person is 15 times more likely to be shot dead in the US than in Australia and that travel advice from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) should reflect this, as it does for Mexico.
Fischer was at the forefront of a sweeping gun reform in Australia launched in the wake of a massacre in Port Arthur in Tasmania in 1996. Forty-six people were killed there, making it one of the worlds deadliest episodes of gun violence committed by a single perpetrator.
The reform pushed by the commonwealth government on Australian states outlawed semiautomatic rifles and restricted gun control regulations. A buyback program launched to compensate gun owners handing over their firearms resulted in over 1 million guns being destroyed.
Since the mid-1990s, Australia's firearm mortality rate has dropped from 2.6 per 100,000 people to just under 1 per 100,000, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. For comparison, the rate in the US is more than 10 per 100,000, according to the US National Vital Statistics Report.
There have been no mass shootings in Australia since the Port Arthur massacre.
https://www.rt.com/news/324839-australia-travel-warning-usa/
CBGLuthier
(12,723 posts)An Oklahoma teen who police said shot and killed an Australian baseball player because he and his friends were bored was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday.