How Four Countries Were Able To Eliminate Gun Deaths

[Initech]

Australia paid citizens to sell their guns to the government.

Following a deadly 1980s and '90s, culminating in a 1996 gun-driven massacre that left 35 dead, Australian Prime Minister John Howard convened an assembly to devise gun-control strategies.

The group landed on a massive buyback program costing roughly $500 million that bought and destroyed more than 600,000 automatic and semiautomatic weapons and pump-action shotguns.

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Japan puts citizens through a rigorous set of tests.

Japan seldom has more than 10 shooting deaths a year in a population of 127 million people, due to its strict laws for obtaining firearms.

If Japanese people want to own a gun, they must attend an all-day class, pass a written test, and achieve at least 95% accuracy during a shooting-range test. Then they have to pass a mental-health evaluation, which takes place at a hospital, and pass a background check, in which the government digs into their criminal record and interviews friends and family.

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Norway exemplifies the power of social cohesion and trust.

Despite having roughly a third of the guns as the US, Norway has about a tenth of the gun deaths. Sociologists who study the Nordic model have found social cohesion, between citizens and between citizens and their government, goes a long way toward ensuring a (mostly) peaceful society.

In Norway, for example, police officers fatally shoot people fewer times in nine years than US police do in a day. Gummi Oddsson, a cross-cultural sociologist from Northern Michigan University, has found that Nordic governments go to great lengths to build trust in local communities.

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The UK took a multi-pronged approach.

The UK has taken an approach that combines elements of the other three countries.

Around the time Australia passed its gun regulation, Parliament passed legislation banning private handgun ownership in Britain and banned semi-automatic and pump-action firearms throughout the entire UK. It also required shotgun owners to register their weapons.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/these-4-countries-have-nearly-eliminated-gun-deaths-%e2%80%94-heres-what-the-us-can-learn/ss-BBF0xCM?li=BBnb7Kz#image=5

I'm not sure I would agree with the guy in Norway about the community policing idea. That seems like it would give fuel to the ultra paranoid. But I think the US could easily do a combination of all of the above.

[brush]

1. K&R. We need to do some combination of the above as you say, plus thwart the NRA's power.

[guillaumeb]

2. None of these countries is always at war,

and none of these countries spends more on its war budget than all other countries combined.

Coincidence?

[Irish_Dem]

3. We need to kill the 2nd Amendment before it kills us. nt