Australians offer U.S. advice about gun laws
Officials point out mass shootings have virtually vanished.
In the wake of another deadly shooting intheUnited States, theAustralian government has suggested it could helpWashingtonunderstand gun law reform by sharing its own experiences.
“What Australia can do is share our experience after the mass killing in Port Arthur back in the late 1990s, when 35 peoplewere killed by a lone gunman,” Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said during an interview with Australia’s Channel 9 television station on Tuesday.
“You will recall that (thenprime minister) John Howardthen introducednational gunlaws, whichbannedautomatic and semiautomatic weapons and included a national buyback scheme. We have had this experience. We acted with a legislative response.”
“It’ll be up to U.S. lawmakers and legislators to deal with this issue,” Bishop concluded.
Australia’s experiences with gun-law reform have become a frequent point of reference in the ongoing debate about U.S. mass shootings. The 1996 Port Arthur shooting to which Bishop referred resulted in the landmark National Firearms Agreement, which included a ban on and mandatory buyback of semiautomatic assault rifles.
By many measures, Australia’s move was a success. In total, more than 650,000 newly outlawed guns were bought back and destroyed by 2001, and there has not been a single mass shooting in the country since.
However, American critics of the policy contend that it would notwork in theUnited States, largely because of differing state laws and gun ownership rates.
The Sunday mass shooting in Las Vegas, which left 59 dead and hundreds injured and is the deadliest in modern U.S. history, has prompted renewed debate about Australia’s gun laws — both in the United States and in Australia.
Bill Shorten, leader of the Australian opposition, went further than Bishop in his comments praising his country’s gun laws.
“Thank God for our gun laws and heaven help anyone who wants to weaken (them) becausetheywillhave to come throughme and the Labor Party,” Shorten said Tuesday, referring to the party he leads. “There is a lot of very good things about America, butwe don’twant their gun laws.”
Other Australian politicians offered similar sentiments. “We must be doing something right and theU.S. must be doing something massivelywrong,” said Tim Fischer, who was deputy prime minister when Australia’s gun-control measures were introduced, to Sky News. President Trump needs to “get real” about gun violence, Fischer added.
The acting U.S. ambassador to Australia also praised its gun laws. “Every time one of these things happens, U.S. analysts always point to what happened in Australia and point out that your murder rate with guns has gone down drastically,” Jim Carouso, a career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service, said Tuesday.
It is unclear, however, whether the U.S. government is interested in Australia’s advice. Bishop told the Seven Network that she had spoken to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, but she did not divulgewhat he said.
“Whatwe can offer is our experience,” Bishop told the television network. “But, at the end of the day, it’s going to be up to the United States legislators and lawmakers, and theUnited States public, to change the laws to ensure this type of incident doesn’t happen again.”