Australian public support exceeded 90 percent for their new gun laws, which prohibited private sales, required individual registration of weapons to their owners and a reason why gun buyers needed each weapon at the time of purchase.
What happened? Hostile takeover by the government? No. Increase in home invasions? No. End of personal freedom? No.
Instead, homicides by firearm plunged 59 percent and suicides by 65 percent between 1995 and 2006 with studies showing “a close correlation between the sharp declines and the gun buybacks.” There were 11 mass shootings in the decade before the Port Arthur massacre and not a single one in Australia since gun control measures were implemented.
Maybe Australians finally had enough.
What about us? The rights of National Rifle Association members and gun owners should no longer supersede my family’s right to be safe. When U.S. citizens have the courage and political will to implement life-saving gun control measures, then we will achieve the same life-saving results.
—Jackie Gaston, Yukon
