gun sales have increased in the US by 35% in the past 10 years - every time there is a mass shooting gun sales increase - the only ones gaining anything is the companies making them

It impresses me that with all the recent Prime Minister/ Government flips in Australia that those laws have not been reversed. Here in the US, it’s sickening how often we think we’re headed in the right direction after passing major legislation (like healthcare), only to find with the next president or congressional flip that it’s done away with. We once had a ban on assault weapons..

@Varn yes, because there is no public demand to reverse them. Politicians reflect public opinion; they want votes. The country overwhelmingly doesn't want them. On health, just a quick history lesson on that that. The struggle for health care wasn't easy. Labor Party here fought for it in the 60s, then was no national system. Labor brought in first national health in 1973-5. Conservatives opposed it all the way. Then conservative government after 1975 dismantled it. Then Labor government 1983 brought back second national health system, as always conservatives opposed. It has stayed but conservatives have done everything to whittle it down, but now the popular opinion is we want it and it's a negative now if conservatives threaten openly to cut it. It's in Right wing DNA to oppose national health. They hate public support for it. That's why your Republicans are determined to destroy Obama Care. Despite problems, it was becoming popular and accepted. They don't want it to become an accepted public service. Money spent on anything but on their rich elite friends is bad. Fighting the Right is two steps forward, one step back. Don't give up hope.

@Varn There was no "ban on assault weapons." The Brady Bill/Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act did not ban assault weapons. It only changed what features could be part of any particular gun. The features were: A bayonet lug, detachable magazine, and a pistol grip. You could have two of the three on any particular gun. It also prohibited the manufacture and sale of any magazine with capacity over ten rounds, but existing high-capacity magazines were still allowed. It was quickly noted that some Chinese manufactured semi-automatic copies of AK47's started being imported and sold with thumb-holes in the stocks to get around the no pistol grip rule. Also, there were so many high-capacity magazines still in existence that they were still available at stores and gun shows during the whole ten years until that law expired. To sum, the law was thought to be a ban by the nieve anti-gun population, was merely an annoyance to those of us who used AR-15's in target competitions (AR-15's are the dominant rifle used in formal rifle competitions) in that we had to pay a few dollars more for high-capacity magazines than before the "ban". Also noteworthy is the fact that despite statistics showing otherwise, Brady Bill supports claimed that it had cut down on shootings. In reality, it had no effect whatsoever.

@Varn could you have found something better than healthcare to use as an example? It's wasn't such a great progress to many people. I was one of them that got screwed over big time.

@worsthat That radical left wing nut Obama scared a lot of people with his radical gun grabbing rhetoric and gun sales soared. Under a more reasonable president Trump gun sales have declined significantly.

@David1955 Thanks for that history.. and encouragement. Our FDR(oosevelt) had proposed national healthcare for US in the 30’s! …it’s languished that long. We’ve a semblance of ‘Medicare’ for the aging, and yes, “Obama Care” was settling in and beginning to work.. Yet as you mentioned, the regressives are doing all they can to kill it. Hillary Clinton had a plan back in Bill’s presidency that would by now have provided us as good of care as any... The R’s wouldn’t allow it, and floated a ‘plan of their own,’ supporting existing insurance & drug companies and for-profit hospitals. Obama basically used their plan -- and they’ve still fought to kill it! With their ‘survival of the fittest’ attitude ..you’d think the fanatical religious-wrong of this nation would at least acknowledge the process of evolution The Republicans have been so rabid over killing our Affordable Care Act before it was further refined (as president HRC would have) and became as accepted as yours ..it’s yet another reason they were giddy over the ‘election’ of trump. Hey ..any room over there?

@dahermit Then it’s beyond time for a Real Ban - and Australia’s Ban would be an excellent template.

@Varn What do you propose? Gun owners turn in semi-autos for free or a buyback? How much per gun? What do you do to get compliance...draconian methods? What do you do with the people who believe that the Second Amendment gives them the right and just flat-flat out refuse? How many gun owners will refuse and turn to violence? How will the police know which houses have guns? How many people are yo willing to incarcerate for gun violations as their only felony? Where are you going to get the prisons to put them in? I suspect you have not put too much thought into what you propose.

@dahermit ...seems I’d already answered that.. “Australia’s Ban would be an excellent template.” How it goes down would be up to folks like you ~

David, I think the paranioa you so correctly referred to in the U.S. got its genesis in our Puritan colonization. Our oldest settlers were deeply religious, saw Satan's hand in every situation, and certainly were afraid of being persecuted by the government for their religious beliefs. That foundation of mistrust of government is baked in to the American psyche. One more thing to "thank" religion for. ????

There's more factors to contend with in the USA - while there were certainly a few people in the UK who opposed the ban on semi-automatic weapons following the Hungerford massacre and handguns following Dunblane, even prior to those incidents we had far fewer tragedies, when the laws changed the majority of gun owners surrendered their weapons. Could you imagine the response of a large percentage of the US gun-owning public if the federal government announced a ban and ordered all Americans to hand over their guns at police stations? We also always had far fewer shootings even before the bans,which suggests it's not only relatively easy access to guns that leads to so many murders in the USA; I don't know what that is (but I'm sure many of the American users will have theories). I fully agree that the USA should toughen up its gun laws - anything that might help is worth a try when children are being killed, after all - but it'll be a far harder process than it was in the UK.

In England you do not have the right to have a gun in your home or on your person for self defense so you are a lot more likely to be a victim of a crinimal.

There’s also an ‘alternative news/ propaganda industry’ in the US that feeds the trump supporters their ‘facts.’ It’s not that they don’t listen, it’s what they listen to.. It’s like the religious only paying attention during bible study ..while ignoring a science program on evolution. They can reel off reams of BS - yet remain totally unaware of reality…

@Varn I completely agree - this is increasingly what is used for propaganda, worked and still works in a similar fashion here to influence and re-enforce the common Brexiter.
My additional argument would just be that there is an unfortunate asymmetry at work here: it is much easier to convince the tsimple-minded with simplistic nonsense than with complex truths. So while the more intelligent people may be somewhat divided on a complex problem, it is easy for propagandists to skim-off a large portion of the population with little pre-canned phrases and pseudo arguments (make America great again, build the wall, Brexit means Brexit, don't be a remoaner etc).

The midterms are in November. We have nine months to expose all those who accept money from the NRA, and the rest of the gun lobby. It doesn't matter what party they're in, if they take blood money, we should expose them and vote them out.

If it weren’t for the NRA gun control idiots like Obama would seize all of our guns here in spite of the 2nd amendment. In Australia you don’t have a right to have a gun on your person for self defense. I’ll take the NRA any day over what you have in Australia. I’m a life member of the NRA as is my son and 2 grandsons.

@Trajan61 Obama, would not, did not and will not take your or my guns away with or without the NRA. No need to shade the former President to make a point. I am a gun control idiot. I don't need to protect myself from the government with a firearm. My guns are single shot and one has a five round clip. Not very useful for shooting up a school or a church.

He was going to do it with his liberal judicial appointments to the Supreme Court. Hell 4 liberal judges on the court already do not recognize the 2nd amendment as giving private citizens the right to have firearms even in they’re own home. I’m not concerned about the current administration as Trump respects the 2nd amendment and showed it with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

@Trajan61 I have seen no evidence that would support anything you have said in this post. The entire bill of rights remain as rights and cannot easily be changed. Don't get caught up in the propaganda of those who have a vested interest in stirring the pot.

And this is exactly why people want to keep their guns, immovable extremist views that seek to dominate other people...whatever the context. Ironically by so passionately making a blanketed statement of what you believe and that "it is not open for debate" you also lend support to what the majority of the people fighting the gun bills are trying to prove.

Yess! Well said

@Aenith There isn't anything "extremist" about what I said. It's basic common sense.

You have just as much Constitutional right to an AR-15 as you do a shoulder mounted rocket launcher, an oozie, or how about those cute little mini-nukes President Cheeto wants to develop. The point is, the notion that the right to bear arms automatically means utterly unfettered rights is absurd. This is the insanity that the propaganda of the current NRA leadership has brought to this country.

@MikeInBatonRouge Well said, Mike! That is exactly my point.

You used have the right to own slaves. Now you don't.

@David1955 Nailed it

Australia is one country that would be screwed if ever its people absolutely needed to rise up and rebel against a tyranny. Not saying that Australia has a tyranny or ever will. It's fucking Australia. But hypothetically they are screwed. They have no means of defending themselves.

I say this being a person that has never owned nor fired a gun in my entire life. I still feel that the second amendment is important and it doesn't make me a 'gun nut' for feeling that way.

@David1955 the bill of rights never contained an amendment expressing a right to own people.

@VictoriaNotes That could definitely happen especially if we continue to elect arrogant left wing idiots like Obama.

@VictoriaNotes In America we have the right to have a gun for self defense in most states. Do you think we should be striped of that right also?

@Druvius There’s millions of semiautomatic weapons already out there in civilians hands. What do you perpose to do about them? The only practical solution for School shootings is more security. Why don’t we arm some qualified teachers. We have security at sporting events and our celeberties and politicians have armed security. Why don’t we have security at our schools? A no guns sign on the door is an invitation for a shooter as they know no one is likely to be shooting back.

@Crimson67 So you believe we should be stripped of our rights to own and carry a gun for self defense here in the US like in Australia?

@Trajan61 it amuses me that you really think Obama was a left wing nut job. If you want to find real left wingers in your country look for the anti corporatist Democrat activists who are trying to rescue the Democratic Party from the right wing corporatists like the Clintons who have destroyed it. Obama falls into the conservative democratic wing as well, to the extent that he actually seriously believes in anything. I liked him, generally. But left wing he was not. Radical he was not. Establishment supporting, he was.

@Druvius well I'd like to see some stats on that point about guns in Australia. And I'm pretty damned sure the number of hand guns and high capacity assault weapons ownership and alike would be very small. I'll check it out myself, lest there be a false generalisation spread here that gun reform in Australia had 'failed' and people have more guns now. Everyone here concedes the gun restrictions here have been a success. I loathed John Howard (PM 1996-2007) but he got that right.

@jayneonacobb point here: the world moves on, cultures change, constitutions change, laws change, popular opinion changes, and a nation matures.

@MrControversy of all the arguments I have heard in support of guns, having them to fight in case your country falls under a tyrant is, to be polite, the least convincing. If a tyrant has the military and the police and other services under his/her control, then guns at home are not going to save you. One would hope that the services would oppose a tyrant anyway. I suppose in the age of Trump thinking about tyrants comes to mind. Better not to allow tyrants to get there in the first place.

@David1955 Seeing as how your from Australia why are you so concerned about Trump. Hell so far he’s a lot better leader than that idiot Obama!

@Trajan61 Because I respect the US and its history and role in the world, and hate to see this mental deficient in the Oval Office, and it's our world he's a threat to.

The indivual citizen posession of small arms sure hasn't saved Syrians from death and tyranny of their evil government, now has it.

Former Chief Justice Warran Berger said it right when he dissented powerfully from the Supreme Court's narrow majority that decided to ignore the plainly stated reason for armed citizenry. The second amendment says it is the need of the state, not the individual, that informs that amendment. The framers were dealing with a fledgling country with no standing army.

I totally agree with David1955 about everyone having a right to voice opinions. As long as the U.S. President claims to act as the "leader of the free world," an embarrassing claim coming from Trump--who repeatedly praises autocrats like Putin, and as long as there are nuclear weapons at that president's command, Everyone in the free world will have the right to speak out. So David, don't copy fascist statements of only certain people deserving freedom of speech.

@David1955 you mean how many liberals "matured" to become racist, fascist and violent?

@jayneonacobb Preposterous. I didn't join this site to engage with religious nuts, and I also didn't join to read right wing gibberish. If I want to watch racist, fascist and violent people in the US then I'll watch footage of those right wing crazies at Charlotteville last year, with their guns!

@David1955 it's not a liberal propaganda site, it's a site for free thinkers. Your faith in liberalism is sad. Have you seen antifa?

@jayneonacobb have a nice life "free thinker". You said in a post that people here think you're a troll. Guess what? I'm one of them. And by the way, what you call liberal in the US, meaning left wing, or progressive, and such doesn't translate to the philosophical meaning of liberalism, but I'll let you do some reading up on that. In books. And for the record, I'm proud to be left wing, progressive, a socialist, and democratic socialist, or liberal, in your parlance, and the things these views express and stand for to make the world a better fairer place. Sure beats the hell out of being a gun totin' reactionary conservative, in my opinion.

@David1955 Looks to me like your the troll. Arguing with Americans who are sure to know more than you about American politics!

@Trajan61 LOL Well, I'm certainly not going to defer to your authority on US politics. LOL again

@David1955 yup, you know dick about American politics. Liberal here means leftist. Keep your socialism, we don't want or need it here. We are a super power for a reason, your country isn't.

@jayneonacobb No! Liberalism!!!!! I was referring to you big.....oh forget it, you're a waste of space. Everyone knows liberal there means left.... Jeez..

@David1955 Your comments show you are definitely out of touch with US politics. Hell in my hometown after 8 years of that idiot Obama people were so disgusted with the democrats Trump carried 87% of the vote. In my home state he carried all 77 counties with over 70% of the vote.

It is certainly possible, and it has been proven in the US on the city level (though not the cities most try to use). However, using another country's model that does not fit the same specification of the US do not. Demographics, population, outside influence, economy, illegal supply...all these things need to be taken into account for the U.S. The 2 major examples being used are Britain and Aus, both of which are ocean locked and both of which do not have another country within 2500 miles of any specific point of sovereign land whose economy is heavily boosted by illicit activities. The US needs to pioneer its own solution, maybe borrowing ideas, but ultimately forming its own.

And whici steps do you think should be taken to reduce gun violence?

Umm...frankly I would rather tax dollars going to the CDC (keyword disease) going to something that has to do with what they are actually meant for...not something colleges around the country do every day.

In Australia you don’t have the right to carry a handgun for self defense. In the US you do. I’ll take the US over Australia any day.