Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

elleng

(130,731 posts)
Tue Oct 6, 2015, 10:50 PM Oct 2015

The NRA Reckons Australia’s Anti-Gun Laws Are “A Mistake”; Australia Tells NRA To Go Fuck Itself.

American gun lobby group and filth-ridden sack of garbage the NRA wields immense power over the gun debate in the United States. It’s so powerful that even modest gun safety measures announced directly after massacres of primary school children go nowhere, because even the lives of schoolkids come second to the right of entitled middle-aged dudes to play soldiers with their dick-surrogate boomsticks, apparently.

Gun control advocates in the US regularly bring up Australia as an example of a country where gun restrictions can work; in his WTF podcast interview with Marc Maron, Barack Obama pointed out that after the infamous 1996 Port Arthur massacre, “the entire country said, ‘Well, we’re going to completely change our gun laws,’ and they did. And it hasn’t happened since.”

In an effort to debunk this crazy idea that fewer guns equals less gun violence, the NRA have published an article on one of its many websites claiming that Australia’s anti-gun laws were imposed against the will of most Australians and are actually making the country less safe. Tastefully titled ‘Australia: There Will Be Blood’, the article — which has been brought to people’s attention by the Herald‘s Nick O’Malley — claims John Howard’s anti-gun laws “robbed Australians of their right to self-defense and empowered criminals,” and that “there is now a growing consensus among impartial researchers that disarming Australia’s citizens did not make them safer”.

As you may have gleaned, that is a big ol’ pile of cowshit and the NRA are talking out of their arses. There have been a grand total of zero (0) mass shootings in Australia since those laws were passed, compared to the dozens that have transpired in America in the same time period.

More prosaically, gun-related deaths in Australia have fallen by around 7.5 percent every year since the laws were passed, and America’s gun homicide rate was 370 times higher than Australia’s in 2010-11. Somewhat miffed at the NRA’s inexplicable omission of these facts, people have begun raising them on social media using even more swear words than I have.

http://junkee.com/the-nra-reckons-australias-anti-gun-laws-are-a-mistake-australia-tells-nra-to-go-fuck-itself/61143#vuMYW0HVZp1xyqxX.01

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Editorials & Other Articles»The NRA Reckons Australia...