- The US has seen several of mass shootings in recent months, continuing debates about gun control.
- Some countries have figured out how to curb gun violence through targeted strategies.
- Efforts in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom may all offer insight.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Over the weekend, two mass shootings occurred. A 21-year-old gunman entered a Walmart on Saturday in El Paso, Texas, killing 21 people and injuring 26 more. In Dayton, Ohio, a gunman killed nine people and injured 27 others, just 13 hours later.
Last week, on July 28, a gunman opened fire at a food festival in Gilroy, California, killing three people and injuring 12 others.
As shootings like these continue in the US, so do questions about gun control. Americans who fear their town or city could be the site of the next attack wonder what strategies the US could take to reduce gun violence.
No country has the same political structure as the US, but several have taken steps that worked for them. Here are their insights.
Australia paid citizens to sell their guns to the government.
A spate of violence in the 1980s and ’90s that culminated in a 1996 shooting that left 35 dead led Australian Prime Minister John Howard to convene an assembly to devise gun-control strategies.
The group landed on a massive buyback program, costing hundreds of millions of dollars offset by a one-time tax increase, that bought and destroyed more than 600,000 automatic and semiautomatic weapons and pump-action shotguns.
Over the next few years, gun-death totals were cut nearly in half. Firearm suicides dropped to 0.8 per 100,000 people in 2006 from 2.2 in 1995, while firearm homicides dropped to 0.15 per 100,000 people in 2006 from 0.37 in 1995.
A US buyback would mean destroying more than 40 million guns— but at the state level, the undertaking might not be so massive.
The United Kingdom took a multipronged approach.
The UK’s approach combines elements from Norway, Australia, and Japan’s policies.
Around when Australia adopted its gun regulations, UK Parliament passed legislation banning private ownership of handguns in Britain and banned semiautomatic and pump-action firearms throughout the UK. It also required shotgun owners to register their weapons.
A $200 million buyback program led to the government’s purchase of 162,000 guns and 700 tons of ammunition from citizens.
GunPolicy.org estimates that in 2010 there were 3.78 guns per 100 people in the UK, while the US, meanwhile, is estimated to have 101 guns per 100 people.
The result has been roughly 50 to 60 gun deaths a year in England and Wales, which have a population of 56 million. Compare that to the US, a country about six times as large that has more than 160 times as many gun-related homicides.
Japan puts citizens through a rigorous set of tests.
Japan, which has strict laws for obtaining firearms, seldom has more than 10 shooting deaths a year in a population of 127 million people.
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 at a hospital, as well as a background check, in which the government digs into any criminal records or ties and interviews friends and family members.
Finally, they can buy only shotguns and air rifles — no handguns — and must retake the class and the initial exam every three years.
New Zealand is instituting a policy similar to Australia’s.
Most recently, New Zealand has instituted a ban on semi-automatic rifles after a mass shooting in Christchurch left 51 people dead and dozens more injured in March 2019. The gunman, a self-professed white supremacist, targeted two mosques during a Friday prayer with semi-automatic weapons.
Six days later, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the ban. The country had the first of a scheduled 250 buyback events for the year just three weeks ago.
“On 15 March our history changed forever. Now, our laws will too,” Prime Minister Ardern said in a press conference. “We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place.”
Experts say a nationwide ban on assault weapons wouldn’t work in the US due to the influential gun lobby, which has helped to strike down other gun control legislation.
“They don’t have an NRA,” Gregory Koger, a University of Miami political science professor, told INSIDER. “There’s no organization of gun owners and gun companies that systematically and persistently opposes regulations of guns.”
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