Article: "Australia reels from worst rampage killing in decades for a country thought to have solved

[JhbBoy]

Australia reels from worst rampage killing in decades for a country thought to have solved this issue


https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/05/a...ntl/index.html

On the long, bloody list of US gun violence, it would barely be a blip, but the killing of four people in northern Australia has caused shock in the country most often held up worldwide as an example of effective gun control.At least four people were killed in the city of Darwin and several injured when a gunman opened fire with a pump-action shotgun late Tuesday night in several different locations, police said. A suspect was apprehended soon afterward, and has been identified as 45-year-old local Ben Hoffmann, according to CNN affiliate 9 News. Hoffmann was on parole at the time of the killings.
It is the worst spree shooting in Australia since the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, which resulted in the country radically overhauling its gun laws, and the worst gun-related crime since a murder-suicide last year in Western Australia, in which a grandfather killed his entire family and himself.


Police confirmed the alleged weapon, a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, "may have been stolen as far back as 1997." Authorities are now trying to piece together how the alleged Darwin shooter acquired his weapon and any motivations he may have had for the shootings, which made front pages across Australia Wednesday.

"Four killed in Darwin massacre," read the headline on the NT News, a Darwin paper, while the Herald Sun, based in the southern state of Victoria splashed with "Shotgun rampage."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the incident as a "terrible act of violence," and said his thoughts were with citizens of the Northern Territory "and the tight-knit community in Darwin."

Push for change

The rarity and shock of Tuesday's attack shows just how effective Australia's laws have been in preventing mass shootings. By comparison, already this year the US has seen 11 mass shootings at least as deadly as the Darwin incident, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
In the most recent, 12 people were gunned down in Virginia after a man opened fire indiscriminately before being shot dead by police.
Despite the apparent success of the Australian reforms, there has been increased pressure in recent months to relax the country's strict gun laws.
This has largely come from fringe right-wing parties and politicians, as well as an increasingly active gun lobby. In March, Morrison, the prime minister, defended Australia's gun laws after it was alleged One Nation, an anti-immigration party founded by Pauline Hanson, had sought donations and guidance from the US National Rifle Association (NRA).
"Reports that senior One Nation officials courted foreign political donations from the US gun lobby to influence our elections and undermine our gun laws that keep us safe are deeply concerning," the Prime Minister said at the time. "Thankfully, our (government) has also made laws to criminalize taking foreign political donations so foreign lobbyists cannot seek to influence our politics."
Representatives of One Nation denied seeking funds from the NRA, and accused Al Jazeera, which exposed the meetings through an undercover report, of "skullduggery."
The revelations came after Tim Fischer, a former Australian deputy prime minister who along with John Howard crafted the country's tough gun laws, warned that "NRA-inspired" gun groups were attempting to water down or overturn the regulations.


"America's guns laws were weakened through a gradual process." George Rennie, an expert in Australian politics at the University of Melbourne, wrote last year. "This involved the patient undermining of the popular will through the passage of favorable laws in state legislatures -- the blocking of others -- and a continuing narrative that linked guns with freedom and gun control with an evil or 'nanny' state."
"The Australian gun lobby has learnt from this American example, and its methods emulate it," he added.

[GAZZAMCK]

4 people is regarded as a massacre

55 people a day in south africa is NORMAL

jeez sometimes I do long for civilization

[nkosi]

Yet in Cairns Australia in December 2014 a mother stabbed 8 children to death from 27 montns old to 14 years old.

There was lots of angusih and mourning and rightfully so, but no call to blame a weapon, hell in the end they didn't even blame her.

[GAZZAMCK]

Yet in Cairns Australia in December 2014 a mother stabbed 8 children to death from 27 montns old to 14 years old.

There was lots of angusih and mourning and rightfully so, but no call to blame a weapon, hell in the end they didn't even blame her.

because GUNS ARE EVIL!!!!!!

[WCC]

The media would never miss a beat to further their agenda especially the anti-gun one. They love comparing Australia to the US when talking about how ‘successful’ gun control is. What they fail to tell the poor idiots that are gullible enough to eat this up is the rest of the story, for example Australia has more rapes than the US. Maybe they will start cutting wieners off in Aus given their gun control mindset way of dealing with it. Incidentally, South Africa was number one for the most rapes in 2010, and those were the reported ones. :(

[Shigawagga]

To compare Australian stats with American is ludicrous... who believes such garbage? The entire population of Australia does not make up even 9% of the United States.

[Zoo Keeper]

To compare Australian stats with American is ludicrous... who believes such garbage? The entire population of Australia does not make up even 9% of the United States.

Not to mention the massive disparity in urban areas, the USA has about 10 times the urban population of the entire Australian population!

Talk about apples and pears