Strict gun laws ended mass shootings in Australia

I believe they have tried and are continuing to do so incrementally. While I understand your thoughts SSgt Stone, this is a republic and it may be because at least some part of the government is still representing the majority of the law-abiding public that, at least until now, own guns and prefer to keep them.

I recognize your right to opine in the contrary, according to the Pew Research Center approximately 37% of Americans own a gun, that's somewhere around 100-million people. So for every one mad man like Stephen Paddock there are several million people that legally own guns and are not a threat. I am not one to bow to pressure because a few are afraid and continue down this slippery slope of conceding freedom . If people are afraid to go outside, I would prefer they deal with their fears by making the sacrifice themselves and conceding their rights, rather than take those of 100-million people, and stay home and order take-out. Or recognize it is a dangerous world full of evil and you need to be aware of your surroundings, keep your head on a swivel and make sure you are ready to deal with whatever might come...because take away a homicidal maniacs gun and he's still a homicidal maniac and he will find a way.

It didn't take any guns for Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing 168 and injuring 680. Or for 9 men to kill almost 4,000 in downtown New York. And the list goes on. Stuff happens and the knee-jerk reaction is, let's make a law to prevent it...news flash, you can't. The world's population is over 7.6-billion and ours is 325-million and growing. And the density is going up in 1910 only 28% of the population lived in metropolitan cities, by 2000 that had grown to 80%! We are cramming people closer and closer together in large bunches. The list of changes, cause and effects goes on forever.

To point to another country's policy outcome isn't really completely relevant either. Here are the demographic facts. Australia is about the same size as the US with 7% of our total population. They are over 80% western European, so a much less diverse shared common culture (I know people will point to this as a negative, but it is the boundaries of cultural understanding and shared expectations that conflicts erupt). Side note: please don't confuse culture with ethnicity, they are very different; people can come from different ethnic heritage and still accept a common culture. Australia's major metro areas have a population of a little over 4-million, about the same as the State of Wyoming. Our largest metro areas have populations as large as Australia.

It's easy in times like these to point to simple solutions, it's what politicians do, because they need to appear to do something, even though it is completely ineffective and has nothing to do with a real cure to the problem. All they care about is manipulating people to follow them so they can control the vote. Gun laws will not cure our social problems, because they are social, they involve people not guns and they have been in the making for the last 60-years and we have controlled guns, but continued down the paths that have led to a moral decay of our culture...I know, now I'm one of those bible toting crazies. Not so, I just know that while a diversity of ideas and people is great, a diverse culture, which is very, very different, is the source of immense conflict for over 4000 years of recorded history.

Until we all agree some things are really not OK and some things are and that consequences are just that consequences and both accept them and dole them out expediently and judiciously we will continue to see these events on a more frequent basis. So if you're afraid, don't take my guns...hunker down. Me, I'm going to go on living and be prepared to do what I have to, to defend me, mine and the sheep within my sphere of influence from enemies foreign AND domestic...as long as this old sheep dog still has teeth.

Semper Fi

Because unlike Australia our rite to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the constitution.
By the "gun lobby" do you mean the millions of law abiding Americans who own and use fire arms properly, and weren't out machine gunning their neighbors this weekend and who the congress also represents because that is who the gun lobby actually is.
Is petitioning congress and advocating for those Americans rites somehow less important or worthy than when we advocate for the rites of the gay community, or the folks who are concerned with the environment; doesn't sound quite as menacing or horrific when seen through that prism.

Because the US Constitution says so.