Global Gun Policy Comparison
Based on the article on the global gun comparison, it is surprising that gun restrictions differ in every country; others do not require even a license for gun owners and purchasers. In the United States, gun restriction and control policies implementation creates a division among the citizens due to conflict between the rise in illegal activities and the Second Amendment. The amendment protects the citizens to own and bear weapons such as firearms. The tangle between doing the right thing and protecting the constitutional rights of people in the constitution in the U.S. has seen gun control amendments to be politicized. In Australia, the gun laws implemented after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre have effectively declined gun-related violence and mass killings in most of the states (Masters). Between the U.S., Canada, Australia, Israel, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Japan, the U.S. has lesser restrictions on the type, possession, sale, and circulation of firearms. It is also surprising that most countries only take action to amend their gun restrictions after mass killings.
Some of the factors which can be attributed to the differences in which each country addresses gun violence include the differences in constitutional amendments as for the case with Second Amendment in U.S., past gun violence, classification of restricted weapons, differences in ownership process of a firearm. Some countries such as Canada and Australia implemented strict gun regulations such as banning automatic and some semi-automatic rifles after gun violence incidents (Masters). In some countries, to own a gun, one has to be of a certain age, an independent federal background check needs to be done first, and one requires to demonstrate a genuine need to acquire firearm ownership license.
I believe modern representative democracies do not have the full political will to address gun violence as no profile that can reliably predict who can use a gun in a violent act. Gun violence has no specific root cause where some cases are due to crime or fanaticism, and despite all regulations, a determined person can still acquire a firearm illegally. But, implementation of highly restrictive firearm policies is vital as evident in Japan which has the lowest gun-related violence as compared to most countries as per 2015 (Masters).
Work Cited
Masters, Jonathan. “U.S. Gun Policy: Global Comparisons.” Council on Foreign Relations, 2000, www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons. Accessed 14 Feb. 2020.