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Originally Posted by redwitch
Try Australia, Denmark, Sweden for a start.
I think Oz may actually have a similar culture to ours regarding the wild, Wild West attitude and adulation (why I don’t think gun laws would work here) but they’ve managed to ban guns except for farmers. Their last mass killing by gun was a murder-suicide on a farm this year. There have been a few stranger killings between 1996 and today (a car plowed into a crowd, a university shooting and a hostage situation — all I can remember at the top of my head). John Howard, the PM in 1996, flat out said he didn’t want Australia following in America’s footsteps. So, not a perfect record but a heck of a lot better than ours. Their children are not being murdered on a regular basis.
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Unfortunately, the fact that other countries may have enacted a gun ban (I am not familiar with the types of bans in those countries listed so I can't speak to them), does not equate to a gun ban working in the United States.
Focusing initially and briefly on our criminal justice system, are they equal? For example, do they operate under the same search and seizure requirements that our police force must follow? Are criminals kicked free because of a spelling error on a warrant? What is the level of recidivism for their convicts? How are their crimes distributed (i.e. do they have more property crimes)or more personal crimes (murder, rape, assault, etc.)? Are the police respected or demonized? Are the criminals made into victims?
Are the children raised under the same environmental conditions as here in the US? What can parents in those countries do in terms of punishment for misbehaving children? Do they have the same mind numbing level of violence in their games? Or do the children actually develop socialization skills by going outside to play and interact with other children? What is the family dynamic like versus in the US?
I haven't even touched on other socio-economic conditions that would also have to be factored in and I am sure that there are other considerations that need to be compared that I have not listed.
Let's start at least with getting the media to stop making it a prize to be the best murderer in the US.