Port Arthur was the tipping point for Australia, after many years of avoidance by politicians who knew the gun laws needed reform but lacked the guts to do it. The murder of 35 people on one afternoon marked the end of the prevarication. The laws were overhauled with resounding success: annual gun deaths have dropped by half, and we have not had a mass shooting since 1996. An evaluation by researchers at the Australian National University found the laws saved, every year, 200 lives and $500 million.
Other developed countries that have suffered such calamities have also toughened their gun laws. The massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School reprises the tragedy at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland in 1996, where 16 children and their teacher were murdered and 12 more children wounded by a disgruntled man with a gun. The only eventual glimmer of consolation for those grieving families was that Britain reformed its gun laws, and it is extremely unlikely that such a horror will recur in that country.
Commentators in the US are shocked and horrified, of course, but they have come to see mass shootings as an inevitable feature of the American way of life. ''We know it's going to happen again and again," they say, but the experience of Australia shows it doesn't have to be that way.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/will-the-sandy-hook-massacre-be-americas-tipping-point-20121216-2bhfy.html#ixzz2FG9jjArL

I'm absolutely sickened by the number of people trying to assert that now, in the wake of a mass shooting, is *not* the time to talk about gun law reform in the US. Yes, it is possible that people (particularly privileged white male people) might still get hold of guns illegally. It's LESS LIKELY. There is *concrete evidence* that gun ownership restrictions reduce the number of mass shootings. Which, hey, saves money! The US could do with saving $500 million dollars, surely.

As someone was pointing out on tumblr - immediately after 9/11, airport security was rapidly tightened. Why is it not the same with gun laws?