Looking to recent events in Las Vegas, it's easy to think
that US law has failed to protect the victims of that senseless
tragedy. As much as Australians like to believe our relatively
strict gun laws will protect us from another Port Arthur, the fact
remains – current regulations do not prevent a determined
individual from acquiring a number of firearms and sufficient
ammunition to permit, in theory, mass shootings. Perhaps
alarmingly, for the first time in 20 years since Port Arthur,
Australia now has more private firearms in circulation than it did
before that massacre.
If our enviable track record of avoiding these types of
incidents is ever sullied, will it mean the Australian approach has
been unsuccessful – that we too have failed to protect our
citizens? The truth perhaps lies not in measuring headline events,
but in the day-to-day statistics of gun availability and their less
predictable consequences.
