Shooting at Colorado high school

[Alnitak]

different countries are different... just to compare the scale, the Australian gun buyback destroyed about 710,000 guns between 1996 and 2002. on the other hand, there are an estimate 300,000,000 guns in America.

if my quick and fuzzy math is right, the Australian buyback cost the country $500 million. assuming the cost per gun in the US was the same, you're looking at $213.6 billion? my impression is that the Aussie constitution also makes it a lot easier for the State to force citizens to give up their private property; voluntary gun buybacks in the US seem to be largely ineffective, from what I've seen.

1) That sum was not all paid out in one fiscal year.

2) Not all firearms were subject to the law.

3) The amount was in Australian dollars.

The Howard government spent 0.06% of its budget - 135 billion in 1996 - on the firearms program. Extrapolated to the US budget, which is at 3.45 trillion US in 2013, the US government could spend three times that proportion (still a tiny percentage) over 10 years in order to eliminate half of the firearms in the United States.

This is of course only and end run around the 2nd and 5th amendments to the US Constitution. The current conservative majority would never permit such a law.

 

[Callum]

The events are certainly not unique to the US, but the regularity of them and the seeming acceptance of them is unique.

That's what I was getting at. I'm off my meds for three months. So, sincerely forgive me y'all. Mental health stigma is something I vehemently reject. Ahhhh!

Nunavut has a very high murder rate Then again it doesn't have the most pleasant climate.

I was there once, and…I wanted to kill people. It's like the prairies, but endless tundra.