If Only Every Country Would Do This

CREDIT: 

880

In the wake of yet another mass shooting in America, there are a lot of Australians unhappy with the United States. America has failed, they note, to implement any gun control measures to prevent these recurring tragedies — no background check expansions, no bans on larger assault weapons, no nothing.

But besides expressing disgust and leading by example, is there anything Australians can actually do about it?

One group thinks there is. In an interview on Australia’s Today Show, Gun Control Australia director Samantha Lee suggested a boycott of non-essential travel to America to protest its inaction on gun control.

“We have 2.1 million Australians visiting the U.S. every year and over 200,000 expats in America,” Lee said. “So I believe we have a duty to respond to this tragedy in the U.S. And the way to do this is have a boycott of non-essential travel to the U.S.”

Watch it here:

Though there’s been no indication yet that Australians will boycott travel over America’s inaction on gun control, Australians have been calling out the U.S. for not responding to gun massacres the way their country did two decades ago. In 1996, after a man went on a rampage with a semi-automatic rifle and killed 35 people, Australia banned high-powered rifles and enacted strict licensing requirements.

Since then, Australia has seen no mass shootings, which are defined as five or more people being shot. And millions of Australians still own guns.

In his address to the country following last week’s mass shooting at an Oregon community college, President Obama cited Australia as an example of a country with common sense gun laws. On the Today Show, Lee said Australia should “act as an international community to assist Obama to push those laws through Congress.”

Gun deaths in Australia decreased significantly after the country reformed their gun laws.

“Having criminal record checks, and mental health checks, and increasing security checks in schools,” Lee said. “This is in no way radical in terms of Australia and our gun laws.”

Lee also suggested that Australia ban donations from the firearms industry to their political parties, which she said would “allow us to raise that issue with America to ban donations from the gun lobby.”

The gun rights lobby has spent considerably more influencing U.S. policy than the gun control lobby.

CREDIT: BOSTON GLOBE

“Millions of dollars are donated by the [National Rifle Association], particularly to the Republican party [in America],” she said, lamenting the “cozy relationship” between the gun lobby and politicians in both countries. “In Australia, we need to be cautious that we also don’t take any donations from the firearms industry, and we need to raise this issue with the U.S.”

Led by the NRA, gun rights activists have spent millions of dollars influencing U.S. politics, though more of their money goes toward lobbying for and against legislation than to actual candidates. The top recipients of contributions from the gun rights lobby include current House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), according to the Boston Globe.

But even though millions of Australians have guns, conservatives have been decrying Obama’s attempt to look to countries like Australia for inspiration on gun control. On Fox News on Sunday, Clayton Morris asserted that Australian citizens “aren’t allowed to have guns.” “They also have no freedom!” another host retorted.

Let's Ignore Those Idiots in Washington

 Last April my daughter and I toured China for 10 days.  We were both somewhat ignorant and suffering from what turned out to be incorrect assumptions about the Chinese people and the culture.  Having grown up during the Cold War, I fully expected to see "coolies" dressed in black pajamas and pulling a rickshaw.  So wrong.  Here's a photo of a typical young Chinese woman.

 

Doesn't she look Western?  Or look at this photo - would you believe this is a communist country?  

Never did I think that we would be able to wander freely as we did.  We went shopping, ate in a Pizza Hut, browsed through the Shanghai Art Museum, all without chaperones.

Our tour guides surprised us by talking about all the changes in their lifetimes in their country.  No question went unanswered by Sam or Allen.  The only warning we were ever given was prior to our visit to Tiananmen Square where the massacre took place in 1989.  We were told not to discuss what happened that June among ourselves, that there were undercover police alert to any mention of what the government has never acknowledged took place.

All of the people we spoke with were proud of their country, but not necessarily of their government.  Here in the U.S. more than a year later, I see many similarities in the attitudes of the Chinese and the Americans. Are you starting to lose interest in the childish behavior of our elected officials?  Do you think they are truly representing your interests, or their own?

Please comment and tell us what you think would happen if we all just went about our business paying no attention to the government.  In China, because they do not have elections, the people feel little or no connection to, or responsibility for, what their government does.  Of course, I am not suggesting that what the government does has no effect on the citizenry, but, believe me, I saw people far happier than you would expect them to be living under a Communist regime.

Is it possible that what Wall Street does affects our lives more than what Washington does?  Can we boycott Washington?  What if we hold an election and nobody votes?  But - and this is a big but (ha) - what if we only shop at businesses who support Gun Sense? What if we agree to ONLY buy products made in America? Are you making McDonalds richer by making yourself fatter? Well, stop.  I could go on and on, and you probably can, too.

What do you think?