Anti-Gunners Tell the States: "Adopt Foreign Gun Laws"

It says a lot about anti-gunners that they like the laws of other countries more than those of the United States.

A new book--the foreword of which was written by Michael Bloomberg, and which was edited by anti-gun researchers Daniel Webster and Jon Vernick from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University--encourages the states to adopt gun control restrictions that have been imposed in Australia, Brazil, and the United Kingdom.

The book, titled Reducing Gun Violence in America, extols the supposed virtues of Australia’s 1996 law banning automatic and semi-automatic long guns, as well as that country’s government’s destruction of one million of the three million firearms then owned by the Australian people. It boasts that since that gun ban, imposed after the terrible Port Arthur shooting, Australia has not had a similar crime, and its firearm death rate has decreased.

Similarly, the book boasts that Brazil’s firearm-related death rate has dropped 13 percent since its 2003 laws banning guns above .38 caliber, prohibiting gun purchases by anyone under age 25, and requiring gun buyers to pass psychological exams.

For the record, however, Australia had no other crime on the Port Arthur scale prior to its 1996 gun ban. Since the ban was enacted, moreover, it has experienced several horrific mass murders related to arson. Furthermore, coinciding with the Australian and Brazilian trends, the U.S. firearm murder rate has decreased significantly as the number of privately-owned firearms has increased by over 100 million.

Incidentally, the Library of Congress -- whom we trust for reliable information a bit more than we do Bloomberg, Webster, Vernick, and the other anti-gunners featured in their book -- studied the gun laws of foreign countries 20 years ago and concluded that in none of those countries did gun control reduce crime.

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