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How Australia Passed Gun Control

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How Australia Passed Gun Control

On April 28, 1996, Carolyn Loughton was enjoying lunch with her 15-year-old daughter, Sarah, at the Broad Arrow Café near the waterfront in Australia’s historic Port Arthur. They were at their table when Martin Bryant, a psychologically disturbed man, entered the restaurant and began shooting. Carolyn threw herself on top of her daughter and was shot in the back. Carolyn survived her injury, but Sarah, who was shot in the head, did not. So began a nine-hour killing spree that left 35 dead and 23 wounded, the worst mass shooting in the nation’s history. Bryant’s weapons, a semiautomatic Colt AR-15 and a .308 FN rifle, had been legally purchased—despite the fact that Bryant had qualified for a disability pension on psychiatric grounds.

Twelve days after the Port Arthur attack, the public outcry spurred Australia’s then Prime Minister John Howard to enact a sweeping package of gun reforms. The reforms prohibited automatic and semiautomatic assault rifles while requiring licensees to take a gun safety class and demonstrate a “legitimate need” other than self-defense for a particular type of gun. The most innovative and effective aspect of the reforms, however, was the gun buyback program, in which taxpayers paid US$230 million for the purchase and destruction of some 700,000 privately owned guns.

It has been 21 years since Carolyn Loughton lay helplessly with her lifeless daughter in her arms and Australians woke up to the need to reform their gun laws. Few Australians would deny that their country is safer today as a consequence of gun control. In the 18 years before the 1996 reforms, Australia suffered 13 gun massacres. Since then, there has not been a single one. But how did Australia succeed in passing these reforms, and what can the United States learn from them today?

HOWARD’S CHOICE

John Howard was sitting in his residence at Kirribilli House, in a quiet suburb of Sydney, when he received a call from his chief of staff informing him of the massacre. After 13 years leading the conservative Liberal Party.

Image : Getty Images


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Australia’s capital Canberra to enter seven-day lockdown

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Australia’s capital Canberra to enter seven-day lockdown
Millions of people across Australia's southeast are now under lockdown, as the country struggles to contain multiple outbreaks of the highly transmissible Delta variant William WEST AFP/File

Australia’s capital Canberra was ordered into a seven-day lockdown on Thursday (Aug 12), after a single COVID-19 case was detected in the city that has largely avoided virus restrictions.

About 400,000 people in the nation’s political hub will be under stay-at-home orders from 5pm local time, joining millions more already under lockdown in Australia’s southeast.

“This is the most serious public health risk that we are faced in the territory this year. Really, since the beginning of the pandemic,” Australian Capital Territory chief minister Andrew Barr said.

He added that the COVID-positive person had been in the community while infectious.

Canberra has not been in lockdown since a nationwide shutdown in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020.

After months of pursuing a “COVID zero” strategy, Australia is struggling to contain multiple outbreaks of the highly transmissible Delta variant.

More than 10 million people in the country’s biggest cities, Melbourne and Sydney, are currently in lockdown as authorities try to bring case numbers down.

Much of western New South Wales state was also placed under lockdown late Wednesday, amid concerns for a sizeable Indigenous population feared more vulnerable to coronavirus.

“I ask all our Aboriginal community as well to please stay at home, come forward for a test if you have symptoms and of course please get vaccinated with any available vaccine as soon as you can,” New South Wales Health’s Marianne Gale said.

In Sydney, the epicentre of the outbreak, almost 6,500 cases and 36 deaths have been recorded since a cluster emerged in mid-June.

The city is expected to spend at least nine weeks under stay-at-home orders, with several hotspot suburbs placed under harsher restrictions on Thursday.

Australia won global praise for its successful coronavirus response in the early stages of the pandemic, and most of the country was enjoying few restrictions by late 2020.

But a glacial vaccination rollout has been no match for the Delta variant, leaving cities and towns reliant on repeated lockdowns as they attempt to stamp out the coronavirus.

The nation has recorded more than 37,500 cases of COVID-19 and 946 related deaths to date in a population of 25 million. AFP

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Russia to reveal ‘mystery plane’ at MAKS 2021

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After months of speculation, that something top secret and special was happening at Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation, the countdown has begun.

UAC, part of the Russian state corporation Rostec, has teased the reveal of a new fighter jet on July 20, 2021, on the first day of the MAKS 2021 International Aviation and Space Salon in Zhukovsky, Aerotime Hub reported.

The upcoming aircraft, dubbed “Checkmate,” could be a light fighter jet “with a supersonic speed capability and low radar signature,” a source told Russian news agency TASS.

And according to a newly released trailer (attached below), this aircraft could be mainly oriented towards export.

“Russia is one of the few countries in the world with full-cycle capacities for producing advanced aircraft systems, as well as a recognized trendsetter in the creation of combat aircraft,” a Rostec spokesman commented.

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Tech giants give vaccines to Taiwan, sidestep China

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Tech giants give vaccines to Taiwan, sidestep China

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Taiwanese tech giants Foxconn and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company announced Monday they will each donate five million coronavirus vaccine doses to the government in a deal with a China-based distributor. Taipei has been struggling to secure enough vaccines for its population and its precarious political status has been a major stumbling block. As Taipei and […]

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