Nearly 34,000 people died in gun-related incidents in 2013. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps track of gun-related fatalities in each state. Photo: Getty

SOMETHING unprecedented is happening in the States after last week’s tragic shooting.

Americans are clamouring for changes to the country’s gun laws, and they’re pointing to Australia as the shining example of how it can work.

Anti-gun commentators in the US have been getting louder and louder in recent years, and the execution-style shooting of reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward on live TV in Virginia may have been the tipping point.

The US now averages almost one mass shooting per day (where four or more people are shot), with 1125 killed in such attacks since the start of 2013. In that time there have been 32,000 firearm deaths in total in the US. In June, Dylann Roof murdered nine people at a Charleston church, a race-motivated attack that Vester Lee Flanagan (aka Bryce Williams) cited as the catalyst for his sickening crime at WDBJ-TV.

Last month came the Louisiana cinema shooting, which left two women dead. As for high school massacres, like the one that saw four dead in Washington State last October, they’ve become commonplace.

Australia, meanwhile, has one of the lowest gun-related death rates in the developed world.

It wasn’t always this way. In 1988, there were 674 gun deaths here. In 1996, there were 516. But that same year, when a troubled 28-year-old opened fire at a cafe in Port Arthur, Tasmania, killing 35 and wounding 28, Australia took action.

Prime Minister John Howard, who had been in office six weeks, said enough was finally enough, and enforced sweeping nationwide reform of gun laws. The firearm suicide rate dropped by half over the next seven years, and the firearm homicide rate was almost halved.

Could the Virginia killings be America’s Port Arthur?

Dear America, We don't have many guns. As a result, we don't have many shootings. The two facts appear related. Yours sincerely, Australia — Matt Neal (@DrMattNeal) December 17, 2012

A MODEL COUNTRY

In a compelling opinion piece on Vox, writer Zack Beauchamp laid out how Australia’s gun reform succeeded. “Bottom line: Australia’s gun buyback saved lives, probably by reducing homicides and almost certainly by reducing suicides,” he wrote. “If you’re looking for lessons about gun control, this is a pretty important one.”

New York Timescolumnist Nicholas Kristof went even further, writing: “Australia is a model. In 1996, after a mass shooting there, the country united behind tougher firearm restrictions ... Here in America, we can similarly move from passive horror to take steps to reduce the 92 lives claimed by gun violence in the United States daily.”

Bloggers at US website Tech Insider published a graph showing how gun deaths in Australia had halved, writing: “It doesn’t have to be this way. Some countries have been able to solve their gun problems — and Australia is a prime example. There is indeed hope for progress — as Australia’s journey shows.”

Even navy veteran and “proud gun owner” Shawn Van Diver blogged on The Huffington Post: “When Australia had a sickening mass shooting, they banded together as a nation and took action. When we have a mass shooting, the NRA pushes for more guns. What happened to America being an example for the world? The failure to implement even the most general or common sense reforms in the light of 800 mass shootings is an absolute refusal to lead on the part of Congress.”

Right across the US, citizens are expressing their disgust at the lack of action to protect them, and this time, something might just happen.

COULD IT WORK IN AMERICA?

The National Firearms Act (NFA) worked in several ways. First, it dramatically restricted legal gun ownership, with buyers having to obtain a permit and all guns having to be registered. It completely banned some guns, including automatic rifles and shotguns. Lastly, there was a mandatory buyback, with owners paid for handing in guns that had been declared illegal, and an amnesty for those who owned guns that were already illegal.

At least 650,000 firearms were seized and destroyed, with academics estimating that 20 per cent of privately owned guns were rounded up. Australia no longer has a firearm manufacturing industry. It was a huge success.

In the US, cities in Florida, Connecticut, California, Arkansas, and Massachusetts are already experimenting with buybacks, gun violence website The Trace reported. The LA Police Department regularly buys and melts down guns, butNew Republic revealed that officers are often encouraged or required to resell these firearms to raise money for the force. While they only sell to law-abiding gun owners, a licenced dealer can sell to a private buyer who can then sell on with no need for a background check. Virginia shooter Flanagan bought his gun legally.

Local and state changes can only go so far. Scott Lemieux, professor of political science at the College of Saint Rose in New York, wrote in The Guardian that passing gun control laws at a federal level looked impossible for the foreseeable future, since small, rural states with a disproportionate number of gun-owners are over represented in the Senate and House of Representatives. “Australian-style gun control is not coming to the US anytime soon, especially with support for gun rights only growing,” he wrote.

Philip Alpers, from the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health, told news.com.au: “Just as they were with the road toll in the 1950s, Americans are still in a state of confusion between freedom and public safety. Guns and cars are both symbols of masculinity and freedom, yet the United States led the world in reducing road deaths. Now it seems the toll of 30,000 US gun deaths each year will have to get worse before it gets better.”

An equivalent buyback in the US would require the destruction of 40 million guns, the Washington Post reported in 2012, after 12 people were killed in a shooting at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises. If it didn’t happen then, or after the Sandy Hook school shootings just months later, can it happen now?

BACKWARDS STEPS

As University of California law professor Franklin Zimring told SFGate, it’s not about Aussies being less violent. “You’re just as likely to get punched in the mouth in a bar in Sydney as in a bar in Los Angeles,” he said. “But you’re 20 times as likely to be killed in Los Angeles.”

Yet we can’t be too smug about Australia’s gun laws. By 2013, imports of 1,055,082 firearms had restored the stockpile to the level it was at before the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, the University of Sydney revealed.

Pro-gun campaigners have been gradually gaining back ground. The NFA restricted gun licences to adults but several states now have “minor’s permits” and in Western Australia there are no age limits for shooting at clubs. Four states have removed the NFA’s 28-day “cooling off” period between applying for and buying a gun for second and third firearms.

Earlier this month, Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm forced the Abbott government to back down on a ban on imports of the Adler A110 lever action shotgun. The deal also extracted a commitment from the Justice Minister to meet at least quarterly with representatives of shooters, something that ceased when the Firearms Advisory Committee was disbanded.

At the Lindt cafe siege, we saw very clearly that Australia is not immune from horrendous gun violence. We can only hope the US will follow us, and not the other way around.