IN the wake of every shooting, we see the same issues and the same arguments arise. The same media headlines, the same condemnation of the attacks, the same praying for lives lost.

It seems people do not have a true grasp of the magnitude of these issues. They don’t fully align with these arguments, because they don’t fully understand.

This is especially so in the United States, where people pride themselves over having strong opinions based on little fact or reality (Trump supporters, I’m talking to you).

I am writing today to outline a comprehensive argument about just how ridiculous America’s gun issues are.

America has the highest number of guns per capita in the world. With a population of 319 million people, they still have 112 guns for every 100 citizens. Yet New Zealand — 22.6 guns per 100 people — does not proportionally have a fifth of America’s gun-deaths per capita.

In fact, the United States has 19 times the amount of gun-related homicides as New Zealand. This wide disparity points to one major difference between our two countries.

In New Zealand, we have a gun-licence process, making sure that not every Tom, Dick and Harry can snag a gun and recklessly use it.

Also, in New Zealand we don’t have assault rifles! They’re illegal!

In America, any psychopath can buy an assault rifle specifically designed to kill people, as easy as buying alcohol, then use it against innocent citizens. That is the reality.

Similar to us, Australia banned automatic rifles in 1996 after 35 died in a mass shooting at Port Arthur. Uncoincidentally, they haven’t had one since.

In America, in 2015 alone, under current gun laws, there were 472 mass shootings. Yet they act like the evidence isn’t staring them in the face.

The United States won’t do anything about guns but have no issue banning Kinder Surprises due to “safety reasons”.

Anti-gun safety advocates say that gun ownership is for “hunting and safety”.

For this, you don’t need an assault rifle able to shoot 30 rounds in 10 seconds.

The shooter in Orlando didn’t even have to reload.

Is it written somewhere in the 2nd Amendment (the right to bear arms), that Americans have a god-given right not to have to reload mid-massacre?

When the 2nd amendment was ratified in 1791, there were only one-shot rifles available, with specific know-how needed to reload the weapon.

Now, US toddlers misfire guns at someone once a week; now, the US has 90 people a day dying from gun violence.

The 2nd Amendment was not created in sight of the issues of our time. The fact is that the logic of US gun-laws have stayed in the 18th century, but technology has propelled forward. More than 220 years into the future, we have massive disparities between the law and the realities of society.

The result, as seen daily in the US, is the loss of innocent lives.

When polio killed people, we created a vaccine. When car crashes kept killing people, seat-belt laws were made. Now when people are killing each other with assault rifles, what will be done?

Leaving gun laws the way they are would be similar to having car manufacturers take away air-bags and seat belts. The result: more car-related deaths, and that’s about it. It sounds counter intuitive, doesn’t it? That is because it is.

In the 998 mass shootings since the Sandy Hook massacre, two were committed by Muslims. One was a confirmed terrorist. Yet Americans are more concerned about terrorists than they are their own people! Despite the fact that Americans are killed by domestic gun violence 120 times more than terrorist attacks — and if you take 9/11 out of the equation based on terrorist attacks since, they are 1042 times more likely to be killed by a fellow American than a terrorist attack.

Gun sales skyrocket after shootings. After Orlando, news reports said sales were the biggest they’ve been since the Sandy Hook massacre and so the problem perpetuates.

More shootings lead to more gun sales, leading to more shooting.

The funny thing here is, most of this knowledge came through just scrolling on Facebook, through people sharing thoughts, videos and so on. But this just comes to show the widespread opposition to the madness around this issue that we’re seeing in America.

Here in New Zealand, we are a lot better off. Many would argue the reason we feel so strongly is we are seeing innocent lives lost, over and over again, due to the same problem.

Every time something like the Orlando attack happens, people everywhere condemn it. US Government officials and even our own pray that this kind of atrocity will never happen again.

As Einstein said, insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting different results.

We condemn the attacks.

We pray for the lost lives.

We change our bloody Facebook profiles.

But what we need is action, to hold accountable those who have the power to change laws.

Here in New Zealand, as global citizens, we can put pressure on Americans to create the change they need. If change doesn’t come, the results will be the same; more shooting, more death, and more special newspaper issues repeating the same things over again.

We must do better.

— Te Wai graduated from Gisborne Boys’ High School in 2015, he is now studying arts and commerce at Auckland University.