'Be like Australia': An American teenager's message to Donald Trump

Makenzie Hymes was so heartbroken by the latest shooting at a US school she decided to prepare an Australian history lesson for American politicians.

Hymes, a 13-year-old who loves dancing and the piano, wrote the story of Australia's gun control laws on a placard she took to the White House this week where she joined dozens of other school children demanding tougher gun laws.

Most students kept to short slogans.

"Am I next?" read one.

"Fear has no place in school," said another.

But Hymes, a middle school student in Washington DC, wanted Americans to know about John Howard's response to the Port Arthur massacre more than two decades ago.

"Australia had its worst mass shooting on April 28, 1996," her placard read, before explaining the bipartisan deal that followed.

"The government brought back and destroyed over one million guns," she concluded. "Australia has not had a mass shooting since then."

Students like Hymes have led the protests against existing US gun laws over the past week, in the wake of the mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 dead.

The teenage killer used an AR-15 assault rifle, the weapon used in five of the six deadliest US shootings in recent years including those in Las Vegas, Sandy Hook and Orlando. The weapon is banned in Australia outside military use.

Hymes was one of the younger protesters at the rally on Monday, timed for the President's Day public holiday to maximise attention on Donald Trump's refusal to consider tougher laws.

Flags flew at half-mast on federal buildings, including the White House, to honour those who died in Florida.

"I feel like if people hear about what other countries do they'll realise we're a lot behind," Hymes told Fairfax Media when asked why she wanted her fellow Americans to learn from Australia.

"It's not impossible to change things, it's not stupid. Various foreign countries like Australia have done things to get rid of the bad guns. I don't know much about what Australia did, but I know that they got what they needed sooner rather than later."

The White House protest was relatively small, with about 50 students attending, and there is no sign of widespread momentum for reform. While Australia struggled to achieve change across six states, the US faces the challenge of reaching deals across 50 of them.

But there is real frustration among young Americans who feel their elders are not doing enough to make schools safe. The organisers of this week's protests, Teens for Gun Reform, are planning a march on Washington on March 24.

Ag Shame....the same old drivel. Cliched and typical.

Here, an extract from the article, the major point, not that I think it will register with you...

"Australia had its worst mass shooting on April 28, 1996," her placard read, before explaining the bipartisan deal that followed.

"The government brought back and destroyed over one million guns," she concluded. "Australia has not had a mass shooting since then."

It's just an example, if there's a will then the politicians in the USA will find a way.

Denny, I think I differ from you, but I don't really know exactly where you stand on this.

I'm against allowing everyone to have guns without checks and balances.  On the other hand, there's too much red tape in legally procuring a firearm in South Africa. I think there is room for improvement in the way the USA go about it, but the US and Australia can't really be compared on this issue. 300 odd M to 20M odd for starters. Crime in Aus is negligible compared to the US and controlling illegal arms in the US much more difficult. 

Ou dense denise's solution to the USA problem. 

Disarm law abiding citizens and invite as many jihadists as you can into America.

Disarm law abiding citizens but have open borders allowing drug cartel;s and gangsters to flood into the country.

Disarm law abiding citizens and assume criminals wont get hold of guns.

Ignore the fact that very strict gun controls operate in Chicago and yet it is one  of the most violent cities in America. Ignore the fact that Paris has severe gun controls and look what happens there!

Ignore the fa ct that a number of massacres have been stopped by armed citizens or could have been prevented by armed citizens being present.

Ignore the fact knives kill far more people in America than guns. Hence ban knives and cars as well. 

Australia has been wise in having sensible merit based immigration. If the globalists had not flooded America with unvetted immigrants their crime rates would be far far lower.

Of course Australia's immigration policies are not perfect. Proof is ou dense denise slipped into the country!

It would be best if ou dense densie zipped it as his views are, as usual, a parroting of the elite globalist MSM and the globalist demonrat party.

Underlying everything is the desire of the globalist to disarm Americans as they try to takeover the country and then to surrender its sovereignty to global institutions they rule. They intend of course to destroy the Nation states of Europe by  causing them to surrender sovereignty to Brussels and by open borders and multiculturalism.

The elephant in the room is the Globalist NWO tyranny - which is the reason they are going so hard against PresidentTrump, BREXIT and the Visegrad nations of eastern Europe. Add in Eurosceptic Italy and Austria and the Globalist EU is in big trouble. It looks though that the tide for the moment has turned against these globalist swine.

Ou dense denise is oblivious to all this. How ignorant can one be. Answer - as ignorant as one allows the globalist MSM to make one!! Dense denise is the perfect example of a globalist MSM dupe. He echoes them like a parrot.

Interesting article  regarding gun ban in Aus.

What a load of nonsense... the only thing interesting is that the scribe conveniently does not touch on the fact that Australia has not had a mass shooting since 1996. He completely evades the point.

Thought we were debating a solution to mass shootings??? not suicides and murders which is common to all countries.

I thought the discussion was about gun control.

According to Wikki, there actually were a couple of mass shootings, although not nearly on the same scale. It also seems that mass killings by arson has increased....and it is also clear that mass murders in Aus wasn't that prevalent in the first place.

link

Agreed Moz, but all comes down to treating the symptoms, and every time new regulations are passed, someone loses a bit of freedom. The main problem is that the world is completely over populated. It's simply not possible te keep everyone safe and it's vonna get a lot worse soon.

The police can't even protect themselves, how are they gonna protect us? Criminals don't have any respect for the law, so gun laws won't affect them. It will only impact the ability of law abiding citizens to protect themselves.  Gun laws won't protect anyone from THIS.

There were some interesting observations made by parents in their White House meeting.....

That an 18yr is not allowed to buy a beer but is allowed to have a variety of guns...

In Israel you allowed only 1 gun after a long and difficult process to obtain one....

Australia might not have the solution to fit all countries, point is the USA must make a commitment to find a solution which works for them based on mass killings being a no-no.

Five out of the last six mass killings were made with automatic weapons. Personally I would ban the sale of semi automatic weapons to the general public....that would be a start.

Denny, it is kinda absurd that you are deemed fit to own a firearm before you are allowed to have a beer. It is also absurd that it is easier to procure a gun than a driver's licence. Weapons are not the problem, fools using them are. Some form of control is obviously needed.

Draad

When it comes to mass shootings Americans seem to stick their heads in the sand or act like a Deer staring into the headlights of a semi trailer in top gear. God knows I love the country and it's people but I'm beyond understanding why they don't commit to a solution. Clearly they need to ban the mass killer weapon of choice to the general public. That's just commonsense. There also has to be a limit on arms and ammunition to a single person. You shouldn't be able to walk into a store and buy a gun the same way you buy ice cream. It has to be a long drawn out process based on security checks.

Just my 5 cents. 

So a soldier goes to war at 18 but gets home and cant have a gun.

It takes law enforcement 6 to 8 minutes to reach the venue under attack. It  took 4 minutes for school shooter to do his work. Hence as President Trump says the schools themselves must have an active offensive - armed teachers or ex marines etc.

Making schools gun free would very obviously making them sitting ducks.

The Oz PM sad his countiries hgistory and culture can in no way be compared to American and he would not venture to lecture the Americns on how to proceed.

This halfwit dense denise is an empty head who has no clue whatsoever and simply mouths off the CNN talking points. 

Folks if you want to see all the failures of school , local law enforcement and the FBI go to Gateway Pundit and scroll through the various articles articles over the last few days. Windpomp has it 100% correct there were massive and multiple failures. To blame guns is absurd. Anybody thinking like dense denise is EXTREMELY IGNORANT - A CONSEQUENCE OF SUCKING UP GLOBALIST MSM PROPAGANDA. 

By the way president Trump's approval rating continues to soar. The Rasmussen Poll (most accurate poll n the election) now has him at 50%, Obummer at this stage of his presidency was 45%. Things will only get worse for the anti American open borders globalist Demorats and their far left globalist MSM which is tanking. CNN has lost 27% viewership compared to same time last year - Americans are increasing understanding that CNN = very fake anti American globalist propaganda. Dense denise is too stupid to realise this. 

Much ado about nothing...everybody has a right to protect himself, his family and possessions...with hi jackings and invasion into our homes, especially in SA, you have a very good chance being murdered and the perversion of law and order where the victim has lesser rights than these scumbag vermin. I will shoot to kill as well if my loved were in danger and stuff the criminal government....might wrap the victim in plastic sheet and drive 1000 klms and dump him into a remote gorge if such a terrible thing happened. Take a law into my own hands seeing that our law harbours criminals.

Having said that I'm against unstable lunatics redneck psychopaths getting any gun automatic or otherwise...there must be good checks and balances to prevent this.

Australian's view about the effect of their gun laws, and not that of a little kid whose parents gave her a banner and told to pose in front of the White House:

https://youtu.be/-GPUYBcHyTc

Just for info:

"The modern sporting rifle, based on the AR-15platform, is widely misunderstood. ... The ARin “AR-15” rifle stands for ArmaLite rifle, after the company that developed it in the 1950s. “AR” does NOT stand for “assault rifle” or “automatic rifle.” AR-15-style rifles are NOT “assault weapons” or “assault rifles.”

Mathematical modelling shows Australia's tough gun laws have stopped mass shootings

T he odds of a 22-year absence of mass shootings in Australia since 1996 gun reforms being due to chance are one in 200,000, according to the latest study using mathematical modelling.

Some, including members of the gun lobby, have argued that since mass shootings are rare events, the concentration of incidents in one decade and their absence in another 10-year period is only a statistical anomaly.

Researchers at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University used mathematical techniques to test the theory that the rate of mass shootings in Australia before and after the 1996 law reforms is unchanged.

Australia, which has not had a mass shooting since 1996, is often used in the US as an example of a country where tough gun laws have had an impact.

Over the same period, the United States has suffered more than 90 mass shootings.

Australia's National Firearms Agreement, brought in after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in which 35 died and another 23 were seriously injured, saw the destruction of more than a million firearms, about one third of the country's private gun stock.

The agreement included uniform gun registration, repudiation of self-defence as a legitimate reason to hold a firearm licence, mandatory locked storage, a ban on mail order sales, and the banning of civilian ownership of semi-automatic rifles and pump action shot guns.

In the 18 years up to and including the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, there were 13-gun homicides in which five or more people died, not including the perpetrator. In the 22 years since, there have been no such incidents.

“Most people hear these starkly contrasting numbers and conclude that Australia’s gun law reforms effectively stopped firearm massacres here,” says Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney, lead of the the study published today in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

Some disagree. Australian researcher Dr Samara McPhedran said: “Mass shootings are rare events, and the long gap between incidents post-1996 may simply reflect a return to a more ‘normal’ state of affairs, similar to the years before 1987.”

However, the latest study's study’s co-author, Philip Alpers, from the University of Sydney, says Australia followed standard public health procedures to reduce the risk of multiple shooting events and it has worked.

"Gun lobby-affiliated and other researchers have been saying for years that mass shootings are such rare events it could have been a matter of luck they dropped off in the wake of Australia's gun control laws," says Alpers.

"Instead, we found the odds against this hypothesis are 200,000 to one."

Do you guys remember how you were raised?

Did you ever talk back to your teachers? I did. Do you know what happened when i did? I got six of the best and i understood that it was my fault for being a little twat. Once i got tired of getting jacks i decided to behave myself and then this truly mysterious thing happened. I respected my teachers and what they were trying to teach me. And i got better results on tests and exams.

I must be one of the lucky ones. I managed to grow up reasonably well balanced and with a healthy respect for respectable people of all ages. I dont have nightmares about corporal punishment where i'd no doubt see a teacher foaming at the mouth and laughing as he/she inflicted grievous and unacceptable pain on my disruptive naughty arse. I guess most of you are also just as lucky as me. Fancy that!?

If i listened to teachers, parents, adults and treated them with respect then one day i could claim that same respect back from the young people i came into contact with when i taught them, raised them or just found myself in their proximity. How strange this universe can be. It just makes no sense that i am taught respect when im a child and then am able to teach respect when i'm a grown up. Practically vudu.

How are things these days? It's a different world. And who created it?

Now we take these entitled little dipshytes and then put guns in their hands.

If we don't make them feel special enough then they reserve the right to make us understand how "un-special" they feel by killing their classmates.

Of course it's the gun's fault.

Its not my little special Timmy's fault. Timmy is a victim of society. Timmy is a victim of Trump. Timmy is a victim of the NRA. Timmy is a victim of boredom. Poor little Timmy. Timmy is such a nice boy really.

Timmy just didn't understand the world because Timmy always got a medal for competing.

Timmy once asked me "What's the point of the race anyway? It doesn't matter if i win or lose because i still get a medal, so does everyone else."

Timmy's last question was "What's the point of anything."

What i'd really like to know is where the fck are the parents in all of this?

As is see it - It's the parents, as legal guardians of the children who are the first port of call as far as responsibility goes. Then it's the little ahole who did the shooting and then after that its the government.

How does looking at it that way help anyone? It only furthers the idea that everyone but Timmy and his useless bloody parents are to blame.

Control the things you can control.

The days of relying on Timmy's parents are long gone. I hazard a guess but you can go back further and blame Timmy' s grandparents, but let's not stop there either...

I'll say it again, place a ban on the sale of semi automatic and automatic weapons to the general public.

Control the things you can control.

I agree Denny. 

There is no need for anyone to own auto rifles etc.

Automatic weapons put out much more DPS than is required.

But semi auto handguns too? That's a tad harsh don't you think? 

Semi auto....Rifles.