Belly, "America has its problems.
Australia,s gun problems are different."

What has China got? [my post to Suseonline above refers]

Switzerland has the lowest gun-related crime rate of any civilised country. Switzerland has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world, and young men are armed with assault rifles to take home. But gun related crime is rare.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1566715.stm

Has Switzerland got a 'gun culture'? If so, how does its 'gun culture' differ from that of the US and why?

There doesn't seem to be much evidence to support Suseonline's inference that the inanimate object causes crime, or even that the availability of the inanimate object facilitates crime.

In Australia there never has been a gun crime 'problem'. However there is a lucrative drug trade and police say that the corruption from that extends through all levels of society and in all professions. Maybe it is safer to talk about a 'gun problem' instead.

It's all well and good to say these things but the U.S.a is a very different society to ours there are powerful vested interests at play in this debate, and I'm not talking about the NRA or the arms manufacturers.
Say you could remove most of the guns from private hands (personally I think it's impossible) what then? What happens to the militarised Police forces, the tens of thousands of public servants involved in the BATF, Homeland Security and the FBI ? What about the Police and Prison services unions, they also have a vested interest in high crime rates and would lose millions of dollars if crime rates dropped.
What will happen if Obama does move on gun control is that there will be a phoney war on guns just like the phoney war on drugs, the prison population will skyrocket, a whole new bureaucracy will be formed to deal with the problem. The consultants, lawyers, cops, politicians and unions will all want to cash in and like the drug "problem" the trade in illegal guns will explode and the whole thing will stabilise and become a sustainable, self sufficient economy just like the narcotics trade.
It's clearly a Left vs Right issue, the nominally Left leaning "abolitionists" don't want to eradicate guns or lower crime rates beyond the present levels, they only want their people to control the gun economy, the "problem" from their point of view is not that the guns are in the wrong hands it's that the PROFIT from the arms and security economy is in the wrong hands.

OTB:”There doesn't seem to be much evidence to support Suseonline's inference that the inanimate object causes crime, or even that the availability of the inanimate object facilitates crime.”

I thought accessibility to weapons would definitely facilitate the use of them.

Laz:”If you dare to look at many of the tradgeties eg Tasmania, Denmark and now this one, the men involved were dominated and/or abused by their mothers.The men were robbed of their manhood.”

Ugh why? First post out of the gates after the subject is introduced and there is the classic response here.

I would like to express my gratitude publically to all the mums out there who have not robbed their sons of their manhood; you have saved billions and billions of lives throughout history.

Looking at some rough stats those African women have certainly been busy with their sons, also the mums of Colombia and Thailand need a stern talking to.

I’ve got a boy rabbiting on at me about some lego he wants for Christmas that comes with a gun and a sword. Help me men, what should I do?

Suse, I know the following statement is obvious but it is pertinent.

Guns do not kill...people do....particularly Americans.

As a cultural and social comparison I offer Canada as an example. Canada has a firearm ownership rate that is almost exactly half of that of America, yet America has 5 times the homicide rate by firearm than Canada has per 100,000 residents.

I could offer many other first world countries that example the same disparity re gun ownership and death by firearm. Suse America is a sick society, and once again I offer Canada as comparison when it comes to social media and other supposed violence engendering inputs. Canada has the same violent media as America, but not the murder rate.

In Australia we have always had a fringe gun culture that did not impact on the rate of gun crime. But we now have drive by shootings every second day in Sydney…….and the vast vast majority are carried out by Australians of Middle Eastern background…..once again a cultural aberration.

There are reports that this bloke had mental problems.

All of these mass killers have mental problems, obviously, & just about all of them were known to have mental problems, but they were still wandering around the streets.

The do gooders strike again. They have managed to get all the mildly insane out in the community, instead of in an institution, where they can do no harm to the innocent.

We must first sit on the bleeding hearts/do gooders, then spend enough money on getting the nut cases off the street, before the catastrophe occurs.

Still, it is only a few killed in each instance. This is going to be a mere pin prick, compared to the problems we will inherit from letting in the boat people, & even the legal refugees. Come out of the leafy green suburbs & see how many people are game to walk, at night, down the street in neighbourhoods where these people are settled.

They don't need guns either, but maybe we do.

You only have to look at the posts of many pro boat people, to see the hate for the average oz citizen. The ratbags are winning.