Something interesting I learnt today: A major difference between gun regulation in Australia compared to the U.S is that in Australia it is stated in law and in the U.S it is written into the constitution. Australia’s gun laws (as they are today) originated from the National Firearms Agreement (1996), after the Port Arthur Massacre.
This means that in Australia gun regulations are much easier to change and tweak over time as all it requires is a law to pass rather than an amendment to our constitution. This however IS the case in the U.S, where the constitution explicitly states that all Americans have a ‘Right to bear arms’. Since a full amendment is a much bigger deal politically than a simple change to a law (which happens all the time) it is a lot harder for the U.S to change its gun laws than it is for Australia.
This is one of the reasons the U.S, to this day, still has ridiculously loose laws around guns and firearms. It would be a massive deal for them to change this, much more than it should be.
I am actively researching WHY it is a bigger deal which leads me to actually try to figure out how Australia’s and the U.S government actually damn works but I’m going to save that for another post, probably later this week.
Anyway bye.
