An Aurora survivor
Another deadly shooting rampage has stunned our nation, this time in the quiet suburbs of Connecticut. Twenty-seven families have lost loved ones. Parents are preparing to bury their children. And hundreds of elementary school students in Newtown have suddenly been robbed of their innocence after hearing their classmates shot and killed over the PA system....For me, this issue is deeply personal. I grew up in Southbury, just next door to Newtown, and in July, I almost died when a gunman opened fire on a crowded theater at the Century 16 in Aurora, Colo. Just a few minutes into the midnight showing of the new "Batman" movie, a tear-gas canister flew across the theater and shots rang out. I'll never forget the screams.Though I was hit with 25 shotgun pellets in my face, neck, chest and arms, I was able to escape to safety. Twelve of my fellow moviegoers that night were not so lucky.In the wake of Aurora, our country did what we so often do after suffering a national tragedy: We reflected, we mourned, we observed a moment of silence. Our elected officials in Washington offered their condolences, but little else. There was no action taken to ensure that something so horrific never happened again. Washington avoided starting a meaningful dialogue on gun violence, and the costs of that were tragic.Just weeks after we said "never again," worshippers at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin were brutally murdered with guns. They were followed by several women in a beauty salon outside of suburban Milwaukee, shoppers in a mall near Portland, Ore., and most recently the young victims at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown....We need our nation's lawmakers to begin a conversation on this epidemic of violence, and we need them to do it now. Now is the time to demand a plan.They can begin with the issues we all agree upon. For all the passion and intensity of the debate over guns in America, there are commonsense reforms that people on all sides support, such as requiring background checks on all firearms purchases. After all, 82 percent of gun owners -- including 74 percent of National Rifle Association members -- are in favor of such checks. They believe that support for Second Amendment rights goes hand-in-hand with keeping guns out of the wrong hands.-- Stephen Barton, in The Hartford CourantAustralia's lessonOn April 28, 1996, a gunman opened fire on tourists in a seaside resort in Port Arthur, Tasmania. By the time he was finished, he had killed 35 people and wounded 23 more. It was the worst mass murder in Australia's history.Twelve days later, Australia's government did something remarkable. Led by newly elected conservative Prime Minister John Howard, it announced a bipartisan deal with state and local governments to enact sweeping gun-control measures. A decade and a half hence, the results of these policy changes are clear: They worked really, really well.At the heart of the push was a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-automatic shotguns and rifles, or about one-fifth of all firearms in circulation in Australia. The country's new gun laws prohibited private sales, required that all weapons be individually registered to their owners and required that gun buyers present a "genuine reason" for needing each weapon at the time of the purchase. (Self-defense did not count.)In the wake of the tragedy, polls showed public support for these measures at upwards of 90 percent.What happened next has been the subject of several academic studies. Violent crime and gun-related deaths did not come to an end in Australia, of course. But, as The Washington Post pointed out in August, homicides by firearm plunged 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides.The drop in suicides by gun was even steeper: 65 percent. Studies found a close correlation between the sharp declines and the gun buybacks.Robberies involving a firearm also dropped significantly. Meanwhile, home invasions did not increase, contrary to fears that firearm ownership is needed to deter such crimes. But here's the most stunning statistic. In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn't been a single one in Australia since.-- Will Oremus, SlateLBJ's gun controlIf ever there were a moment for President Obama to learn from history, it is now, in the wake of Friday's shootings at the elementary school at Newtown, Conn. The timely lesson for Obama, drawn from the experience of Lyndon B. Johnson -- the last president to aggressively fight for comprehensive gun control -- is this: Demand action on comprehensive gun control immediately from this Congress or lose the opportunity during your presidency.In the aftermath of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (just weeks after the fatal shooting of Martin Luther King Jr. and only a few years after President John F. Kennedy was shot), President Johnson pressed Congress to enact gun control legislation he had sent to Capitol Hill years earlier. LBJ ordered all of us on his staff -- and urged allies in Congress -- to act swiftly. "We have only two weeks, maybe only 10 days," he said, "before the gun lobby gets organized." ...For three years Johnson's bill had been locked in the Senate Judiciary Committee by a powerful army of gun lobbyists. But LBJ was always poised to grasp any opportunity to achieve his legislative objectives, even in the most horrendous circumstances.He had used the tragedy of King's assassination in 1968 to "at least get something for our nation" out of it, finally persuading the House to pass the fair housing bill he had sent it in 1966. Johnson saw in the tragedy of the assassination of Robert Kennedy in June of 1968 a chance to get his gun bill enacted. ...Obama has a unique opportunity: a lame-duck session of Congress.If he learns from the lesson of LBJ -- two weeks to get action -- and takes advantage of the fact that many members can vote their conscience without fear of retribution by the gun lobby because they are not seeking re-election, this nation may "complete the task" of passing comprehensive gun controls.That's an opportunity that is worth grasping out of the unspeakable tragedy that occurred in Newtown, Conn.-- Joseph A. Califano Jr., in The Washington Post Like the excerpts? 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