Canadians do not have any legal rights to possess arms. Licensing of all the gun owners is mandatory, and it takes one sixty days to buy a gun in Canada. All people pursuing a license to own a gun must have third-party references. They must also undergo a safety training course and pass a background check which focuses on the criminal, mental and addiction histories ( Cotter, 2014 ). The spouses or next of kin of the applicants are advised by the licensing agents. Anyone with a past criminal record or domestic violence history are not granted a gun license. They are also restricted to the kind of weapons they possess as one is not allowed to possess an automatic weapon.
Australia passed laws that banned all the automatic and semi-automatic weapons. The country has instituted strict licensing rules that require all the gun owners to undergo backgrounds check and waiting periods for the purchases ( Chapman & Alpers, 2013). One must demonstrate a justifiable and valid reason for the need to own a gun before being provided with a gun. However, unlike Canada, Australia does not have any laws barring mentally ill people from owning guns.
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Japan has stringent policies on guns. They are not allowed to possess handguns, automatic assault weapons, military rifles or even machine guns. Before owning a gun, one must undergo an exhaustive application process. One must first attend a class and pass both the practical and written exams. The applicants must then go for a mental test and offer the police will a certificate of their mental health and drug-free test. The police then carry an investigation into the background, relatives, and friends to confirm any violence or criminal record. One must pass all these processes before he/she can be allowed to buy and possess a gun. Without a license, even touching a firearm is a crime and can land one to jail.
As compared to Australia, Canada, and Japan, U.S.A. does not have strict laws that regulate gun possession. In the U.S.A, it is the right of every citizen to possess a gun, and this right is protected by the constitution ( Masters, 2016 ). One does not need to undergo an exhaustive procedure to purchase a gun as it is in other countries. Reports say that more than 50% of U.S.A. civilians own guns. America also forms the largest number of civilian gun owners globally. Despite the federal law setting the minimum requirements to own a gun, these laws are not strict. However, certain groups of people such as persons under the age of 18 years, mentally ill people as well as those with a criminal record are not allowed to possess guns. Due to less strict policies on gun possession in the U.S.A., the rate of firearm homicide has been rapidly increasing with several cases of shootings being reported from time to time.
Las Vegas shooting is one of the worst mass shooting in the history of US. In the Sunday night shooting, a gunman Stephen Paddock sprayed bullets into the music festival crowd as he stood from a hotel balcony. Police confirmed that at least fifty-eight people died in the shooting. He used at least ten riffles that sent fans at the Route 91 Harvest music festival running for their lives in an attempt to escape the raining bullets. Stephen, sixty-four years old man holed himself on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and opened fire.
Orlando nightclub shooting is another mass killing that occurred in the US history. On June 12, a twenty-eight-year-old security guard by the name Omar Mateen stormed gay nightclub and opened fire on everyone. The man walked in carrying an AR-15 type assault rifle and a handgun. Out of over three hundred people in the club, forty-nine lives were lost. There was a three-hour standoff with the police as the shooter hid in the bathroom taking a handful of hostages. The incident lasted for hours leaving many wounded in addition to those who died.
On the Sandy Hook school massacre, a mentally disturbed man by the name Adam Lanza shot and killed twenty children at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown. The 14 December 2012 event also claimed the lives of six adult staff members of the school. Several other children were seriously wounded and rushed to the hospital. As the police arrived at the scene, he shot and killed himself. He used a 45 round semi-automatic assault rifle and a pistol he took from his mother’s house. The man had killed his mother before conducting the shooting. This brutal attack led to nationwide increased calls for introducing tougher gun control policies, majorly the automated weapons.
Certain gun possession policies need to be reviewed to regulate the increasing mass shootings of the civilian gun owners. Reforms in the policies will help regulate gun ownership and reduces the chances of certain people possessing guns. Strict and exhaustive procedures should be introduced before one can be licensed to own a gun. A certain group of people such as mentally ill people and people with past criminal records should not be allowed to own guns. Some shootings such as the Sandy Hook school massacre was conducted by a mentally ill person. Reforms will also ensure the number of people who possess guns are reduced like in other countries like Canada and Japan. Unless these reforms are done, the issues of killings might be an existing problem into the future.
References
Chapman, S., & Alpers, P. (2013). Gun-related deaths: how Australia stepped off “the American path”. Annals of internal medicine , 158 (10), 770-771.
Cotter, A. (2014). Firearms and violent crime in Canada, 2012. Juristat: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics , 1.
Masters, J. (2016). US gun policy: global comparisons. New York: Council on Foreign Relations. http://www. cfr. Org/society-and-culture/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons/p29735 .
