Gun-related Deaths: How Australia Stepped Off ‘The American Path.’ (original) (raw)

Australia and the United States share many characteristics. Both are English-speaking democracies of multicultural immigrants. The two nations have been allies for nearly a century. Australians and Americans consume similar diets of movies, video games, popular music, recreational drugs, and alcohol. Both have vast interiors, early histories of armed European settlers mistreating native populations, plenty of feral pests to shoot, and many firearm enthusiasts. Yet the 2 countries differ dramatically on the issue of gun violence. The U.S. population is 13.7 times larger than that of Australia, but it has 134 times the number of total firearm-related deaths (31 672 vs. 236 in 2010) and 27 times the rate of firearm homicide (11 078 [3.6 per 100 000] vs. 30 [0.13 per 100 000] in 2010) (1).