Thread: US Gun Control Laws Criticized Abroad

U.S. Gun Control Laws Criticized Abroad

Apr 17 01:49 PM US/Eastern
By PAISLEY DODDS


LONDON (AP) - The Virginia Tech shootings sparked criticism of U.S. gun control laws around the world Tuesday. Editorials lashed out at the availability of weapons, and the leader of Australia—one of America's closest allies—declared that America's gun culture was costing lives.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the government hoped Monday's shootings, allegedly carried out by a 23-year-old South Korean native, would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."

While some focused blame only on the gunman, world opinion over U.S. gun laws was almost unanimous: Access to weapons increases the probability of shootings. There was no sympathy for the view that more guns would have saved lives by enabling students to shoot the assailant.

"We took action to limit the availability of guns and we showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country," said Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who staked his political career on promoting tough gun laws after a gunman went on one of the world's deadliest killing sprees 11 years ago.

The tragedy in a Tasmanian tourist resort left 35 people dead. Afterward, Australia's gun laws were changed to prohibit automatic weapons and handguns and toughen licensing and storage restrictions.

Handguns are also banned in Britain—a prohibition that forces even the country's Olympic pistol shooting team from practicing on its own soil. In Sweden, civilians can acquire firearm permits only if they have a hunting license or are members of a shooting club and have no criminal record. In Italy, people must have a valid reason for wanting one. Firearms are forbidden for private Chinese citizens.

Still, leaders from Britain, Germany, Mexico, China, Afghanistan and France stopped short of criticizing President Bush or U.S. gun laws when they offered sympathies to the families of Monday's victims.

Editorials were less diplomatic.

"Only the names change—And the numbers," read a headline in the Times of London. "Why, we ask, do Americans continue to tolerate gun laws and a culture that seems to condemn thousands of innocents to death every year, when presumably, tougher restrictions, such as those in force in European countries, could at least reduce the number?"

The French daily Le Monde said the regularity of mass shootings across the Atlantic was a blotch on America's image.

"It would be unjust and especially false to reduce the United States to the image created, in a recurrent way, from the bursts of murderous fury that some isolated individuals succumb to. But acts like this are rare elsewhere, and tend to often disfigure the 'American dream.'"

Police started identifying the victims Tuesday. One was a Peruvian student identified as Daniel Perez Cueva, 21, according to his mother Betty Cuevas, who said her son was studying international relations.

Two professors from India and Israel were also killed.

Liviu Librescu, 76, an engineering science and mathematics lecturer, tried to stop the gunman from entering his classroom by blocking the door before he was fatally shot, his son said Tuesday from Tel Aviv.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said. His father, a Holocaust survivor, immigrated to Israel from Romania, and was on sabbatical in Virginia.

Indian-born G.V. Loganathan, 51, a lecturer at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was also among the dead, his brother G.V. Palanivel told Indian media.

"We all feel like we have had an electric shock. We do not know what to do," Palanivel said of his brother.

The killings also hit a nerve for Virginia Tech alumni abroad.

"I think if this does prompt a serious and reflective debate on gun issues and gun law in the States, then some good may come from this woeful tragedy," said British Home Office Minister Tony McNulty, who graduated in 1982.

Britain's 46 homicides involving firearms last year was the lowest since the late 1980s. New York City, with 8 million people compared to 53 million in England and Wales, recorded 590 homicides last year.

"If the guns are harder to get a hold of, fewer people will do it," said Michael Dent, a 65-year-old construction worker in London. "You can't walk up to a supermarket or shop and buy a gun like in the States."

But even in Germany, where gun-control laws are strict, a teenager in 2002 shot and killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two students and a police officer at a high school. The shooter was a gun club member licensed to own weapons. The attack led Germany to raise the age for owning recreational firearms from 18 to 21.

"The instant I saw the pictures and heard the commentary, it immediately brought back our own experience," Gutenberg high school director Christiane Alt said of the Virginia Tech killings.

The Swedish daily Goteborgs-Posten said without access to weapons, the killings at Virginia Tech may have been prevented.

"What exactly triggered the massacre in Virginia is unclear, but the fundamental reason is often the perpetrator's psychological problems in combination with access to weapons," it wrote.

The shootings drew intense media coverage in China, in part because the school has a large Chinese student body.

"This incident reflects the problem of gun control in America," Yuan Peng, an American studies expert in China, was quoted as saying by state-run China Daily.

Only 7 percent of the more than 26,000 students at Virginia Tech are foreign, according to the school Web site. But Chinese make up nearly a third of that.

In Italy, there are three types of licenses for gun ownership: for personal safety, target practice and skeet shooting, and hunting. Authorization is granted by the police. To obtain a gun for personal safety, the owner must be an adult and have a "valid" reason.

Italy's leading daily Corriere della Sera's main story on the shootings was an opinion piece entitled "Guns at the Supermarket"—a critical view of the U.S. gun lobby and the ease with which guns can be purchased. State-run RAI radio also discussed at length what it said were lax standards for gun ownership in the United States.

"The latest attack on a U.S. campus will shake up America, maybe it will provoke more vigorous reactions than in the past, but it won't change the culture of a country that has the notion of self-defense imprinted on its DNA and which considers the right of having guns inalienable," Corriere wrote in its front-page story.

Several Italian graduate students at Virginia Tech recounted how they barricaded themselves inside a geology department building not far from the scene of the shooting.

In Mexico, radio commentators criticized the availability of firearms in the U.S. Others renewed Mexico's complaint that most guns in Mexico are smuggled in from the United States.

The killings led newspapers' front pages, with Mexico City's Dario Monitor reporting: "Terror returns to the U.S.: 32 assassinated on university campus." The tabloid Metro compared Mexico's death toll Monday from drug violence to the number of people killed at Virginia Tech, in a front-page headline that read: "U.S. 33, Mexico 20." ___

Associated Press Writers Charles Hutzler, Alexandru Alexe, Raphael Satter, Robert Barr, Karl Ritter, Nicole Winfield, Gavin Rabinowitz, Alex Braun, Courtney French and Traci Carl contributed to this report.








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Editorials lashed out at the availability of weapons, and the leader of Australia—one of America's closest allies—declared that America's gun culture was costing lives.

EXCUSE ME?

Australia's CRIME rate has only drastically risen since they unarmed their citizens

That little fact is kept hidden??

Bring back the Shooting Teams in high schools.
Stop instilling fear into people while encouraging them to learn about our 2nd Amendment.

Violent crime will begin to decrease drastically.
Criminals are cowards and do not want to commit crimes where there is a very high percentage that they will be caught in anyone's crosshairs.

In Mexico, radio commentators criticized the availability of firearms in the U.S. Others renewed Mexico's complaint that most guns in Mexico are smuggled in from the United States.


Yeah, I just BET they would like to see us lose our rights to bear arms. It would make their Reconquesta so much easier for them. Do you really believe that more strict gun laws would have prevented this tragedy? I believe if he had the mindset to kill, he could have found the guns illegally. Only law abiding citizens will be gunless if there are stricter laws. The criminals will always find a way to get them. Maybe from the bed of a Mexican truck..coming to an American City near you soon.

Until there is a gun whose range extends across the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, I don't give a rat's skinny arse what the socialist dirtbags in those countries think about our gun laws. If they don't like them, they don't have to visit here. I am increasingly convinced that we'd be better off if most of them made that decision.

Why does the rest of the world have such a hard time staying out of our business, I don't seem to concern my self with everyone elses laws, honestly I don't feel it is any of my business.

The gun laws come up everytime something happens, this is no different and we are still not going to give are guns up, we like them, hear that world we believe in being able to protect our selves, we have a right, its in our constitution , so mind your own countrys problems I'm sure where ever your at your country is haveing problems also since the whole damn world is .

And Mexico they may be smuggling guns into your country but at least you don't have 20 million people being smuggled in and forced to support against your will.

And how many of those countries have a real Constitution, and Bill of Rights? And a Second Amendment.

If other countries around the world don't like our laws, they can go get stuffed! It makes potential invaders think twice about invading when the general public can, and have the Right to keep and bare arms. And criminals do back off when they don't know if a potential target is packin' or not. Deterent is the best defence. Otherwise there wouldn't have been any nuclear proliferation during the cold war as far as the ammounts of weapons stored. And by both sides at that.