In the wake of the “there’ve been more mass shootings than days in the year” hysteria, Australia’s former deputy prime minister, Tim Fischer, is pushing for “better travel warnings” for Australian travelers to the U. S.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
“Three hundred and fifty two mass shootings in the USA so far this year but about 80 a day you don’t hear about,” Mr Fischer told ABC News on Thursday.”All [are] unacceptable because the US is not stepping up on the public policy reform front. But have we not reached the stage where the Smart Traveller advice of [the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade] needs to be muscled up?”Mr Fischer said a person is 15 times more likely to be shot dead in the US than in Australia and that travel advice should reflect this, as it does for Mexico.“It’s time to call out the USA,” he said.Mr Fischer said Australia’s alliance with the US has been “too much one way” and suggested Australia start preventing delegates from attending conferences there, as well as a “streamlining” of the annual ‘G’day LA’ event. [emphasis mine]
According to the FBI, as reported in Time, there were 160 active shooter cases between 2000 and 2013, with 43 of those defined as “mass killings.”
And according to the New York Times, who just yesterday published an editorial board op-ed demanding gun confiscation, there have been four “mass shootings” this year, and 73 such attacks since 1982.
Australia’s Fischer, however, is apparently not one to get bogged down in facts, anyway (80 mass shootings a day in the U. S.? Really?!). He led the fight against gun ownership in Australia, and in 2013, he proudly proclaimed that the number of accidental deaths and suicides by gun shot were greatly reduced. Well. Yes. Of course. But the call for gun confiscation, “gun control,” and “gun safety” are never about protecting people from accidental shootings and suicide (though if someone is bent on suicide, not having a gun is unlikely to stop them).
But I digress. Fischer’s role in Australia’s gun ban was quite significant. The Sydney Morning Herald continues:
As leader of the Nationals, Mr Fischer campaigned with John Howard in the wake of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre to dramatically tighten gun control laws. This included the mass buyback of over 600,000 firearms.The government faced extreme opposition, particularly from traditional Coalition voters. In one incident, an effigy of Mr Fischer was hanged in the Queensland town of Gympie.
This is also not the first time that Fischer has suggested that Australians avoid the U. S. (and with no perceivable impact on tourism, the economy, etc.).
Watch:
According to The Atlantic, “Fischer has been railing against U.S. gun laws for years”:
In 2012, after the mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, Fischer issued a similar warning to his fellow citizens about visiting the United States. “U.S. senators and diplomats over the years almost all privately say that the U.S. must revamp their gun laws, but the NRA has a block on allowing this to happen,” he said. “Truth of the matter is there is a certain gutlessness at the highest levels in and around Washington, which is preventing some minimum logical steps being taken, especially over the number of guns that any individual can purchase.”. . . . Last year, after another mass shooting in America, Fischer reflected in an interview with NPR on the lessons he’d learned from his gun-control campaign in Australia, which included a moment in which he was hung in effigy by protesters at a public meeting in Queensland.“This was Australia’s chance to jump through the hoops, take some pain, withdraw private property from individuals but pay them just compensation,” he said.
Perhaps Mr. Fischer should take a look at our Constitution. He doesn’t appear to realize that we have innate, inalienable rights that are not granted by government and that cannot be taken away by government.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY