Very interesting debate. I just looked up Canada's gun legislation. Apparently Canada reckons their significantly lower gun death rate than the US is because of mandatory gun checks. The Canadian constitution like the US supports gun ownership, but all guns are either restricted on non restricted and there are mandatory police checks on all citizens applying to buy a gun with checks against terrorist watch lists, people with mental illnesses and anyone with s criminal record plus an underage child In all these cases, gun possession is not allowed. Interesting also the AR-15 assault rifle whilst not banned can only be used at a registered gun range.
From an outsider view, I applaud the US Second amendment provisions, but I find it absolutely amazing that after so many tragic deaths in the US that both sides of US politics cannot agree to provisions like Canada has in place (and by the way so does Australia).
The most incredulous situation to me, is that the US Senate even rejected mandatory checks to see if a gun applicant was on the terrorist watch list.
Yet Donald Trump wants to ban anyone of the Moslem faith entering the US but is happy to let any terrorists buy guns???
Note not all Terrorists are Moslems e.g. Shining Path, Baader Meinhof, IRAe.
I reckon if the US NRA and US Republican Party came out in favour of Mandatory checks (as Canada) then the gun death rate would drop and just as important the NRA and Republican Party would actually start to gain in popularity (and probably the gun issue would go away).
Judith
