australian gun laws

When a major event happens in the US, it may or may not make the front page of the paper way over here in Australia.  American news usually comes in around page 4 or so.  In New Zealand, it was always a hunt. 

But on our Saturday morning/your Friday, that wasn’t the case.  Your front page was our front page.  Sydney Morning Herald.  Massacre.  Movie theatre.  Twelve dead people.  It was horrifying and shocking and the worst kind of awful there is.  I felt so much sadness for those victims, those families, those injured, my country.

I texted my friend in Los Angeles.  The one I text when something really good or really bad or anything in between happens.  Two inadequate words were all I could manage.  Colorado.  Ugh.    

She texted me back immediately.  Don’t get me started.  And then she started.  We’ve learned nothing.  Nothing changes.  No more gun laws.  No one says enough.  Makes me want to move to an island.

I felt the same way. 

And then remembered I did move to an island. 

I had to wonder.  Am I safer here in Australia?  Are there gun laws here?  How do they differ from America?  I didn’t have the answers.  But youknowwho did.  And here’s what Google and I came up with.

In 1987, there were 6 gun massacres in Australia.  32 were murdered with guns.  Most murderers held their guns legally.  After that, most Australian jurisdictions made stricter gun laws resulting in a significant lowering of gun homicide and gun suicide rates. 

In 1996, 35 people were murdered at popular tourist spot in Tasmania.  The murderer was a mentally disturbed person who purchased his weapons legally.  Afterwards, more gun laws were introduced resulting in further lowering of the gun homicide and gun suicide rates. 

In 2002, another individual who had mental problems and had acquired his handguns legally murdered two students at Monash University.  Stricter controls on handguns came out of that tragedy. 

The government of Australia followed the wishes of the public regarding gun laws, and not the wishes of Australia's major shooting groups, and changes were made.  By 2004, it became clear that stricter gun laws were working.  Less people were being murdered.  Less people were committing suicide.  

In 2011, according to  The Sydney Morning Herald, researchers at Harvard University reviewed the evidence on the impact of reforms and concluded, "The National Firearms Agreement seems to have been incredibly successful in terms of lives saved."  There have been no gun massacres since 1996.  There were 13 such tragedies during the previous 18 years.  And there have been drastically less deaths as well.  In the early '90s, approximately 600 Australians were dying each year by gunfire.  Now the number is fewer than 250.  

To answer my own questions, it does seem I am safer here and there are gun laws here and they differ oh so greatly from America.  I know it’s like comparing 311 million apples to 22 million oranges.  But here, on this island, when something bad happens, it seems my friend’s words happen.  People learn.  Things change.  More gun laws are made.  People say stuff.  And then less bad things happen. 

I know nothing about guns.  I have never touched a gun.  I don’t ever want to touch a gun.  And I completely respect those who exercise their right to own a gun.  But something has to be done.  The mentally ill are legally buying guns and no one notices until it is too late.  We need more mental health programs.  We don’t need semi-automatic anythings.  And it should be way harder for anyone not of sound mind to obtain a gun license, much less a gun. 

I have no doubt there are a thousand holes in my simplistic cut-and-paste argument above, but the bottom line is, how can we let yet another tragedy happen and not do anything?  At all.  Again.

the other surry

When you live on a peninsula, you stay on a peninsula.  That's the deal with peninsulas.

I live on a peninsula.  Around every corner, down every block, up every street, is everything I need.  A smile, a sunny day, greener grass, a view of that bridge, a friend, a hug, my coffee, dirt, a play date, a chalkboard footpath, Thursdays, the perfect little book store, a fat person to make me feel thin, a thin person to remind me I'm not, six bottle shops because grocery stores don't sell alcohol here, access to a ferry, bright green wild Australian parrots that make you never want to blink again.

Free birds!

But.  One can only not blink so long before you suddenly do and you're snapped out of your I-got-everything-I-need-and-I-don't-need-much haze.  Birds, boats, overpriced alcohol, my weight, loitering near the very best sellers that are written by everyone but me, those days after Wednesdays, chalk on the bottom of your shoes, children, being dirty, the coffee queue, so much embracing, that one foe, views, weeds, squinting, smiling.  Sometimes it all gets to be too much.

And sometimes you just need a really good paper store.

So you have to leave the p word.

And you have to take two mates with you.

And you have to go to Surry Hills like Pixie 2, the American, and I did.

Surry Hills in an inner-city suburb of Sydney that features off-beat designers and cool housewares and PAPER.  It is there that I found my new favorite paper shop.  The one I've been looking for for almost two years.  New Zealand does manuka honey.  Not tags and twine.  I have been deprived.  Until now.

Paper 2.  Lame name.  Worse website.  But the store?  I want to stick it on my peninsula.

Paper porn below.

for the love of alice

Moving house.  That’s what they call it when you move in these parts.  I call it a pain in my ass and why do I have so many tube tops? 

We moved house again last weekend.  That’s four times in under sixteen months.  Do not do this.  It takes a lot of time and too many boxes and there is almost always regret on the other end when you unpack something you never should have packed in the first place.  That list is long for me, and always begins and ends with a tube top.  

When we moved to Auckland from Los Angeles in September 2010, we had a plan.  One to two years in New Zealand (for husband’s career and family belly fluff) and then we’d come back to the States (for my career and Target). 

In January 2012 we shoved that plan into one of my stretchy bands of cloth that I always pack and never wear, and moved it to Sydney.  The plan was not happy.  Our bank account was livid.  By the time February rolled around, aka the month we realized money doesn't grow on magical trees, we were paying rent on three places to live.  Do not do this.  If Zagat reviewed housing decisions, it would look like this.

1.  Auckland home (NZ).  They gave three months’ notice two months before they left.  $$$

2.  North Sydney high-rise (AU).  They broke their lease two days after they started it.  $$$
3.  Temporary tiny in Balmain (AU).  It was temporary and tiny but mandatory since they broke a lease with two kids and had no car yet to sleep in.  $$$

$$$ + $$$ + $$$ =  Lots and lots and -- let me really stress this part -- LOTS of dollar signs, right out the window.  

But that was then and dumb, and this is now.

And now!  We are done moving house.  We found a great house to call home.  In the same neighborhood as temporary tiny so school, friends, standing order at local coffee shop all remain intact.  My tube tops are all unpacked and put away never to be seen again (or until I become ridiculously redundant and move again).  And my boys?  They have won the kiddie lottery.  This house has a huge giant attic bedroom for my guys to share.  Hugely huge.  And I rent so this isn't bragging.  It's reporting.  They run laps in this cavernous room.  A whole corner is devoted to who-can-make-the-tallest-Lego-tower contests.  Stomp rockets are launched on a daily basis.  That's not to say this room isn't without its problems or closets.  My sons only wear folded clothes and if you're anywhere near the outer perimeter of the room and you're taller than an eight-year old, you will hit your head on the sloped ceiling forty times a day.  But a few shirt creases and a couple of head bonks are worth it.  It's a great room and one that would make Greg Brady and his bead door wish they never made that episode.

And in the end, isn't that what life is all about?  Having better life episodes than those bunch of Bradys.  I think so.  And I'm pretty sure Alice would agree.

On one side, Max's corner.

Way, way, way on the other side, Charlie is off the grid.