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Back from on the Gun Debate.
We're bringing the first part of a three part series with John Liver.
Yesterday, Americans watched in shock as even watered down gun legislation died on the floor of the Senate. But that is exactly where it belongs. According to gun lobbyists like Philip Van Cleeve of the Virginia Citizens Defense League.
The Second Amendment, you know, is saying you.
Hold up this sign whenever I make a suggestion that you think is infringing upon your Second Amendment rights. Okay, okay, assault weapons ban. Boom, there it is increased background checks, really, yes, just for just for background checks.
We don't do background checks for the First Amendment.
Okay, So let's just try this one. Okay, nice and easy. Shirre a mandatory one hour waiting period if you buy a gun?
Why why a man?
Are you kidding?
Any unless I could see a reason, No, I can't think of anything that I support, because at the end of the day, none of it works.
Exactly. Gun control does not work. What if, hypothetically speaking, what if gun control could work, which obviously it can't, so we know that it won't. So that's not a problem. But what if it could due to that time that it did?
Okay, when when was.
That Australia, Yes, Australia. In nineteen ninety six, a Conservative Prime Minister John Howard instituted sweeping gun control laws following a mass shooting that shocked the nation. So should we be learning from this effective example? Of course not.
I guess if we're going to go to planet X and say it's not the United States and some other planet, different people, different everything, I don't know. Yeah, you know, but in the real world with human beings, it's not going to work, and we don't control is it going to work?
Unfortunately not only is Australia actually in the real world even their animals can holster weapons. So it was right about gun control. There was only one way to find out. Confront the man responsible, mister Prime Minister. Let's begin in the formal Australian way.
Gooday, how do you do?
Obviously gun control doesn't work, it can't work, it will never work. So how was your scheme of failure?
Well, my scheme was not a failure. We had a massacre at a place called Portata seventeen years ago, and there have been none.
Since zero gun massacres. Hold on, did gun control actually work?
It stopped one thing that could also be a statistical en armory.
Yeah, it was just their mass shootings disappeared.
But there were so fewer them.
Whoopy do, whoop de doo. Yeah, whoop de doo.
Yes, they're shooting for rare anyhow.
Exactly they probably barely. We had a massacre before nineteen ninety six.
There were about thirteen in the previous eighteen years.
In the eighteen years before Port Arthur, there worth thirteen mass shootings. Yes, almost one a year.
Yes, I was unaware they had that many, mass being what more than two people at a time, more than four, more than four?
Okay, whoop de do. But perhaps there were other non whoop de do side effects.
The homicide rate involving the use of guns has declined significantly by factors of up to fifty and sixty percent, and the incidence of youth suicides involving guns has declined dramatically.
Whooped, you can do help me out here, Philip. Homicides with guns went down, suicide with guns also went down. Zero mass shootings.
What Australia has still has murders, rapes, and robberies.
Last I checked.
Unless you can get rid of one hundred percent of crime, it's not worth doing at all.
We'll put it this way. It's illegal to half crack cocaine anywhere in the United States. Do you think if somebody really wants it, they can get their hands on crack cocaine in America?
So unless we can completely get rid of drugs, there's no point in having drug laws at all.
Then you think about that for a minute, Well, I guess effectively, it doesn't work.
You can't argue with Philip, even his logic is bulletproof.
Well, let me put it you this way. There are more drownings in backyards where they have pools. They don't have a pool, there are no drownings in backyards. Okay, So the US has a very high number of guns. Therefore there's going to be more chances for somebody to be killed with.
A gun, right, right, right, that's my point. Philip might think that living in a society with dramatically reduced gun violence is a whooped he do and people in Australia couldn't agree with him more who do whoo? Whoop do do?
So?
Whatever that means over Radia week as we're watching.
On the show last week we learned that while our United States Senate was unable to pass even the most basic gun control measures, Australia has had a successful gun control scheme for almost two decades. John Oliver visited our cousins from across a couple of ponds to find out more in part two of our three part series.
In nineteen ninety six, following a massacre, Australia's Conservative government enforced a national buyback of semi automatic weapons, while also heavily regulating the purchase and storage of other firearms. The result was dramatically reduced levels of gun violence. So why can't we do that here? To find out, I sat down with longtime aid to Harry Reid Jim Manly.
The NRA is still a very powerful force in this country. They have four million members who are very, very determined to get their way.
And how can a nation of three hundred million compete with that?
It's difficult to understand sometime, isn't it.
But the fact of the matter is that you've got to think long and hard before eat support gun control legislation, because taking nine the NRA can be political suicide.
And the Democratic Party is working tirelessly to reduce the rate of political suicide among its members. Surely Australian politicians weren't stupid enough to end their political lives for gun control.
Well, I did what I did. You did what I took the stand. I was prepared to face the political consequences and we delivered gun control.
Meetes Rob Ball, former premier of Queensland, Australia's most conservative state, in nineteen ninety six. He was instrumental in enacting gun control, knowing it would cost him his political career in the next election.
We paid a high political price, but we did the right thing. Look, there are Australians alive today because we took that action. I mean, how much is a life worth?
But Jim Manley knows that a true public servant has more important concerns. What makes a politician successful.
Getting re elected by his or her constituents.
Right, yep, that's how you judge success.
Okay, that's well, getting legislation done second is second.
Yes, that is second. Holy that is second.
If I could rewind this tape, I'd say getting legislation done and getting re elected constricious.
But see, if we can't rewind the tape. Let's just go with the answer you gave on instinct.
If you don't get a real acted you know, you're just roll roadkill and the political process, and you're just another loser.
Tragically, not everyone understands this. What makes a politician successful?
Go making society a bit of place?
No, no, no, Rob, No, look we can we can actually rewind the tape. We rolling. What makes a politician successful, Well.
It's your responsibility to govern in the best interests of the people that you serve.
Rob, I mean I'm going out on Olympian I've already told someone else that I can't do this.
When I can, I hope you've got a lot of type.
True success is a lifelong politician like Harry Reid who's watered down gun legislation was carefully designed to protect those who needed it most.
He has a responsibility as the Democratic leader to protect the caucus.
Right, the caucus needs to be protected the caucus.
Does they need to be protected? Politically?
How many political careers have been tragically ended by gun control.
We've lost some good folks over the years because of their review.
Right, you have a perfectly healthy political career and then Bank just like that, which means former Australian Prime Minister John Howard has blood on his hands. Do you ever think about the innocent victims of your gun control?
There were no innocent victims, of mind, there were no victims at all. Yeah, that's a photograph of Rob Borbans. He was incredibly courageous politically in supporting our laws.
But politically he's dead. Bank just like that. Well, he lost an election. That we all do at some point. But Howard is not alone. His Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fisher also refuses to accept respond ononsibility for these career massacres. So you don't look at these faces and feel guilt, Well, they're alive and they're politically dead.
I hope that those who totally veto any move to bring sensible semi automatic and automatic weapon control to the suburbs of America are also politically dead, but physically.
Alive not if I could help it. Never again will a political career end in a senseless act of meaningful legislation. It's a it's just all of these All of them are dead politically not physically physically. They're probably safer than they've ever been before. Will the very I mean again, just to reiterate, physically, they're absolutely fine, but it makes you think.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, what spending time with politically dead Australian politicians made me think about was how horribly wrong we have it in America. Thanks for speaking with me, Rob Pleasure. You are a great human being. It's just by all American standards, you are a politician. And the fact that that is true is why I am now going to walk into the punction. In America, we're told gun control is not possible, but in Australia they've shown it is, providing a fantastic lesson for America to ignore.
John Oliver, we'll continue tonight our series from Australia. John Oliver learned that following a mass shooting in Australia, the country introduced gun control and it worked. So how can America take this valuable.
Lesson and ignore it? John Oliver finds out in this our final.
And previously I went to Australia where I learned that in nineteen ninety six their government enacted sweeping gun control laws. The results reduced gun violence and zero mass shootings. So are there any lessons for America here Virginia gun advocate Philip Van Cleeve has a clear answer.
We're not Australia. It's a very different culture, different people, different everything.
Right, There's no similarity with Australia. Australia is a former British colony with a wild frontier that was tamed by brave men who also wiped out almost an entire indigenous population. And we are not similar to that, right right, right, Because unlike Australia, we Americans know when the guns are taken away, tyranny inevitably follows.
The founding fathers knew that governments tend to grow beyond their means. In America, we're stepping in the direction of a police stape.
Is that really happening, Philip? Or is that some kind of crazy paranoia?
We have police they're now wearing ninja suits, if you will, I mean, you don't even know they're police necessarily they get the black masks on and everything.
So it really isn't crazy paranoia. You're justifiably frightened about ninja police. The ninja police, yes, yeah, ninja police, yes.
Yeah.
Sadly, without access to semi automatic firearms, Australians wouldn't know a thing about real freedom, bloody oath for free We just sit here doing whatever we want.
Everybody's just hanging out and having a good time.
People don't have the same concerns anymore about getting gunned down when they're at a tourist resort. Yeah, but was that worth it?
Yes?
Was it worth giving up your fundamental freedoms just to not get shot in the gun massacre.
You're talking about.
Australians must now live in this well regulated nightmare because of ex politicians like Rob Borbage, who's markedly thinks that his country has something to teach us.
I hope that they would have a look at what has happened here.
Why would people want to live like this?
Because they might want a safer society to live in.
But it's pointless for us to study the Australian experience because their fear of gun control back then has no parallels with ours. I mean, what kind of things were you hearing when you suggested gun control.
That a government was becoming a dictatorship?
All right?
That's one, were told that people would not have the right to defend their property and their family.
That's definitely two.
Democracy is at stake somehow if government decides there should be a background check. All right, that three, we're about to be invaded by the Indonesians.
That's completely different. No one in America is afraid of Indonesians. Are they afraid of Mexicans and Muslims coming? Maybe? Sure, claims Australians were angry, but where is the.
Proof people's rights are being taken away from them?
And I'm not going to give up any guns that they're going to take off me?
Are you going to give yours up? Okay, there it is. But how do those angry rural conservatives feel now?
My immediate reaction was that it was an overreaction bad.
As time went on, the regulations were quite manageable.
So hold on, you didn't want to give up your high powered gun?
No or bad.
I felt as if I had a bit of a duty to the rest of the our society.
And if you think that sounds bad, crazy, This effective gun control was enacted by conservative politicians against the will of their own base. But our politicians are different. They know that gun control doesn't work, or even if it does, it takes a long time. And to be fair, John Howard and his Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fisher have had since nineteen ninety six to enact their sweeping reforms.
It took less than three and a half months.
What what put.
Half of messacre was on the twenty eighth of April nineteen ninety six. In a twelve week period shortly following that, bulk of legislation was devised, drafted, debated, and implemented.
But it doesn't work.
Zero massacres since nineteen ninety six.
He keeps saying that, but gun control doesn't work. So my head was spinning. I had to clear it the traditional Aussie way. No, not that way of work about.
The second Amica zero since nine?
So hungry?
What?
After three days in the bush where a guy in a kangaroo suit, it became clear what the real issue with gun control in America is. If guns aren't the problem, Philip, what is the problem?
People?
People are the problem?
Yes?
Do you know what? After spending this amount of time with you, Philip, I'm starting to believe that that's partially true.
Good, good, well, I'm glad you do you understand that people are the problem.
That is becoming just painfully obvious. After investigating the issue on opposite sides of the earth, I discovered that if Americans really do want gun control, there is actually one thing they can do to get it. They move to what's shut over. We'll be right back.
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