+
upworthy
More

Australia just offered to help the U.S. with our gun problems. We should listen.

Australia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop has a message to America in the wake of the mass shooting in Las Vegas: We can help.

Julie Bishop Photo by Putu Sayoga/Getty Images.

A gunman reportedly opened fired from his Las Vegas hotel room window on Sunday night, killing at least 58 people and injuring hundreds more. It's the type of inexplicable violence many Australians can recall from decades past.


“What Australia can do is share our experience after the mass killing in Port Arthur back in the late 1990s, when 35 people were killed by a lone gunman,” Bishop said, according to The Washington Post. “We have had this experience. We acted with a legislative response.”

Should Americans take her up on her offer? What's happened in Australia since 1996 certainly suggests we should.

Less than two weeks after that horrific shooting in Port Arthur stunned the world, the Australian government leapt into action. New gun laws were rolled out under the National Firearms Agreement (NFA), banning private gun sales and establishing a national firearms registry. Australians were also expected to present a "genuine reason" for the need to purchase a gun; self-defense simply did not suffice.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre on April 28, 2016. Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images.

A major component of Australia's gun reform legislation was a bold buyback program. After certain guns were banned outright — such as semi-automatic rifles — the government bought back hundreds of thousands of those weapons from gun owners. It also allowed for illegal guns to be surrendered to officials without fear of penalty.

Two months after the Port Arthur massacre, then-Prime Minister John Howard, a conservative, addressed a crowd in Victoria — a crowdof Australian gun owners.

In his speech — in which he stressed law-abiding gun owners "were not criminals" — the prime minister candidly noted that, yes, the new polices might be an inconvenience to many people sitting in the crowd.

But, he argued, saving Australian lives was worth it.

"Now I don't pretend for a moment, ladies and gentlemen, that the decision that we have taken is going to guarantee that in the future there won't be other mass murders; I don't pretend that for a moment," Howard said. "What I do argue to you, my friends, is that it will significantly reduce the likelihood of those occurring in the future."

In the two decades since that speech, he's been proven largely right. Australia hasn't had a mass shooting.

Implementing gun reform laws worked very, very well. Homicides involving guns dropped nearly 60% throughout the following decade. Death by suicide using a firearm plummeted 65%.

While gun proponents have pushed back on the new laws' successes in Australia, they've been fighting an uphill battle. Most of the evidence they tend to point to is cherry-picked and irrelevant in the big picture. A 2006 study they've touted, suggesting the drop in Australia's gun violence had to do with broader trends (not gun control laws), has been discredited; unsurprisingly, it was funded by pro-gun groups.

Will we ever see similar success on gun control in the U.S.?

We have reason to hope, but it won't be easy.

Gun rights activist rally in Virgina in July 2017. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

While Australia's 1996 mandates were bold, they were also extremely popular: 9 out of 10 Australians approved of the provisions at the time. Basic gun control measures share similarly overwhelming approval in the U.S. too — yet America has failed to pass meaningful gun reform legislation. The jaw-dropping power of the gun lobby may have something to do with that.

But as Bishop noted after offering her country's expertise in the wake of the shooting in Vegas, where there's a will, there's a way: “It'll be up to U.S. lawmakers and legislators to deal with this issue," she said.

She's right. And it's on us to force them to deal with it.

Here's how you can contact your representatives to pressure them to act on gun control.

Community

How to end hunger, according to the people who face it daily

Here’s what people facing food insecurity want you to know about solving the hunger problem in America

True

Even though America is the world’s wealthiest nation, about 1 in 6 of our neighbors turned to food banks and community programs in order to feed themselves and their families last year. Think about it: More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021 (1 in 8 children).

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand it. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, released its second annual Elevating Voices: Insights Report and turned to the experts—people experiencing hunger—to find out how this issue can be solved once and for all.

Here are the four most important things people facing hunger want you to know.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pets

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

Keep ReadingShow less
All images courtesy Lesley Cerwin

A 12-year-old student wrote Costco's CEO asking for help.

Imagine your 12-year-old son is helping take part in his school’s Valentine’s Day fundraiser. You’d probably be proud and encouraged at the way he’s getting involved and doing something good, right?

Now imagine, as part of that effort, he decided to email the CEO of Costco, one of the most beloved big box retailers in the world. Well, that’s cute, right? But what if he told you the CEO not only wrote back but went out of his way to donate exactly what your son asked for?

It may sound too good to be true, but that’s exactly what happened when Grant Cerwin sent an email to Costco CEO Craig Jelinek. The sixth grader emailed Jelinek asking if he would donate one of Costco’s famous 93-inch teddy bears to his middle school’s fundraiser in Los Angeles:


Keep ReadingShow less
Sandra Maria/Youtube, Official Lives & Music Videos/Youtube

You can't not sing this song.

The music of Queen has a profound visceral effect on everyone. Few pieces of art can cause complete strangers to put aside their differences and come together in song, but by golly, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is one of them. It would be cheesy if it weren’t so absolutely beautiful.

This pertains even to non-English-speaking countries, it appears. Recently, thousands of Harry Styles concertgoers in Warsaw, Poland, began cheering as those iconic beginning piano notes penetrated the air.
Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

10 things that made us smile this week

Upworthy's weekly roundup of joy

From dogs to dancers, we've got a whole list of smile-worthy finds.

Have you ever wondered if laughter counts as exercise? After all, your heart rate increases, your muscles seize up and sometimes you can't even breathe. That sure sounds like exercise.

Actually, laughter does burn extra calories. If you can keep the giggles going for 10-15 minutes, you can burn 40 calories. Do that a few times a day, and you've not only gotten in a decent burn for not a lot of work, but you've also given your immune system a boost and lowered your blood sugar levels.

If you're looking for a laugh, we've got a few things here that ought to do the trick. And we've got a bunch of other things that are definitely worth smiling about, so if you could use a mood boost, we've got you.

Enjoy!

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

This mesmerizing dance routine is a cultural phenomenon in China and with good reason

Hearing impaired performers come together in perfect synchronization to share a beautiful message.

Hi China/Youtube

Dancers emulate Guan Yin, the goddess of compassion

In a world full of jaw-dropping dance routines, the Thousand Hand Guan Yin manages to captivate like no other.

A large group of performers in identical golden costumes flow together in synchronized movement so seamlessly that it appears as though one entity with several arms is moving about space.

That entity is Guan Yin, a goddess of compassion who, according to Buddhist legend, will never rest in nirvana as long as any sentient being suffers on Earth.

Guan Yin is often depicted with a thousand arms, having an eye in the palm of each hand, to symbolize an omnipresent mother figure always witnessing the pain of humanity with endless amounts of mercy, extending out one of her many arms to lend a helping hand.

The performers emulate this with intricate, delicate hand gestures while standing very close to one another, resulting in a mesmerizing optical illusion.

But the dance in and of itself isn't the most remarkable thing about this piece—each of the performers are hearing impaired.

Keep ReadingShow less

People reveal the reasons they cheated. It's insightful and eye opening.

Infidelity is devastating for relationships. When you find out a partner has been unfaithful it can feel like a bomb went off in the middle of your living room while you were just trying to drink your morning coffee. The carnage from an affair can be extensive, especially if there are children involved.

But no matter what circumstances the infidelity happened, the partner who was on the receiving end of the betrayal often wonders why? It can send some people in a spiral of shame and self blame for the actions of their partners which feel debilitating. Oftentimes, the betrayed partner never feels like they get a truthful answer from their partners but one Reddit user decided to invite partners that have strayed to explain why they cheated.

Surprisingly, many of the answers were extremely insightful seemingly showing extraordinary growth since that time in their lives. There was also a lot of remorse expressed for their previous harmful behaviors.

Keep ReadingShow less