On Dec. 13 2025, a mass shooting at Brown University resulted in two deaths and nine injuries. This marked the U.S.’s 391st mass shooting in 2025.
The following day, across the globe in Australia, a terrorist attack occurred at a community Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in Sydney. Two gunmen killed 16 people and hospitalized 40. For Australia, this was their first mass shooting in 30 years — a dreadful event that has shaken communities across the nation.
Both of these atrocities are utterly disturbing and should not be compared. However, what should be compared is the vast difference in numbers of shootings between the two nations: 391 shootings in one year versus just one in 30 years. This clearly shows the difference in each nation’s governments handling of gun laws and regulations. The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. is appalling, and is nearly 33 times greater than Australia’s. Not only that, but the U.S.’s overall gun death rate is also about 12 times greater than Australia’s.
On April 28 1996 in Australia, the Port Arthur massacre, led by a radical gunman, went down in history as the deadliest mass shooting in modern Australian history. A devastating 35 people were killed and tens more wounded. Directly following this, some of the strictest gun laws in the world were put in place through the National Firearms Agreement (NFA). The Australian government banned semi-automatic, pump action shotguns and rifles for civilian possession. Before this agreement, Australia had 13 mass shootings over the prior 18 years. The NFA resulted in a drastic decrease of total firearm deaths by 61%, and firearm homicides and firearm suicides also decreased immensely. For 25 years, Australia has protected its citizens from gun-related dangers and put its people first, not experiencing another mass shooting until Bondi Beach. Since the shooting in December, stricter, improved gun laws were quickly implemented, less than a week after the event.
As part of the NFA, not only were more than 700,000 physical guns destroyed and banned, the process for obtaining guns was significantly restricted. The NFA requires that Australians wanting to obtain a gun have to wait 28 days before purchasing to allow time for extensive background checks by the State and Territory Police forces. A license and permit must be obtained and the person must be 18 years of age, provide documentation of where the gun will be stored and complete a rigorous training for firearm use and safety. They must also provide a “justifiable reason” for obtaining the gun. Unlike in the U.S., this reason cannot be self-protection. In the U.S., the process for obtaining a gun mainly focuses on purchasing from a licensed provider and passing a background check — steps that lack oversight and have immensely weak regulations that do not prioritize the safety of U.S. citizens.
The U.S. has racked up a total of 1,300 total deaths from shootings in 2025, which is a horrific number in general and far worse for just one year alone. 75 of those shootings happened at schools, and there were more shootings than days in the year for the seventh consecutive year in our nation. The Brown shooting happened during finals week, a time meant for focus, growth and education, which was destroyed by violence and fear. One clear difference between American and Australian regulation in terms of gun safety and laws is that the Australian government implemented changes immediately after the shooting to keep their citizens safe. Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to allow gun violence to endure and has done nothing after hundreds of shootings in only one year.
In response to the extreme number of school shootings in our nation, Vice President JD Vance said “[shootings are] a fact of life” and “the reality we live in.” The president and the vice president are the public figures that we as American citizens are supposed to look to for our safety as citizens. Despite that, these leaders are the reason these shootings are perpetuated, as they do nothing in their power to try and put a stop to such horrors. Guns indisputably cause shootings. There is undoubtedly a direct link, but somehow our current government does not see the obvious solution to saving citizens: simply regulate guns.
Firearms are the leading cause of death in adolescents. These losses are the byproduct of an issue that is entirely preventable. However, our government officials refuse to accept the problem while actively passing bills into legislation that fuel it. In April 2022, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp made it legal in Georgia to carry a concealed gun without a license in public spaces with the Constitutional Carry Law. Alongside that act, he also passed a Campus Carry Law that states anyone with a gun license can carry a concealed handgun on any part of Georgia’s public college and university campuses. These laws are entirely unnecessary and only give people more access to start shootings, and never are used for actual self protection.
As of Jan. 28 of this year, the U.S. has already suffered from 21 shootings in only one month, meaning we are averaging almost the same number of shootings as in 2025, one shooting per day. On the contrary, there has been a single shooting this year so far in Australia. At this point, it’s just a matter of looking at the numbers. If U.S. political leaders, at the very least, cannot see the mass amount of tragedy that is occurring nearly every single day, then the problem will only continue.
America can do better, and we must. We can pass gun regulation laws that limit the accessibility of guns, and ban gun possession by the common citizen. The fact that American government officials look at the sheer number of innocent youth that are fulfilling their lawful requirement of going to school that are being killed in a shooting and not seeing a problem is another problem in itself. Changes to gun regulations have proven to be effective across the world, and they have proven that the problem lies in having guns accessible. Other countries’ governments see the problem and swiftly provide a tangible solution that helps to keep their citizens safe. America ought to do the same.
