Classrooms are places of genuine human engagement, debate, thought and passion. Guns undermine the openness and vulnerability necessary for learning.
Some argue that the Martin Place siege shows why citizens would be safer if allowed to carry weapons, but the global evidence disproves that.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The recommendations of the joint review into the Martin Place siege confirm Australia is on the right path with tight gun controls but needs to clamp down on illegal firearms in the community.
Just over a decade ago this boy posed in front of a mound of weapons handed in during a gun amnesty in the Solomon Islands. Today he lives in a nation that is gun-free by law.
AAP/Military Public Affairs/W02 Gary Ramage
One sprawling region stands apart for having largely avoided, and at times even reversed, the steady global proliferation of illegal firearms and death by gunshot.
Pakistani teachers receive gun training in Peshawar.
Arshad Arbab/EPA
The attack on Peshawar’s Army Public School in December by the Pakistani Taliban in which 150 students and their teachers were killed, was one of the most traumatic events of the post-9/11 violence across…
How prevalent is the use of lethal force by police in Australia, and is a disturbing trend developing in Queensland?
AAP/Dave Hunt
Over the weekend, Queensland police shot and killed a 51-year-old man who was allegedly armed with a knife. On Monday night, another man was shot and killed on the Gold Coast. It was the sixth Queensland…
Barriers around bridges could save lives.
rcgtrrz/Flickr
On April 15, 2014 a man jumped to his death from the O'Callaghan-Tillman Memorial Bridge – a massive, new concrete arch that soars over the Hoover Dam. He was the eighth known person to do so since the…
There is a higher density of gun ownership in country areas in Australia relative to cities. Does this explain recent homicides on farms?
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The recent multiple homicide in a small Victorian township, coming barely a month after a mass shooting in rural New South Wales, may give the impression that firearm-related murders in rural Australia…
Guns were part of Pistorius’ life at home and in public.
EPA/Phill Magakoe/Pool
South African paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has been found not guilty of the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. The presiding judge, Thokozile Masipa, found him guilty, though, of culpable…
Seemingly every day, the news provides examples of the deadly consequences of weapons falling into the hands of criminals, pirates, terrorist groups, rebels, and oppressive regimes. A natural reaction…
Stand Your Ground laws, used as a defence in high-profile US murder trials, implicitly justify a new breed of vigilante who has little regard for human life.
Fibonacci Blue
Earlier this week, a Florida court began hearing arguments in the murder trial of an older, white man accused of murdering an African-American teenager. If you think this sounds familiar, you’re right…
A mass shooting at a US Navy Yard in Washington, DC, has claimed at least 12 lives. How have the US media covered it so far?
EPA/Shawn Thew
I’m currently residing in North Carolina, a state where, in only a handful of days, a law will come into effect that permits evermore concealed weapons in evermore places. You know, like bars for example…
An American protesting the easy availability of military style weapons in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre.
EPA/Michael Reynolds
The Sandy Hook massacre and President Obama’s response to it has refocused attention on impact of regulation on American gun crime. Crime statistics before and after the implementation of gun laws provide…
Grief stricken Americans will ask why is effective gun control beyond the capacity of their politicians.
Peter Foley/ AAP
The horrific Newtown school massacre has again raised the question of why effective gun control is beyond the capacity of American politicians. The question is necessary, natural and appropriate. But it…
Sheriff John Edwards addresses the Sikh community in Oak Creek in the wake of the shooting.
AAP/Kamil Krzaczynski
Immediately after the Oak Creek massacre, many suspected the killings were a continuation of the post-9/11 wave of attacks on Sikhs who were mistaken for Muslims because of their turbans and beards. The…