Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Back from on the Gun Debate.
Speaker 3: We're bringing the first part of a three part series
Speaker 3: with John Liver.
Speaker 2: Yesterday, Americans watched in shock as even watered down gun
Speaker 2: legislation died on the floor of the Senate. But that
Speaker 2: is exactly where it belongs. According to gun lobbyists like
Speaker 2: Philip Van Cleeve of the Virginia Citizens Defense League.
Speaker 4: The Second Amendment, you know, is saying you.
Speaker 2: Hold up this sign whenever I make a suggestion that
Speaker 2: you think is infringing upon your Second Amendment rights. Okay, okay,
Speaker 2: assault weapons ban. Boom, there it is increased background checks, really, yes,
Speaker 2: just for just for background checks.
Speaker 4: We don't do background checks for the First Amendment.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's just try this one. Okay, nice and easy.
Speaker 2: Shirre a mandatory one hour waiting period if you buy
Speaker 2: a gun?
Speaker 1: Why why a man?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding?
Speaker 4: Any unless I could see a reason, No, I can't
Speaker 4: think of anything that I support, because at the end
Speaker 4: of the day, none of it works.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Gun control does not work. What if, hypothetically speaking,
Speaker 2: what if gun control could work, which obviously it can't,
Speaker 2: so we know that it won't. So that's not a problem.
Speaker 2: But what if it could due to that time that
Speaker 2: it did?
Speaker 1: Okay, when when was.
Speaker 2: That Australia, Yes, Australia. In nineteen ninety six, a Conservative
Speaker 2: Prime Minister John Howard instituted sweeping gun control laws following
Speaker 2: a mass shooting that shocked the nation. So should we
Speaker 2: be learning from this effective example? Of course not.
Speaker 4: I guess if we're going to go to planet X
Speaker 4: and say it's not the United States and some other planet,
Speaker 4: different people, different everything, I don't know. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: but in the real world with human beings, it's not
Speaker 4: going to work, and we don't control is it going
Speaker 4: to work?
Speaker 2: Unfortunately not only is Australia actually in the real world
Speaker 2: even their animals can holster weapons. So it was right
Speaker 2: about gun control. There was only one way to find out.
Speaker 2: Confront the man responsible, mister Prime Minister. Let's begin in
Speaker 2: the formal Australian way.
Speaker 1: Gooday, how do you do?
Speaker 2: Obviously gun control doesn't work, it can't work, it will
Speaker 2: never work. So how was your scheme of failure?
Speaker 5: Well, my scheme was not a failure. We had a
Speaker 5: massacre at a place called Portata seventeen years ago, and
Speaker 5: there have been none.
Speaker 2: Since zero gun massacres. Hold on, did gun control actually work?
Speaker 4: It stopped one thing that could also be a statistical
Speaker 4: en armory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just their mass shootings disappeared.
Speaker 4: But there were so fewer them.
Speaker 2: Whoopy do, whoop de doo. Yeah, whoop de doo.
Speaker 1: Yes, they're shooting for rare anyhow.
Speaker 2: Exactly they probably barely. We had a massacre before nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety six.
Speaker 5: There were about thirteen in the previous eighteen years.
Speaker 2: In the eighteen years before Port Arthur, there worth thirteen
Speaker 2: mass shootings. Yes, almost one a year.
Speaker 4: Yes, I was unaware they had that many, mass being
Speaker 4: what more than two people at a time, more than four,
Speaker 4: more than four?
Speaker 2: Okay, whoop de do. But perhaps there were other non
Speaker 2: whoop de do side effects.
Speaker 5: The homicide rate involving the use of guns has declined
Speaker 5: significantly by factors of up to fifty and sixty percent,
Speaker 5: and the incidence of youth suicides involving guns has declined dramatically.
Speaker 2: Whooped, you can do help me out here, Philip. Homicides
Speaker 2: with guns went down, suicide with guns also went down.
Speaker 2: Zero mass shootings.
Speaker 4: What Australia has still has murders, rapes, and robberies.
Speaker 1: Last I checked.
Speaker 2: Unless you can get rid of one hundred percent of crime,
Speaker 2: it's not worth doing at all.
Speaker 4: We'll put it this way. It's illegal to half crack
Speaker 4: cocaine anywhere in the United States. Do you think if
Speaker 4: somebody really wants it, they can get their hands on
Speaker 4: crack cocaine in America?
Speaker 2: So unless we can completely get rid of drugs, there's
Speaker 2: no point in having drug laws at all.
Speaker 4: Then you think about that for a minute, Well, I
Speaker 4: guess effectively, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2: You can't argue with Philip, even his logic is bulletproof.
Speaker 4: Well, let me put it you this way. There are
Speaker 4: more drownings in backyards where they have pools. They don't
Speaker 4: have a pool, there are no drownings in backyards. Okay,
Speaker 4: So the US has a very high number of guns.
Speaker 4: Therefore there's going to be more chances for somebody to
Speaker 4: be killed with.
Speaker 2: A gun, right, right, right, that's my point. Philip might
Speaker 2: think that living in a society with dramatically reduced gun
Speaker 2: violence is a whooped he do and people in Australia
Speaker 2: couldn't agree with him more who do whoo? Whoop do do?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 2: Whatever that means over Radia week as we're watching.
Speaker 7: On the show last week we learned that while our
Speaker 7: United States Senate was unable to pass even the most
Speaker 7: basic gun control measures, Australia has had a successful gun
Speaker 7: control scheme for almost two decades. John Oliver visited our
Speaker 7: cousins from across a couple of ponds to find out
Speaker 7: more in part two of our three part series.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety six, following a massacre, Australia's Conservative government
Speaker 2: enforced a national buyback of semi automatic weapons, while also
Speaker 2: heavily regulating the purchase and storage of other firearms. The
Speaker 2: result was dramatically reduced levels of gun violence. So why
Speaker 2: can't we do that here? To find out, I sat
Speaker 2: down with longtime aid to Harry Reid Jim Manly.
Speaker 8: The NRA is still a very powerful force in this country.
Speaker 8: They have four million members who are very, very determined
Speaker 8: to get their way.
Speaker 2: And how can a nation of three hundred million compete
Speaker 2: with that?
Speaker 1: It's difficult to understand sometime, isn't it.
Speaker 8: But the fact of the matter is that you've got
Speaker 8: to think long and hard before eat support gun control legislation,
Speaker 8: because taking nine the NRA can be political suicide.
Speaker 2: And the Democratic Party is working tirelessly to reduce the
Speaker 2: rate of political suicide among its members. Surely Australian politicians
Speaker 2: weren't stupid enough to end their political lives for gun control.
Speaker 9: Well, I did what I did. You did what I
Speaker 9: took the stand. I was prepared to face the political
Speaker 9: consequences and we delivered gun control.
Speaker 2: Meetes Rob Ball, former premier of Queensland, Australia's most conservative state,
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety six. He was instrumental in enacting gun control,
Speaker 2: knowing it would cost him his political career in the
Speaker 2: next election.
Speaker 9: We paid a high political price, but we did the
Speaker 9: right thing. Look, there are Australians alive today because we
Speaker 9: took that action. I mean, how much is a life worth?
Speaker 2: But Jim Manley knows that a true public servant has
Speaker 2: more important concerns. What makes a politician successful.
Speaker 1: Getting re elected by his or her constituents.
Speaker 2: Right, yep, that's how you judge success.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's well, getting legislation done second is second.
Speaker 2: Yes, that is second. Holy that is second.
Speaker 8: If I could rewind this tape, I'd say getting legislation
Speaker 8: done and getting re elected constricious.
Speaker 2: But see, if we can't rewind the tape. Let's just
Speaker 2: go with the answer you gave on instinct.
Speaker 8: If you don't get a real acted you know, you're
Speaker 8: just roll roadkill and the political process, and you're just
Speaker 8: another loser.
Speaker 2: Tragically, not everyone understands this. What makes a politician successful?
Speaker 9: Go making society a bit of place?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, Rob, No, look we can we can
Speaker 2: actually rewind the tape. We rolling. What makes a politician successful, Well.
Speaker 9: It's your responsibility to govern in the best interests of
Speaker 9: the people that you serve.
Speaker 2: Rob, I mean I'm going out on Olympian I've already
Speaker 2: told someone else that I can't do this.
Speaker 1: When I can, I hope you've got a lot of type.
Speaker 2: True success is a lifelong politician like Harry Reid who's
Speaker 2: watered down gun legislation was carefully designed to protect those
Speaker 2: who needed it most.
Speaker 8: He has a responsibility as the Democratic leader to protect
Speaker 8: the caucus.
Speaker 2: Right, the caucus needs to be protected the caucus.
Speaker 1: Does they need to be protected? Politically?
Speaker 2: How many political careers have been tragically ended by gun control.
Speaker 8: We've lost some good folks over the years because of
Speaker 8: their review.
Speaker 2: Right, you have a perfectly healthy political career and then
Speaker 2: Bank just like that, which means former Australian Prime Minister
Speaker 2: John Howard has blood on his hands. Do you ever
Speaker 2: think about the innocent victims of your gun control?
Speaker 5: There were no innocent victims, of mind, there were no
Speaker 5: victims at all. Yeah, that's a photograph of Rob Borbans.
Speaker 5: He was incredibly courageous politically in supporting our laws.
Speaker 2: But politically he's dead. Bank just like that. Well, he
Speaker 2: lost an election. That we all do at some point.
Speaker 2: But Howard is not alone. His Deputy Prime Minister Tim
Speaker 2: Fisher also refuses to accept respond ononsibility for these career massacres.
Speaker 2: So you don't look at these faces and feel guilt, Well,
Speaker 2: they're alive and they're politically dead.
Speaker 6: I hope that those who totally veto any move to
Speaker 6: bring sensible semi automatic and automatic weapon control to the
Speaker 6: suburbs of America are also politically dead, but physically.
Speaker 2: Alive not if I could help it. Never again will
Speaker 2: a political career end in a senseless act of meaningful legislation.
Speaker 2: It's a it's just all of these All of them
Speaker 2: are dead politically not physically physically. They're probably safer than
Speaker 2: they've ever been before. Will the very I mean again,
Speaker 2: just to reiterate, physically, they're absolutely fine, but it makes
Speaker 2: you think.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, what spending time with politically dead Australian politicians made
Speaker 2: me think about was how horribly wrong we have it
Speaker 2: in America. Thanks for speaking with me, Rob Pleasure. You
Speaker 2: are a great human being. It's just by all American standards,
Speaker 2: you are a politician. And the fact that that is
Speaker 2: true is why I am now going to walk into
Speaker 2: the punction. In America, we're told gun control is not possible,
Speaker 2: but in Australia they've shown it is, providing a fantastic
Speaker 2: lesson for America to ignore.
Speaker 3: John Oliver, we'll continue tonight our series from Australia. John
Speaker 3: Oliver learned that following a mass shooting in Australia, the
Speaker 3: country introduced gun control and it worked. So how can
Speaker 3: America take this valuable.
Speaker 1: Lesson and ignore it? John Oliver finds out in this
Speaker 1: our final.
Speaker 2: And previously I went to Australia where I learned that
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety six their government enacted sweeping gun control laws.
Speaker 2: The results reduced gun violence and zero mass shootings. So
Speaker 2: are there any lessons for America here Virginia gun advocate
Speaker 2: Philip Van Cleeve has a clear answer.
Speaker 4: We're not Australia. It's a very different culture, different people,
Speaker 4: different everything.
Speaker 2: Right, There's no similarity with Australia. Australia is a former
Speaker 2: British colony with a wild frontier that was tamed by
Speaker 2: brave men who also wiped out almost an entire indigenous population.
Speaker 2: And we are not similar to that, right right, right,
Speaker 2: Because unlike Australia, we Americans know when the guns are
Speaker 2: taken away, tyranny inevitably follows.
Speaker 4: The founding fathers knew that governments tend to grow beyond
Speaker 4: their means. In America, we're stepping in the direction of
Speaker 4: a police stape.
Speaker 2: Is that really happening, Philip? Or is that some kind
Speaker 2: of crazy paranoia?
Speaker 4: We have police they're now wearing ninja suits, if you will,
Speaker 4: I mean, you don't even know they're police necessarily they
Speaker 4: get the black masks on and everything.
Speaker 2: So it really isn't crazy paranoia. You're justifiably frightened about
Speaker 2: ninja police. The ninja police, yes, yeah, ninja police, yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sadly, without access to semi automatic firearms, Australians wouldn't know
Speaker 2: a thing about real freedom, bloody oath for free We
Speaker 2: just sit here doing whatever we want.
Speaker 4: Everybody's just hanging out and having a good time.
Speaker 2: People don't have the same concerns anymore about getting gunned
Speaker 2: down when they're at a tourist resort. Yeah, but was
Speaker 2: that worth it?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Was it worth giving up your fundamental freedoms just to
Speaker 2: not get shot in the gun massacre.
Speaker 1: You're talking about.
Speaker 2: Australians must now live in this well regulated nightmare because
Speaker 2: of ex politicians like Rob Borbage, who's markedly thinks that
Speaker 2: his country has something to teach us.
Speaker 9: I hope that they would have a look at what
Speaker 9: has happened here.
Speaker 2: Why would people want to live like this?
Speaker 9: Because they might want a safer society to live in.
Speaker 2: But it's pointless for us to study the Australian experience
Speaker 2: because their fear of gun control back then has no
Speaker 2: parallels with ours. I mean, what kind of things were
Speaker 2: you hearing when you suggested gun control.
Speaker 9: That a government was becoming a dictatorship?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 9: That's one, were told that people would not have the
Speaker 9: right to defend their property and their family.
Speaker 2: That's definitely two.
Speaker 9: Democracy is at stake somehow if government decides there should
Speaker 9: be a background check. All right, that three, we're about
Speaker 9: to be invaded by the Indonesians.
Speaker 2: That's completely different. No one in America is afraid of Indonesians.
Speaker 2: Are they afraid of Mexicans and Muslims coming? Maybe? Sure,
Speaker 2: claims Australians were angry, but where is the.
Speaker 8: Proof people's rights are being taken away from them?
Speaker 7: And I'm not going to give up any guns that
Speaker 7: they're going to take off me?
Speaker 2: Are you going to give yours up? Okay, there it is.
Speaker 2: But how do those angry rural conservatives feel now?
Speaker 5: My immediate reaction was that it was an overreaction bad.
Speaker 9: As time went on, the regulations were quite manageable.
Speaker 2: So hold on, you didn't want to give up your
Speaker 2: high powered gun?
Speaker 1: No or bad.
Speaker 5: I felt as if I had a bit of a
Speaker 5: duty to the rest of the our society.
Speaker 2: And if you think that sounds bad, crazy, This effective
Speaker 2: gun control was enacted by conservative politicians against the will
Speaker 2: of their own base. But our politicians are different. They
Speaker 2: know that gun control doesn't work, or even if it does,
Speaker 2: it takes a long time. And to be fair, John
Speaker 2: Howard and his Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fisher have had
Speaker 2: since nineteen ninety six to enact their sweeping reforms.
Speaker 6: It took less than three and a half months.
Speaker 2: What what put.
Speaker 6: Half of messacre was on the twenty eighth of April
Speaker 6: nineteen ninety six. In a twelve week period shortly following that,
Speaker 6: bulk of legislation was devised, drafted, debated, and implemented.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't work.
Speaker 6: Zero massacres since nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: He keeps saying that, but gun control doesn't work. So
Speaker 2: my head was spinning. I had to clear it the
Speaker 2: traditional Aussie way. No, not that way of work about.
Speaker 1: The second Amica zero since nine?
Speaker 2: So hungry?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: After three days in the bush where a guy in
Speaker 2: a kangaroo suit, it became clear what the real issue
Speaker 2: with gun control in America is. If guns aren't the problem, Philip,
Speaker 2: what is the problem?
Speaker 1: People?
Speaker 2: People are the problem?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Do you know what? After spending this amount of time
Speaker 2: with you, Philip, I'm starting to believe that that's partially true.
Speaker 4: Good, good, well, I'm glad you do you understand that
Speaker 4: people are the problem.
Speaker 2: That is becoming just painfully obvious. After investigating the issue
Speaker 2: on opposite sides of the earth, I discovered that if
Speaker 2: Americans really do want gun control, there is actually one
Speaker 2: thing they can do to get it. They move to
Speaker 2: what's shut over. We'll be right back.
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