The Daily Show: John Oliver Investigates Gun Control in Australia - Part 1

( Audience cheering and applauding)

Welcome Back

For more on the gun debate,

we bring you the first part of the three part

series with John Oliver

(John Oliver) Yesterday Americans watched in shock

as even watered down gun legislation

but that is exactly where it belongs according to gun lobbyists like

Philip Van Cleave of the Virginia Citizens Defence League.

The Second Amendment is sacrosanct.

ou hold up this sign whenever I make a suggestion that you think is infringing upon your

Second Amendment rights, ok?

Ok.

Assault weapons ban. Boom there it is.

Increased background checks.

(John Oliver) Really?
(Philip) Yes.

(John Oliver) Just for background checks?

We don't do background checks for the First Amendment.

Ok so let's just try this one.

(Philip) Ok. (John Oliver) Nice and easy.
(Philip) Sure

A mandatory 1 hour waiting period if you buy a gun.

(Philip) Why a mandatory... (John Oliver)
Are you [beep] kidding me?

(Laughter in the background)

Unless I can see a reason - No.

I can't think of anything that I support

because at the end of the day none of it works.

(John Oliver) 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?
(Philip) Ok when was that?

Australia. (Music) Yes Australia.
In 1996 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?

(Scoffs) Of course not.

I guess if we're going to go to Planet X

and say it's not the United States - it's on some other planet, different people,

different everything, I don't know - yeah.
(Laughter in background)

But in the real world with human beings it's not going to work and gun control isn't going to work.

Unfortunately, not only is Australia actually in the real world,

even their animals can holster weapons.

So who was right about gun control?

There was only one way to find out,

confront the man responsible.

Mr Prime Minister, let's begin in the formal Australian way - Gidday (audience laughter).

How do you do.

Obviously gun control doesn't work,
it can't work, it will never work.

So how was your scheme a failure?

Well my scheme was not a failure.

We had a massacre at a place called
Port Arthur 17 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 anomoly.

Yeah, it was just their mass shootings disappeared.

But there were so few of them, whoop-de-do!

(John Oliver) Whoop-de-doo?

(Philip) Yes.

(John Oliver) Whoop-de-doo?
(Philip) Yes, mass shooting are rare anyhow.

(John Oliver) Exactly. They probably barely had a massacre before 1996.

There was about 13 in the previous 18 years.

In the 18 years before Port Arthur there were 13 mass shootings.

Yes

Almost one a year.

I was unaware they had that many.

Mass being what? More than two people at a time?

(John Oliver) More than four.

More than four, ok.

Whoop-de-doo.

(John Oliver) But perhaps there were other non-whoop-de-doo side effects.

The homocide rate involving the use of guns has

declined significantly by factors of up to 50 and 60%

and the incidence of youth suicides involving guns has declined dramatically.

Whoop-de-f*(beep)-do.

(Audience laughter) Help me out here Philip.

Homocides with guns went down, suicide with guns also went down. Zero mass shootings.

Well Australia still has murders, rapes
and robberies last I checked.

Unless you can get rid of 100% of crime,

it's not worth doing at all.

Well put it this way, it's illegal to have crack cocaine anywhere in the United States.

Do you think if somebody really wants it,

they could 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?

(Audience laughter)
(Philip sighs) Let me think about that for a minute. Umm.

Well effectively it doesn't work.

(John Oliver) You can't argue with Phillip,

even his logic is bullet proof.

Well let me put it to you this way,

there are more drownings in backyards where they have pools,

if the don't have a pool there are no drownings in backyards.

So the U.S. has a very high number of guns therefore there's going to be

more chances for somebody to be killed with a gun.

(John Oliver) Right. (Philip) Right.
(John Oliver) Right. (Audience laughter)

Thats MY point.

(Music) Philip might think that living in a society with dramatically reduced gun violence

is a whoop-de-doo and people in Australia couldn't agree with him more

Whoop-de-doo. Whoop-de-doo mate. Whoop-de-do!

Whoop-de-do whatever that means.

WHOOP-DE-F*(beep)-D0!!

(Audience cheering) John.
We'll be right back.