“Your history is different so I think I understand why Americans feel so deeply about this issue, but it is really not a big deal here.”
I’m surprised Australians take that view, as our issue with gun ownership arose in 1776 while Australia faced a crisis much more recently - when the Japanese were headed their way and they were poorly armed to resist them.
Well, Australians were very free to own guns back then. So if civilians were poorly armed, it was largely by choice.
But speaking as an Australian military historian, I've never really heard the idea that Australians weren't equipped to deal with the Japanese because of a lack of guns - it was a lack of people that was the problem. A small population to start with, and most of our military aged men were already fighting in Africa and Europe at the time. The UK had a weapon shortage that is recognised - but I've never really seen an argument that that applied in Australia.