It's time that we shout, 'Enough!'

I was a student at the University of Iowa in November 1991 when a graduate student killed five fellow students, paralyzed a sixth and killed himself.

At the time, people in our close-knit, university community were devastated.

America wrung its hands and called for change, yet nothing has changed.

And the events last week at Northern Illinois University (so hauntingly familiar to the Iowa tragedy) show that we have been complacent.

I moved to Australia in 1992. During the 10 years I lived there, a horrifying massacre occurred at a tourist destination in Tasmania. A lone gunman killed 35 and injured 37.

What happened in Australia in the wake of this shooting was vastly different from the American experience to date.

Australia's shock and horror was transformed into political action.

Both the Australian federal and state governments, some of which were strongly opposed to gun control, quickly took action to restrict the availability of firearms.

The Australian Constitution was changed in the same year as the Port Arthur Massacre and required each Australian state and territory to enact gun laws, including mandatory gun licenses, registration of all firearms and a near-complete ban on semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and pump-action shotguns.

In the 1996-97 Australian firearms buyback, 643,726 of the newly prohibited guns were bought by the government from firearm owners at market value, funded by a once-off 1 percent income tax levy and a small surcharge on the Medicare levy.

Tens of thousands of gun owners also voluntarily surrendered additional, non-prohibited firearms without compensation. All up, more than 700,000 guns were removed from the community and destroyed. No other nation had ever attempted anything on this scale.

And Australians love their guns, much like Americans do.

There was a heated public debate between those who believed guns should be removed and those who felt the proposed laws were likely to be ineffective and overly restrictive.

However, public feeling after the Port Arthur shootings managed to overwhelm the opposition from gun owners' organizations, including the U.S. National Rifle Association which had the audacity to attempt to intervene in Australia's political debates.

In the decade up to and including Port Arthur, Australia experienced 11 mass shootings. In these 11 events alone, 100 people were shot dead and another 52 wounded.

In the 11 years since 1996 and the new gun laws, not one mass shooting has occurred in Australia. Between 1991 and 2001, the number of firearm related deaths in Australia declined 47 percent.

In this election year, where tired politics has been transformed into inspiring grass-root movements and when the words "hope" and "change" are frequently spoken, it is time that we Americans look at our long and shameful list of "massacres" and loudly speak a different word - "Enough!"

Annie Iverson Gower

Libertyville