We compared mass shooting incidents across countries is to calculate the number of victims per capita -- that is, adjusted for the country’s total population size.

Calculating it this way shows the United States in the upper half of the list of 11 countries, ranking higher than Australia, Canada, China, England, France, Germany and Mexico.

Still, the U.S. doesn’t rank No. 1. At 0.15 mass shooting fatalities per 100,000 people, the U.S. had a lower rate than Norway (1.3 per 100,000), Finland (0.34 per 100,000) and Switzerland (1.7 per 100,000).

Finally, their database doesn’t include acts generally considered to be terrorism, such as the attack in Paris on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

"If these were included, we are likely to see something much different statistically as there have been a number of very high-profile terrorist attacks in Europe, some including the use of firearms, that are excluded from the current analysis," she said. But in all likelihood, this would only make the case against Obama’s claim stronger.

...

The data shows that it clearly happens in other countries, and in at least three of them, there’s evidence that the rate of killings in mass-shooting events occurred at a higher per-capita rate than in the United States between 2000 and 2014. The only partial support for Obama’s claim is that the per-capita gun-incident fatality rate in the United States does rank in the top one-third of the list of 11 countries studied. On balance, we rate the claim Mostly False.

...
His understated way says he isn’t a partisan player anymore, well, not in this non-election year, anyway. And perhaps Mr Howard’s most enduring legacy has nothing to do with economic credentials or party divides. Perhaps it was set six weeks into his 11-year rule, when he was untested, and when he boasted glasses and (mostly) brown hair, and when the bywords of the Howard era – GST, Tampa and economic prosperity – had yet to be forged.

“I still get people who stop me and say that was the best thing you ever did,” he says of his gun laws.

Mr Howard, a practical politician, makes it sound simple.

There was no option. Port Arthur, at the time, represented the largest civilian massacre by one person. It was two months after 17 died in the Dunblane school shooting in Scotland.

Mr Howard can still recall then British PM John Major’s message of sympathy.

A ban on semiautomatic weapons, as used by Martin Bryant at Port Arthur, and all automatic weapons, was “just the right thing to do”.

Yet it wasn’t simple at all. Gun laws were state laws. ­Decent people would lose liberties they’d long enjoyed. And gun owners, especially in the bush, were generally conservative voters. Advisers told Mr Howard he was “biting off more than I could chew”.

“There’s never any political mileage in gratuitously ­declaring war on your own followers,” he says. “That’s madness. You only antagonise them if the cause of the antagonism is in the national interest. And this clearly was.”

By the night of his Tasmania visit in 1996, Mr Howard had flagged his intention. His chief adviser, Grahame Morris, offered to background the media if Mr Howard did not intend to pursue full bans.

Mr Howard told him not to, that he did not care how “rocky and difficult” the path ahead. He fronted up to speak to “grumpy” rural shooters. His one “mistake”, he says, was while addressing a Sale rally. Police had warned of a death threat and Mr Morris had told Mr Howard: “How am I going to explain it to [wife] Janette if it happens?”

Mr Howard wore a bulletproof vest, as advised, and it bulged under his jacket like a spare tyre. Crowd members later said the sight of it enraged them.

“I never did it again,” Mr Howard says. “I never felt threatened.”

At the same time, Mr Howard was being accosted for other reasons. On Sydney streets he would be greeted on his daily walk with comments such as: “I’ve never voted for you in my life and I’m never likely to but I agree with you on this.”

He let it be known he would push the issue to a referendum if the states did not agree – believing a referendum would vindicate him. A gun buyback was announced. A levy would be applied after a “five second” discussion with treasurer Peter Costello. More than 700,000 firearms, an estimated fifth of a national stockpile, were destroyed.

“The footage of all those guns being collected and crushed was terrific,” Mr Howard says.

The new laws were devised, debated and implemented in less than four months. Outraged gun-owners flooded the media at the start of the hand-in process. A decade later, shooters still expressed “disgust” at a “kneejerk” reaction to a crazed act.

Even now, some tell Mr Howard about the prized possession they had to give up. He waves away the gripes, saying there “was no alternative”.

For Mr Howard, in the numbness of 1996, change was a path he was obliged to steer.

“The country was reeling, it really was reeling in disbelief,” he says. “And I’m sure it would have felt let down if I hadn’t had a go.”

The plainest of statistics appear to bear out the effort.

Nationally, there had been 13 mass shootings in the 18 years before the 1996 reforms. There had been none since.

Mr Howard bats away a question about whether his handling of Port Arthur ­defined, as one commentator has suggested, the rest of his prime ministership. That’s for others to judge.

As for personal political achievements? “Every time people talk about my legacy, they mention guns,” he says.

...The events at Port Arthur have focussed the attention of all Australians on whether and how such occurrences can be prevented. But there are other reasons to consider anti-violence measures, including gun control. While mass killings are horrific events they are also relatively rare occurrences and our attention should not be diverted from violence that more commonly occurs in the community. The tragedy at Port Arthur should stimulate community debate and political action about violence prevention strategies in general, as well firearms laws in particular.    ...

It has been estimated that 84 per cent of victims in mass killings between 1987 and 1993 were killed by a licensed gun holder, while 86 per cent of the victims were reportedly killed by a person with no recorded history of violent crime or mental illness.(6)

The recent mass killing at Port Arthur, Tasmania, which left 35 people dead has sparked understandable concern about firearms in Australia. It is important to remember, however, that firearms are also significant contributors to deaths by accident, suicide and in individual killings - in particular, domestic homicides. Firearms are important contributors to death and injury in two ways. First, in terms of their availability and second, because they are lethal. The National Committee on Violence concluded:

The vast majority of firearms homicides are unplanned and impulsive, and in all likelihood would not occur if such a lethal weapon were not to hand. The availability of a firearm in these circumstances makes death a far greater likelihood, for research has demonstrated that the death rate for victims assaulted by guns is several times that of those assaulted with lethal intent by knives or other weapons.(7)
International experience appears to support this finding and the view that the amount of violent death in the community is related to gun ownership. One study, based on a sample of 18 countries concluded:

Substantial correlations were found between gun ownership and gun-related as well as total suicide and homicide rates. Widespread gun ownership has not been found to reduce the likelihood of fatal events committed with other means. Thus, people do not turn to knives and other potentially lethal instruments less often when more guns are available, but more guns usually means more victims of suicide and homicide.(8)

...

The ICCPR provides (Article 6):

1.Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.
The ICCPR is one of the three central parts of the UN's Bill of Human Rights and this particular provision is a reaffirmation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' Article 3 which states that 'Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.'(32)

There is a plausible argument that these provisions could form the legal basis on which to justify gun laws directed at guns the specific purpose of which is to kill people. The argument would be tenuous but is nevertheless viable. Furthermore the tenor of the Human Rights Committee's General Comment on this Article is more categorical than most of its General Comments. They exhort States to take active steps to protect the right enshrined in Article 6,(33) saying that States parties should take 'specific and effective measures' to protect the right to life - a right which 'has been too often narrowly interpreted'.

...

While there are no multilateral treaties which deal directly with the issue of the regulation of gun ownership, there are bodies within the United Nations which have expressed views dealing explicitly with gun ownership and which are also concerned at the issue of violence more generally. The Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, for instance, has recommended that Member States take the necessary steps to control urban violence by limiting and controlling access to 'weapons, including through international co-operation'.(36)

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Quoted:Nobody said there wouldn't be terror attacks when the laws were enacted.  The last time I checked, gun laws in the US haven't stopped terror attacks there either.