The mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration at Australia’s Bondi Beach that killed at least 15 people, on the same day as another high-profile shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island that killed two students, has renewed a global discussion about gun control. While gun-control measures remain a bitter partisan political issue in the United States, they are a common response to mass killings in many countries. Earlier this year, Montenegro said it would crack down on firearms following a mass shooting. Serbians handed in thousands of guns in 2023, in the wake of two attacks. After 10 were killed in a mass shooting in Sweden, the government immediately pledged to tighten gun laws. From Britain to New Zealand, here are the policy changes some countries have implemented after mass shootings. Britain In August 1987, Michael Robert Ryan fatally shot 16 people in Hungerford, England. The scale of the massacre shocked the country. At the time, the Washington Post described it as the “worst such incident in modern British history”. Ryan, 27 and unemployed, was armed with a Chinese copy of an AK-47 and a variety of other guns. His motive was never discovered. He killed himself and his mother, his only close relative. In response to the massacre, British Home Secretary Douglas Hurd called for an investigation into Ryan’s legal ownership of the guns he used. The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, passed with the backing of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government, outlawed semiautomatic weapons and limited sales of some types of shotguns. These weapons were rare in Britain, so the impact was limited. But after another shooting in March 1996, when Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and their teacher at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland using Browning and Smith and Wesson handguns, more-sweeping rules were put in place. Public anger over the killings led to a powerful grassroots campaign called Snowdrop. The 1997 Firearms Act ended up restricting ownership of almost all handguns. Tens of thousands of guns were collected from owners, who were given market value for the weapons. Police spent years cracking down on illegal gun ownership. Gun violence peaked in 2005 and has generally declined in the years since. Relatives of those who died in Britain’s mass shootings have said their experiences could help the US reckon with gun-control legislation. “Eyes are going to be on Dunblane, and we don’t need the eyes on Dunblane anymore,” Jack Crozier, whose 5-year-old sister, Emma, was killed in the massacre, said at an anniversary event in March 2021. “But we need to be looking at what is going on in other countries, and America in particular.” New Zealand In March 2019, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28, opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, and killed 51 Muslim worshipers with weapons that included an AR-15-style rifle. Less than 24 hours later, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that the country would change its gun laws. Unlike Australia, New Zealand had relatively lax gun regulations and a powerful gun lobby. Before the attack, there were an estimated 250,000 gun owners in the country, which has a population of five million people. Tarrant, an Australian citizen who had been living in New Zealand since 2017, had purchased his weapons legally, although he had illegally modified some. Ardern was able to gather swift support for tougher gun laws, putting temporary measures in place within days. The following month, Parliament made the changes official, with overwhelming bipartisan support and only one lawmaker opposed. Among the plans were a gun buyback scheme, as well as restrictions on AR-15s and other semiautomatic weapons. Because of the lax tracking of these weapons, authorities were initially unsure how many were in the country. “It’s really an open chequebook,” Joe Green, gun-safety specialist and former arms control manager for the New Zealand Police, told the Post, “because they don’t know how...