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This analogy about abortion shows just how badly the US needs stricter gun control

Picture: Getty
Picture: Getty

A mass shooting at an LGBT bar in Orlando, Florida, left 49 people dead this weekend.

The attack was carried out using legally purchased weapons - and has left many in the US wondering why the gun lobby still holds such sway over American politics despite the fact thousands of citizens die because of gun violence every year.

One argument in favour of stricter gun laws uses the clever comparison of a woman in the US trying to get an abortion.

If all the same obstacles were placed in front of angry young men looking to purchase automatic weapons as a young woman trying to end an unwanted pregnancy, what do you think would happen?

How about we treat every young man who wants to buy a gun like every woman who wants to get an abortion — mandatory 48-hr waiting period, parental permission, a note from his doctor proving he understands what he's about to do, a video he has to watch about the effects of gun violence, and an ultrasound wand up the ass (just because). Let's close down all but one gun shop in every state and make him travel hundreds of miles, take time off work, and stay overnight in a strange town to get a gun. Make him walk through a gauntlet of people holding photos of loved ones who were shot to death, people who call him a murderer and beg him not to buy a gun.

It makes more sense to do this with young men and guns than with women and health care, right? I mean, no woman getting an abortion has killed a room full of people in seconds, right?

Artist Nev Schulman first shared the anonymous quote in October 2015, after a mass shooting at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon left eight students and a professor dead.

Sadly, it's still just as relevant.

More: Nearly 400 anti-abortion bills were introduced in the US in 2015, report says

More: GoFundMe raises money for killers, but not for abortions

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