Four times in the last three weeks, someone in the United States has pulled out a gun and shot to kill people, usually strangers.

Near every multiple shooting in this country raises the question of why such non-wartime shootings happen here more than anywhere else in the known universe.

There’s not a simple answer to that question, certainly not one that will fit within the confines of several hundred words.

But it is instructive to look at the experiences of other societies, particularly in Asia, when it comes gun violence.

A hand gun.

Flickr: JoLi Studios AKA Leasepics

A database put together by the University of Sydney notes that the sweeping geography of Asia includes some of the most restrictive gun policies in the world as well as some of the most permissive. Two examples that stand out are Japan and Australia.

Japan is a society that has historically lacked any sort of meaningful gun culture. It is a land of the sword. In 1543 the first guns reached Japan, courtesy of a couple of Portuguese adventurers aboard a Chinese cargo ship. According to contemporary accounts, a local feudal lord witnessed one of the gentlemen use a relatively primitive firearm to shoot and kill a duck.

The lord immediately asked for shooting lessons.

Unlike in many other countries, a fascination with such weaponry did not linger in Japan. That is not to say that firearms did not play a role in military conflicts and strategy, they just never became as dominant as they did in so many other places. The entire history is covered in a brief but enlightening book by Noel Perrin, “Giving Up the Gun: Japan’s Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879.”

The aversion to guns continues in present day Japan.

While Waikiki shooting ranges can be crowded with Japanese tourists, those visitors are much less likely to practice shooting once they return home. The National Police Agency’s 2012 White Paper on Crime showed there were a total of 122,515 licensed gun owners in Japan, and a little more than twice that number of licensed guns. That’s out of a population of more than 126 million.

Even criminals in Japan tend to be less reliant on guns than their international counterparts. Laws are stringent and strictly enforced. Firing a gun while committing a crime can result in a prison sentence of three years to life.

Australia offers a very different alternative.

If you look at history, Australia is in many ways a much closer cultural match to the United States when it comes to guns. There is a “frontier tradition” in both countries and firearms are commonly used for everything from pest control on farms and ranches to hunting. Target practice is fairly widespread. Australia also has experience with mass shootings. But the collective reaction of its citizens to a single terrible incident nearly 20 years ago led to a sweeping change in the laws of the land.

You can no longer buy automatic weapons in Australia. It is much more difficult for most people to obtain semiautomatic weapons. If you want to purchase a firearm, you need to explain how you intend to use it. You cannot purchase a high-powered specialty rifle to deal with a rat problem on your farm. Background checks and waiting periods are required without exception.

All of these restrictions followed what’s known in Australia as the Port Arthur Massacre. On April 28, 1996, a single gunman opened fire with a range of semi-automatic weapons at a tourist spot on the southern island of Tasmania, killing 35 people in one of history’s worst shooting rampages.

Within two weeks, the conservative government of newly-elected Prime Minister John Howard led a movement to restrict the ownership and use of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, along with pump-action shotguns. The country’s state and territorial ministers endorsed the policy, along with a gun buy-back program that eventually led residents to turn in nearly 650,000 firearms. There has not been a mass shooting in Australia since the Port Arthur Massacre.

And the policy change in Australia created other shifts related to gun violence. A 2010 analysis published by the American Law and Economics Review found that Australia’s gun buyback program “led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80 percent, with no significant effect on non-firearm death rates. The effect on firearm homicides is of similar magnitude.”

November 2, 1999 is the date that resonates in Hawaii when it comes to mass shootings. That’s the day when an employee of Xerox Engineering Systems shot and killed seven of his colleagues at the company’s offices on Nimitz Highway in the worst mass murder in the state’s history.

Fortunately, nothing approaching that tragedy has taken place since, although not because of any change in government policy.

It’s been a year and a half since a gunman shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In the immediate aftermath, there was a congressional debate about reducing the availability of automatic weapons, limiting the amount of ammunition in clips and other potential changes to federal laws.

Nothing passed.

According to the lobby group called “Everytown for Gun Safety,” there have been 74 school shootings since Sandy Hook. While some commentators have questioned the inclusion of certain incidents — such as shootings that happened to take place on school grounds after hours, gang-related cases and others — the national trend is still clear.

Tony Abbot is Australia’s new prime minister, and this week he’s on his first official visit to Washington where he will meet with President Barack Obama. Among the topics on the agenda are trade, regional priorities in the Asia Pacific region and Afghanistan.

Perhaps a sensible approach to gun policy should be added to the discussion.