With each mass shooting, many of us wonder, why can't America tighten its gun laws to get deadly weapons out of the hands of those who want to kill? Why can't the world's superpower figure out a way to curb gun deaths that average 36 a day and mass shootings that have outnumbered the actual days on the 2015 calendar to date?

Part of it has to do with our nation's second amendment constitutional protections, which have been interpreted as giving every law-abiding citizen the right to bear arms (at times the same kind of high-capacity weapons found in the hands of soldiers). The other is bound up in the strong lobbying by the powerful National Rifle Association, which has spent decades pushing back against laws they perceive as restrictive of gun owners' rights in a nation awash in more than 300 million firearms.

Those factors make the U.S. unique among the 32 or so other nations that have similar income and development levels, according to Ted Alcorn, Director of Research for Everytown for Gun Safety. "The U.S. has 30 percent of the [population of those 32 countries], but 90 percent of the gun homicides," Alcorn told MTV News. "That is head and shoulders above the rates of gun violence in countries that are diverse and have similar levels of income, but don't experience gun violence at same rate. It should be a wake-up call to America, but also a cause for optimism."

It speaks to the gravity of the situation, but also to the hope that another world is possible. So, how do other nations curb gun violence and keep lethal weapons out of the hands of those who might use them to kill?

Australia

One of the brightest examples of how gun control can work, Australia had pretty loose gun laws until April of 1996. That's when a man with severe psychological problems, Martin Bryant, pulled out a semi-automatic rifle in a cafe in Port Arthur and unleashed a massacre that resulted in 36 deaths and 23 injuries -- the nation's worst mass shooting ever; Australia had 13 mass shootings in the 18 years before Bryant's rampage.

The Australian government sprang into action and passed strict gun control laws just 12 days later, led by conservative prime minister John Howard. Howard was willing to lose his job in order to make sure such a calamity never occurred again in the nation, which lacks a strong NRA-style gun lobby. The new laws included bans on a range of semi-automatic weapons and shotguns, barred private sales and required gun buyers to have a "genuine" reason for needing each firearm and mandated a 28-day waiting period. It coincided with a gun buyback that resulted in 600,000 weapons being turned in.

Since then there have been no mass shootings, gun-related homicides dropped by 59 percent between 1995-2006 and public support for the gun laws have ranged up to 90 percent.

Japan

No guns, period. Civilians are largely not allowed to own weapons of any kind (even swords), and even touching a gun in Japan can land you 10 years in jail. As a result, the nation's annual rate of firearm-related homicides often hovers in the single or low double digits. Even the gangsters in the Japanese mob, the Yakuza, don't typically carry heat.

That (and a 1958 law virtually banning private gun ownership) might explain why Japan's gun ownership rate is a remarkably low 0.6 per 100 people, versus 88 per 100 people in the U.S. The few gun permits that are made available require a rigorous background check, written exam, psychiatric tests and inquiries by police.

Canada

Like Americans, Canadians own a lot of guns. In fact, between 23-30 for every 100 people. But, unlike the U.S., they also have pretty strict gun laws, including new ones for rifles and shotguns that were enacted after a mass shooting in 1989 that took the lives of 14 women.

The latter resulted in requirements that long guns be registered in the same fashion as handguns and that gun owners obtain a license, register their arms, take training courses, fill out a mental health and criminal record survey (for first-time owners) as well as stricter controls on ammunition sales and a five-year limit on licenses. There is also a mandatory background check and 28-day waiting period and a ban on citizens owning automatic weapons (except those registered before 1978).

Unlike the U.S., however, Canada does not have a constitutional guarantee to the right to bear arms.

England

The British reaction to a pair of horrific mass shootings -- the killing of 16 in Hungerford in 1987 and the slaughter of 16 children and a teacher in Dunblane in 1996 -- resulted in more than 750,000 citizens signing a petition against gun ownership.

The resulting law, 1988's Firearms (Amendment) Act, prohibited the ownership of semiautomatic and pump-action weapons and requires the registration of shotguns. Within a year, UK lawmakers also passed legislation that placed an outright ban on private ownership of automatic weapons and handguns on the mainland, resulting in some of the strongest anti-gun legislation in the world.

Switzerland

The Swiss are into their guns. In fact, Switzerland is third on the list of most guns per capita (45.7 per 100 people, 3.4 million total), behind only Yemen (54.8 per 100, 11.5 million total) and, of course, the U.S. (88.8 per 100, 270 million total). Hell, nearly every Swiss community has a shooting range and kids as young as 10 pack heat.

But their rate of gun deaths is just one-seventh that of the U.S. Why?

Part of it has to do with their culture and how it views firearms in a nation with universal gun registration, universal background checks and the reporting of all firearms transactions, both private and commercial. Because of the mandatory citizen militias in Switzerland -- which every man between 20-30 must participate in -- these conscripts all take home their guns every night. However, they don't get any ammunition (and their weapons have to be converted from automatic to semiautomatic before they can take them home as civilians), so if they want some bullets, since 2007 they've had to travel to a local armory in the case of an emergency.

Also, because of strict carry laws, only militia members are allowed to carry their firearms to and from training and few others can travel with guns, and if they do they can't be loaded.

As Daily Kos noted in 2013, "in reality, and perhaps ironically, and to the chagrin of the NRA, Switzerland is a fine model for the intent of the American Constitution's 2nd Amendment. They have a well-regulated militia instead of a standing army. They have universal background checks and universal licensing. They require firearm training before a gun can be owned. They have near total restrictions on the purchase and use of ammunition. In fact, they regulate and restrict much more than America does."

Where Do We Go From Here?

"Right now there are over 30 states where someone could see a gun at a dealer and would need to go through a background check, but can then turn around to an unlicensed dealer and buy a gun without a federal background check," Everytown's Alcorn said. "That's like having two lines to get onto an airplane and allowing some passengers to go through a metal detector and others to skip that and get directly on the plane. We would never tolerate that."

But, despite the daily brutality of the headlines, Alcorn said our lawmakers have not "stood up to the task of providing the necessary safeguards to keep guns" out of the hands of dangerous people. "The challenge the U.S. faces can't be addressed by adopting the culture of other countries because our culture of gun ownership is unique in the world. The challenge is how can we continue to protect the rights of lawful gun owners but also make sure we're properly enforcing federal laws to keep guns out of the dangerous hands?"