In the UK, an editorial in "The Times" asked, "Why ... do Americans continue to tolerate gun laws and a culture that seems to condemn thousands of innocents to death every year, when presumably, tougher restrictions, such as those in force in European countries, could at least reduce the number?" An article on the front-page of the "Ottawa Citizen", advocating tougher gun control laws, similarly asked why America tolerated laws which "allowed thousands of innocents to be killed each year." The Swedish paper "Göteborgs-Posten" commented that "without access to weapons, the killings at Virginia Tech might have been prevented" because "the fundamental reason is often the perpetrator's psychological problems in combination with access to weapons." In Japan, the "Asahi Shimbun" commented that "the mass shooting... reminded us once again how disturbingly common gun fatalities are in the United States," and went on to note, "Humans become enraged and desperate, and a gun in the hands of an enraged or desperate individual could be a sure recipe of disaster or tragedy." Australian Prime Minister John Howard said tough Australian legislation introduced after a 1996 mass shooting in Tasmania had prevented a problematic gun culture in Australia by showing "a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country."