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Apparently there is no will of the majority of Americans to rescind the 2nd amendment; at least I cannot find any serious discussion of starting the amending process.
Our lawmakers cannot just get together to amend the constitution. It takes 2/3 majority of both Houses of Congress to propose the amendment, then 2/4 majority of the 50 states to ratify and within each state, 2/3 majority of both of their Houses in their legislatures. Most, if not all of the states will put the question on a general election ballot before their legislatures vote on it.
It's a time-consuming process that does not leave the people out of the loop. We just don't trust our government as much as you trust yours.
The sheer size of the population - 340 million Americans vs 25 million Australians - makes reaching a consensus slow. That lack of speed is as the authors of the constitution planned.
The writers of the constitution also believed that a healthy suspicion or at least skepticism toward government should be not only encouraged but built into our system. They succeeded.
*Note: My BA is in American History. I learned this stuff at great expense although I admit I had fun doing it.
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