Australian Gun Culture Part 24: Illicit Manufacture of Handguns

By Dean Weingarten

By Dean Weingarten

Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- -Australia has one of the strictest firearms regulatory schemes in Western Civilization. It has not appreciably changed their overall murder or suicide or accidental death rates, which were already low and falling when the scheme was implemented.

As Australia is a continent considerably separated from the rest of the industrialized world, it is a near ideal test case for the efficacy of gun control schemes. A figure from an Australian government report on sources of illegal guns shows that when guns are tightly regulated, criminals find ways around the regulation.

Guns are basically 14th-century technology. A first world country, with access to the normal run of the mill hardware store power tools, can make guns easily. Most crime is committed with handguns. In Australia 13.7% of the handguns traced were of domestic manufacture. All of those were illicit. Australia does not have any known legal manufacture of handguns. That is twice as many illegally manufactured handguns as of handguns smuggled in.